The Amazing Grace of U2 by Christopher West

A new book called The Gospel According to U2 captures two of my great loves in life - Jesus and the music of these four men from Ireland: Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. Most people who follow popular music know about the Christian roots of the biggest rock band in the world. But many of the Christians who followed U2's career in the 1980's thought they "lost it" in the 1990's. I was one of them. And I was wrong.

Truth be told, I wasn't much of a Christian in the 80's. I was a rebellious teenager pursuing the pleasures of the world, and, because of it, I was empty. In no small measure, it was the music of U2 that kept me alive during those tumultuous times. With these guys, it wasn't your typical "sex, drugs, and rock'n roll." They sang about dying for love and yearning for heaven. Anthems like "Pride" and "Where the Streets Have No Name" got in my blood and became hymns of hope. They stirred a voice in me that sometimes whispered and at other times screamed: Keep searching!

I was new to faith in the early 90's, and it seemed the band that had inspired me to pursue belief had now gone off the deep end. I couldn't help but love the Achtung Baby album, but what was one to make of Bono appearing on stage dressed as the devil? It seemed he had flipped completely to the "other side." With tinges of self-righteousness, I decided to "pray for him."

In 2000, a friend and fellow fan of the "earlier U2" called me with great delight having just listened to their latest album All That You Can't Leave Behind. He said two simple words: "They're back . . ." They were indeed - as was my enthusiasm for their gift. In fact, I became a bigger fan of U2 in my thirties then when I was a teen. And I was also put to shame for how judgmental I was of them during the 90's. As Greg Garrett, author of The Gospel According to U2 put it, "What those in panic mode did not understand [about their approach in the 90's] was that U2 had not completely lost their minds; they had merely changed their methods." With deliberateness, they had exchanged their sincerity for satire and irony.

It was a big gamble that took incredible chutzpa to pull off - indeed, they would have to (and did) put their musical career on the line for the chance to make at least two critical points to their vast, but divergent audience. First, by appearing - quite convincingly! - to have bought into the debauched excesses of "rock stardom," they knew a large segment of their fan base would not even begin to understand what they were up to, and would write them off (guilty!). But in the very process they would be demonstrating just how superficial, "uptight," and judgmental believers can be at times (guilty!). Imagine my surprise when I learned that Bono was actually acting out scenes from C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters when he dawned that devil costume.

The second point they were trying to make was aimed at a different segment of their audience - those who thought the excesses of "rock stardom" were the be-all and end-all of life. As with all effective satire, the joke was on those who believed the ruse. By appearing utterly self-absorbed and full of himself in front of stadiums full of screaming fans, Bono was saying: Don't you see how ridiculous it is for you to think I'm as great as you think I am!?

Bono and the gang are certainly not saints. But nor are they your typical debauched rock stars. Those with eyes to see it can recognize that grace is at work in these four men and their craft - amazing grace. This was confirmed all the more for me at a recent U2 concert in New York City. The pinnacle of any U2 show is when the band transitions artfully into "Where the Streets Have No Name," a song about heaven. On this night, it happened as Bono was singing "Amazing Grace" - yes, "Amazing Grace" - with eighty thousand people singing along. Then, behind Bono's voice I heard the familiar organ swell that signals the beginning of "Streets." I was pierced by beauty, utterly overwhelmed. And it seemed that, together, eighty-thousand people were tasting a bit of heaven.

What an amazing grace indeed . . . I was filled with such gratitude for these four men and what their music has meant to me over the years. And I hope this column gives you the permission to "claim the comfort," as Garrett says, that your favorite music has offered you.

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Written by Christopher West. Published here -

http://www.christopherwest.com/page.asp?ContentID=131

Magnificent

The Virgin Mary is a Magnificent Woman. She is the woman par excellence. In the life of the Church, she has always been seen as magnificent. Why? Because of her magnanimity.

Now there's a word you don't hear every day. It means largeness of soul; greatness of spirit. The ability to remain at peace in the midst of great trouble. The Church - packed shoulder to shoulder with the "poor banished children of Eve" - has always looked to this New Eve, Mary, as to a beacon in the midst of life's storms. Here was a woman who stood strong. Stood in fact at the crossroads where time and eternity, love and hate, war and peace met - at the Cross. And the sparks from that conflagration are still flying. They have been catching souls and burning them with the fire of love for God since Mary's stand!

Now, not only the Church but the pop culture at large can get a little glimmer of this Magnificent Heart of Mary. We can hear a little of her heart's cry to belong to Love, and not just to herself, beneath the folds of a flowing melody of U2's called, aptly, "Magnificent."

In the video linked above, a Middle-Eastern town appears, and the band plays it's rumbling tribute to a person who was "born to sing." In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Bono admits that the person is in fact the Virgin Mary.

"Magnificent was inspired by the Magnificat, a passage from the Gospel of Luke in the voice of the Virgin Mary... There's this theme running through the album of surrender and devotion and all the things I find really difficult," Bono says.

I was born... I was born to sing for you

I didn't have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise…

Wasn't this Mary's great YES? In the encounter with the Angel Gabriel, she thought only of the Song that God had always wanted to sing for Israel (she knew it from her study of the Torah and the Prophets). Mary would sing that Song of Songs, and she still sings it, while we too often send notes of selfish discord into Love's melody.

In the music video, the desert town is wrapped in long, mysterious white veils. Entire buildings are completely covered! Only slowly as the song progresses do these veils give way to the dance of wind and rise up into blue skies. A powerful image of reverence, mystery, revelation, and liberation.

The song reveals further how the heart of the Immaculate was truly "pierced by a sword" as Simeon predicted of Mary in the Gospel of Luke. "Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted... and you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:34-35)

Bono, who wrote this song, and who writes most of the lyrics to U2's music, sings:

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

So Mary's great yes, the lifting of the veil of her heart to God, involves a great risk - that of being wounded, crushed by sorrows. She models the path ahead for us. Magnificence comes shining through suffering. It's brilliance is heightened by the darkness it has come through, the dark valley that Psalm 23 points to as the necessary path for every follower of Christ.

But in the end there is rejoicing.... it was a joyful noise…

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent.... Magnificent

May we sing the lyrics to this song today, mindful of the majesty of Mary, that was bestowed on her because of her humility, her openness, her willingness to bear "such a scar" as the suffering of her Son on the Cross.