A broken Hallelujah

Our friend Tammy from South Africa drew our attention to a recent music video of  Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' .   The choirmaster at Roedean School in South Africa put together brilliantly and movingly a video of the choir singing this haunting song after the school had closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.  Somehow he used technology to film the choristers individually and then put them together as though they were performing in the school.  It was deeply moving to see them singing together in harmony whilst we saw the empty rooms and corridors.  I recommend that you watch the video before reading on: if you search for 'Hallelujah' on Youtube and choose the Roedean School version, it's easy to find. 

Or copy and paste this link into your browser:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y51WWrYodI&list=RD3y51WWrYodI&start_radio=1

Listening to the strange words of this song I wondered what they really meant. These are the lyrics:

Well, I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah...
 
Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah...
 
You say I took the name in vain

I don't even know the name

But if I did, well really what's it to ya?

There's a blaze of light in every word

It doesn't matter which you heard

The holy or the broken Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah...
 
I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel so I tried to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool ya

And even though it all went wrong

I'll stand before the lord of song

With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah...

Well, baby, I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor (you know)
I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
 
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah...
 
Well, there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do ya?
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
 
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah...
 
Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
 
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah

 

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen was a Canadian Jew - his surname indicates his Jewish background:  Cohen, the most common surname in Israel, means 'priest' and represents an ancient biblical priestly heritage.  Just what sort of a faith Cohen himself had isn't easy to pin down, though towards the end of this song he seems to express a struggle to retain a faith that he once had, or thought he had.  As he struggles with belief versus unbelief, he still retains some sort of desire to worship.     His thoughts expressed in this song have clear links to the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament).

 

David the harpist - window at Roedean School, SA

The song  looks at David, the musician and man of God, who despite his deep faith in God is tempted by Bathsheba and falls into sin. 

 

David spies on Bathsheba - painting by Tissot

Then there is the parallel story of Samson, another man dedicated to God, who falls into the same sexual temptation and is seduced by Delilah. 

 

Samson and Delilah - painting by Van Dyck

 Both are imperfect human beings - (aren't we all?) - yet both are repentant and both want to continue to worship God  -  hence their use of 'Hallelujah', which roughly translates as 'Praise the Lord'.  Though the song doesn't mention it, that's where every believer in God stands. We are all sinners - all fault-ridden individuals. It's only by the grace of our creator that we are acceptable to Him.  It's very appropriate therefore that our praise to Him is described as 'a broken Hallelujah'.

The sinful actions of David and of Samson are recorded in the Bible and we can see in their stories that their actions had terrible results.* They certainly paid a heavy price for their behaviour.  Yet they repented, and David's moving repentance is recorded in Psalm 51 , where David says "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;   you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise."

The Bible is a treasure-house of stories which tells us repeatedly that if we sincerely want a relationship with our maker, he is willing to set aside our imperfections, our inadequacies and our stumblings, provided we acknowledge and repent of them. We can turn to Him and not be turned away.  It seems to me that Leonard Cohen was trying to grasp this when he wrote   Hallelujah!

*  2 Samuel 11 and Judges 16

There's a much more detailed analysis of the lyrics of Hallelujah at

  https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/how-leonard-cohens-hallelujah-brilliantly-mingled-sex-religion-194516/

Covidia

I was about to write a blog entry relating to the coronavirus pandemic, but discovered that Canon J  John has written, probably much better than I could, his thoughts on the issue which are much the same as mine.  So I'd like to share his thoughts with you rather than writing my own blog entry on this:

 

Comfort in Covidia

I imagine I’m not alone in feeling that I have been mysteriously pushed through the doors of some magical wardrobe and now, in a state of severe bewilderment, find myself gazing around a strange, unwelcoming landscape. It is definitely not C.S. Lewis’s Narnia; this hostile desert – which I take the opportunity of naming Covidia – is much more alien and daunting. Yet the door is closed behind us and, to use the old words of the King James Bible, you and I find ourselves ‘strangers in a strange land’ (Exodus 2:22). What we face is threatening and even frightening. Nevertheless, I’m comforted by the fact that many of the followers of Jesus have trod this path before. Although we find the present COVID-19 pandemic unusual, it’s worth remembering that if you look back over history it was a rare generation that didn’t have to grapple with such things as the Black Death, plague, cholera or the like. Other men and women of faith have crossed this discouraging landscape before us.

One man who did is the great reformer Martin Luther. In 1527, at a time when bubonic plague was rampaging across Germany with many fatalities, he was asked the question as to whether it was right to run away from it. Never a man to give a short answer when a long one would do, he wrote an entire booklet in response. Originally given the less than cheering title Whether to Flee From Death, it was later published under the slightly more positive name Whether One May Flee From A Deadly Plague. The full text is found at https://davenantinstitute.org/whether-one-may-flee-from-a-deadly-plague/ and has much of interest. In one paragraph Luther expresses his own position like this:

‘I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbour needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely, as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.’

There’s a lot to ponder here and let me offer you three wise principles from it that still hold true.

Principle 1 Learn wisely
In fact, for its time there is here a good example of what you might call ‘sanitary sanity’. Luther intends adopting a strategy of what we would call self-isolation as much as possible and of avoiding going where he is not needed. His reasoning is, very reasonably, that he knows that he could become infected and therefore pass on the plague to others. His comment about that which might ‘tempt God’ refers to presumably the sort of situation where someone claims divine protection and then recklessly runs into a situation demanding God to protect them. Significantly, despite the passing of nearly 500 years, this remains good guidance: we should pay attention to the suggestions of medical experts and think of minimising the spread of the disease to us or to others. COVID-19 has claimed enough victims – try not to give it any more.

Principle 2 Live faithfully
We can no doubt identify with Luther praying for God’s protection but his comments on his own death probably take us beyond our comfort zone. Luther has a deep, calm and commendable trust that if his heavenly Father does decide to take him in death, then so be it; the key thing is that he has done his duty and not put anybody else at risk. Many of us have a faith that asks nothing more than ‘Lord, keep me safe today’. Luther sees his whole life in the hands of God. Indeed, his perspective on death is helpful: he sees it not as an act of bitter tragedy or a demonic victory but simply as an event where God ‘takes him’. Underlying all the actions Luther intends to take is his deep faith in Christ.

Principle 3 Love richly
The question that Luther was addressing is whether someone in a position of church responsibility should flee from peril. To summarise his answer: if you have no duties you can leave, but if your neighbour – and here, following Jesus, he means anybody we are in contact with – needs you, you should stay. Actually, in days of a global pandemic, fleeing disease makes little sense but the principle of being lovingly concerned for those around us remains completely valid. One of the problems with epidemics is that there is always a temptation to ‘look after Number One’ and self-isolation heightens it. We tend to make some sort of physical or psychological bunker and go and hide away inside. While this makes medical sense, it brings its own perils. Jesus asked, ‘What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?’ (Matthew 16:26 NLT). In the same vein we might ask, ‘What do I benefit if we survive this epidemic but, in the process, harm our eternal soul?’ We are to love God with all that we have but also our neighbour.

The bleak landscape of Covidia through which we must travel is very much uncharted territory. Yet we are not the first to travel it; Luther and countless others have gone before us and, if it’s any encouragement, the reformer himself outlived the plague and kept going for another 19 years before God finally ‘took him’.

With that image of a sterile and ominous landscape before us I am reminded of the first few lines of what is the best known of all Welsh hymns, ‘Guide me, O thou great Redeemer, Pilgrim through this barren land; I am weak, but thou art mighty; Hold me with thy powerful hand.’ Here we have the greatest of encouragements. As we travel through this difficult time, we, who have put our faith in Christ, know that he travels alongside us. Jesus is Emmanuel, the one who is ‘God with us’ (Matthew 1:23). And in our harsh new world, that is the greatest comfort of all.

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com

Plague, Pence and Prayer

With coronavirus attacking in more and more locations, it was interesting to read of an atheist's reaction: 

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has been mocked by liberals after the White House released a photo of him in his White House office leading a prayer before commencing a meeting with his coronavirus task force. The White House's official Flickr account released the photo showing Pence and 15 others in his West Wing office, all with their heads bowed in prayer. Pence has been asked by President Donald Trump to lead the federal government's response to the coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The author of the "Friendly Atheist" on the Patheos website, Hemant Mehta, responded to the photo by mocking: "It's not a joke when people say these Republicans are trying to stop a virus with prayer." He continued, "What else did anyone expect? Science? Reason? Something sensible? Of course not. If this virus truly becomes a pandemic, we're at the mercy of people delusional enough to think their pleas to God will fix the problem." Mehta even went on to mock God, saying: "The same God who presumably created the virus, at least in their minds, will somehow make sure it hurts only a handful of Americans … and a ton of Chinese people." New York Times Magazine contributor, Thomas Chatterton Williams, responded to the photo saying, "We are so screwed." ¹     

Now it's easy to pick holes in Mehta's comment. He seems to suppose that after their prayer meeting, this team of advisors would sit back and do nothing, waiting for God to sort it out. In reality it's much more likely that they would be praying for wisdom to make good and effective decisions on how to tackle the problem. His comment about "a handful of Americans and a ton of Chinese people" is no more than a cheap jibe, describing imaginary words or thoughts in the minds of the team.

There have been many disasters, both natural and man-made, in the history of the world, and often they have highlighted the difference between believers and unbelievers in God. Several of the best-known are known simply because they are recorded in the Bible. 

The Flood

Think of the well-known story of the great flood and Noah's Ark. ²  The whole point of the story centres upon the fact that one man and his family were in touch with God, and their destiny was assured because they (and especially Noah himself) listened to and obeyed God.  He couldn't have done that without prayer being involved!

The Ten Plagues

Then think of the story of the ten plagues and the Exodus. ³  This story culminates in the parting of the Red Sea and the escape from Egypt of the Hebrews, behind whom the Egyptian army was destroyed as the sea flowed back and drowned them. The Egyptians were led by a king, Pharaoh, who scorned God. The Hebrews by contrast were led by a man, Moses, who followed and obeyed God, and was in constant touch with God by prayer. The whole history of the Jews pivots on these events and is still commemorated by the devout each year in the Feast of the Passover.

The stilling of the storm on Galilee

We also read in the bible of a time when Jesus and his disciples were caught in a great storm whilst out in a fishing boat on Galilee. ⁴    

The disciples were terrified, but Jesus calmed the storm. Their reaction was to say "What kind of a man is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

Dunkirk

Now this phrase, "Even the wind and waves obey him" brings me to a much more recent event which happened during the Second World War, which became known as 'The Miracle of Dunkirk' - a phrase first used, and with good reason, by Winston Churchill. If the weather conditions had been different, the outcome would have been different too.  The recent film Dunkirk (2017) describes vividly the extraordinary events which led to the rescue of 338,000 allied troops, but leaves out the main reason why Churchill called it a miracle. 

If you don’t know the story, on 10th May 1940, Hitler unleashed a military onslaught on France and Belgium. Within days the British Army – outmanoeuvred and unprepared – along with soldiers of other Allied nations, found themselves with their backs to the sea and hemmed in by enemies. The German High Command was able to boast with confidence that its troops were ‘proceeding to annihilate the British Army’. That the total destruction of an entire army was imminent was a view shared by many in the military and political leadership of Britain. Prime Minister Winston Churchill found himself preparing to announce to the public an unprecedented military catastrophe involving the capture or death of a third of a million soldiers.

But it didn’t happen. On 23rd May, King George VI requested that the following Sunday should be observed as a National Day of Prayer. Late on the Saturday evening the military decision was taken to evacuate as many as possible of the Allied forces. On the Sunday, the nation devoted itself to prayer in an unprecedented way. Eyewitnesses and photographs confirm overflowing congregations in places of worship across the land. Long queues formed outside cathedrals. The same day an urgent request went out for boats of all sizes and shapes to cross the English Channel to rescue the besieged army, a call ultimately answered by around 800 vessels.

Yet even before the praying began (in my experience, prayer often works like that) curious events were happening. In a decision that infuriated his generals and still baffles historians, Hitler ordered his army to halt. Had they continued to fight, the destruction of the Allied forces would have been inevitable and the war would have taken a different, darker and more terrible path. Yet for three days the German tanks and soldiers stood idle while the evacuation unfolded. Not only so, bad weather on the Tuesday grounded the Luftwaffe, allowing Allied soldiers to march unhindered to the beaches. In contrast, on Wednesday the sea was extraordinarily calm, making the perilous evacuation less hazardous. By the time the German Army was finally ordered to renew its attack, over 338,000 troops had been snatched from the beaches, including 140,000 French, Belgian, Dutch and Polish soldiers. Many of them were to return four years later to liberate Europe.

Now you could argue it was all a coincidence, but I think not. It certainly wasn’t considered so at the time. Sunday 9th June was declared a National Day of Thanksgiving and, encouraged by Churchill himself, the phrase ‘the miracle of Dunkirk’ began to circulate. ⁵

Since those days there has been a steady drift  away from Christian belief and practice in much of the population, so it's almost impossible to imagine that in our current crisis there will be an official call for a national day of prayer!  But there is one clear conclusion which can be drawn from all these events, namely that God is in charge, God controls events, God hears and responds to the prayers of individuals and even of nations, and that what God seeks is that we should recognise this and call out to Him in the belief that he will control the outcome. We can't predict what the overll outcome will be, but I agree with Canon J John when he says says "I think Dunkirk stands as an extraordinary encouragement to pray in faith. However great our problems, God is greater than them all. That ‘Dunkirk encouragement’ to pray in times of need applies at every level of life and to every challenge, from what may be a petty domestic crisis to a national disaster." <sup>5

Postscript, March 15th
To my surprise, within hours of me writing  "it's almost impossible to imagine that in our current crisis there will be an official call for a national day of prayer!", President Trump has announced that USA will have a National Day of Prayer today, March 15th!</sup>

¹ https://christiantoday.com/article/mike-pence-prays-with-coronavirus-task-force-for-gods-help-liberals-and-atheists-mock/134410.htm

² Genesis chapter 6 onwards.

³ Exodus 7 onwards.  Also http://creationday.com/2015/08/scientific-evidence-for-the-parting-of-the-red-sea-2/

⁴ Matthew 8, verse 23 onwards

⁵  https://canonjjohn.com/2017/07/17/national-day-of-prayer-during-dunkirk-1940/