by: Joe Bass
I got into the office this past Thursday, turned on my computer, and pulled up the news as I usually do. A photo with deep black and grey metal billowing with great plumes of smoke was the first thing I saw. “Oh yeah! It’s the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor!” Growing up I always tended, and still tend, to romanticize crucial moments in human history. I see the images and immediately put some Fanfare for the Common Man music behind it in my mind. I think of the heroism of the men and women who fought to save their brothers and sisters, their wives, their children. All the while, I forget that among those who lived and died in this moment, the overwhelming sentiment would have been panic, terror, and despair. “Wow….Happy Advent to you too, Joe…” I know it’s a bit heavy, but I think the life of a Christian should never shy away from the reality of suffering brought about by sin and death. As I scrolled through pictures and videos that recounted this day, I was filled with a sense of appropriate shame for having rarely considered the real valor of those who endured and fought through the crippling terror of that moment.
Then, I started to scroll through the newspaper headlines that were released the morning after the attacks. Thick, bold, black letters on yellowed paper read: San Francisco Chronicle: “WAR!”, Honolulu Advertiser: “Saboteurs Land Here!”, Sitka Sentinel: “3,000 dead and injured: Black-out Continues Tonight.” That last phrase pierced me. “Black-out Continues.” I imagined the families who sat in darkness at night together–many of whom probably did not know if their loved one was still alive out there in the heaps of smoking metal. There is a certain nausea which accompanies the thought of a beautiful island paradise like Hawaii, shrouded in darkness and spotted with homes whose lights have been shut off for fear of being seen. I’d venture to say this image captures our father Adam and mother Eve’s experience after falling. How many of those families were never the same after that day? How many people turned the lights back on days later, only to realize the black-out of the heart remained. Lights off. Remain unseen! I think of my grandfather and his friends whose lives were forever changed by the war that changed everything. Then Psalm 11 came to mind. “Foundations, once destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The argument can be made that December 7, 1941 marks a massive fracture in the foundations of the world. Some would argue the foundations of the world had already been destroyed before the horror of World War I. Man had been capable of brutality long before the 20th Century. This is true. However, man gained new ways to inflict it upon his brother in the 20th century. Whatever one may argue marks the beginning of the descent of man into our current state, one should never romanticize that the fall of Adam and Eve marks the first black-out. That first black-out left our first parents trembling in the beautiful paradise, fearing to be seen. This black-out, too, continues in the hearts of all of us to some greater or lesser degree. But, I asked the question of the psalmist in earnest when I considered my own weaknesses and fears: “Foundations, once destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
I believe a man who died roughly 70 years before the attack on Pearl Harbor helped to give some answers to the psalmist’s question. His name was John Mason Neale. Born in 1818 to an Anglican family, Neale had a gift for capturing the beauty and misery of the human condition. Through the years he spent translating medieval tracts of poetry and prayer, his own soul gave birth to true art. He became a priest and hymnist, and I’d be willing to bet his hymns have at least perked your ears, if not penetrated your heart. He put to words and meter our struggle with internal blackout. Two such hymns sit at the top of that list. First: O Come O Come Emmanuel. This hymn speaks the language of blackout…the longing for someone to rescue us from captivity and exile. The longing for the Christ! The Messiah! I’ve always loved the hymn because it is so obviously prayerful. It is a prayer at its heart! We sometimes sing songs in church that miss that point, I’m afraid (whoops!). But it is a second work of his that came to my mind: Christ is made the Sure Foundation. In the midst of the darkness, the answer to the psalmist’s question is echoed in Neale’s translation of a 7th century Latin prayer, which says:
CHRIST is made the sure foundation,
Christ the head and cornerstone;
Chosen of the Lord and precious,
Binding all the church in one;
Holy Zion’s help forever,
And her confidence alone.
Did you get that!? What can the righteous do when our foundations are destroyed? NOTHING! It is CHRIST who has been made the sure foundation upon which we build our lives. It is upon Christ that our little homes are able to again pull up the blinds and curtains. It is upon the foundation of Christ that brokenness and heartbreak and suffering are given meaning and life. St. Paul told us this in his letter to the Ephesians: “Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
Christ is the one foundation upon which we can ever hope to be built into a dwelling place for the One who brings peace and rest. “How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD God of Hosts!” (Psalm 84)