"God is dead." [for some around the world everyday is a Black Sabbath]
Gazing at the news, looking back over our life, wondering what is ahead, can there be Good News?
For Christians around the world, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is traditionally referred to as Holy Saturday, the time when the Son of God lay dead in a rock-hewn tomb. The liturgical naming of these days, the commonness of the holidays, the taking-for-granted of “knowing” the stories, it can undercut the shock of it all.
Hence an attempt to invoke Ozzy, Nietzsche, and Mary Magdalene (a close beloved friend of Jesus whom he delivered from seven-demons).
I propose a new anthem for those seeking to recover some of the resonance, significance, emotion, of the death of Jesus on the cross: God is Dead? by Black Sabbath.
It seems to me that most people are too eager to skip over the dark parts of life and the world and either revel in Easter too quickly or turn their gaze away from the horror of the world too often. We just want to get to the good parts of life quicker.
Ironically, religious people end up absorbing the same kind of attitude, hence Marx’s sarcastic comment about religion being a kind of opium for the people (which was just as much a critique of religion as it is of people in general).
Without reading too much into the religiosity of Ozzy, Iommi and the other Black Sabbath songwriters of “God is Dead?” they felt deeply what they penned, what they sang, what they feared, what they hoped. How many Easter-attenders can match their intensity this weekend?
Finding a way to let your soul feel the darkness of today, Holy Saturday/Black Sabbath - is a way to prepare for Easter Sunday/Resurrection Day. Want to feel darkness more darkly, just gaze unblinking into the world as it really is, into your own soul as it really is, and it won’t take long until you are staring into the abyss.
The Black Sabbath hymn “God is Dead?” is a reference to the infamous writings of German (formerly Lutheran) philosopher Fridrich Neitzchse in his 1882 tome The Gay Science. Deciphering his ciphers can become a full-time profession, but the spirit of his radical musings are a painful articulation of what he sees when he gazes into the dark abyss of the world around him. And he was always in pain.
The home where I live is next to a cemetery, and after we moved in I learned that it is where Heather is buried, the young mom who killed my brother Matt in a drunk-driving accident. It was a very early Sunday morning, right after Christmas, she was driving north on the south-bound lane of I69 near the DuPont exit and for reasons we don’t understand Matt didn’t see her coming. And now we’re staring into a dark abyss of anguished painful grief.
Meandering yesterday through that cemetery on the evening of Good Friday, meditating on the realities of Holy Saturday, wondering how many more Easter Sundays are allotted to my life, there comes a moment of surrender, when I am starkly aware that no amount of “control” will bring any guarantee that life will turn out the way I hoped.
How much longer do I want to stare into the abyss? How much longer do I want to lament the loss of control? How much longer do I want to endure meaningless pain? Of all the days to be open to the real darkness of the world, the real questions we ask ourselves about ultimate reality, today is that day: is God dead?
The ironic name of Good Friday invites us to skip over the horror of the reality: we did kill God, in Jerusalem, on a Friday, right before the start of a sabbath, on a Roman cross, with nails in his hands and feet, with a spear thrust through his side, with a crown of thorns crushed upon his brow, with his back flayed open.
Nietzche evokes a post-mortem reflection on what humanity did to God on that day, and for him everyday was a Black Sabbath, everyday is a reminder that we killed God and for him when he gazes into the world around him, it seems like still God is dead.
In the gospel story, Mary of Magdala, the dear beloved friend of Jesus also believed that he was the Son of God, and that he was dead, and that he was going to stay dead.
As much as she trusted in Jesus as the Son of God, it was too much to believe that what he promised about his resurrection would actually come true. Maybe we can cut some slack to others who weren’t as good friends of Jesus who also doubt in the resurrection.
But Mary didn’t want God to be dead, she didn’t want Jesus to still be in the rock-hewn tomb. For all the love she had for the Son of God, that Black Sabbath for her must have been so dark, the abyss so deep, the despair so strong.
Maybe for you these days are more like the band Black Sabbath, singing in “God is Dead?” about the complexities of faith: it sometimes seems like God is dead when I gaze at the world, but I don’t want God to be dead…
Maybe for you the abyss is gazing back at you, and like Nietzsche you are caught in its darkness, in the constant pain of life and you resonate with his harried declarations that God is dead…
Maybe for you these days you’re like Mary Magdalene: life has been unfair, and something about Jesus is attractive to you, is good, is healing, brings hope, salvation, but: he is no longer here, he is gone, only a memory, no longer in our grasp, no longer present with us, inaccessible, untouchable, distant, killed by the people around you…
A dark meditation for a dark day. To make it darker, here are the lyrics to Black Sabbath’s “God is Dead?” and to the extended quote from Nietzsche declaring God is dead, and a dark rendering of Mary Magdalene’s grief-full enduring of her Black Sabbath:
Lost in the darkness
I fade from the light
Faith of my father, my brother, my Maker and Savior
Help me make it through the night
Blood on my conscious
And murder in mind
Out of the gloom I rise up from my tomb into impending doom
Now my body is my shrineThe blood runs free, the rain turns red
Give me the wine, you keep the breadThe voices echo in my head
Is God alive or is God dead?
Is God dead?Rivers of evil
Run through dying land
Swimming in sorrow, they kill, steal, and borrow, there is no tomorrow
For the sinners will be damned
Ashes to ashes
You cannot exhume a soul
Who do you trust when corruption and lust, creed of all the unjust
Leaves you empty and unwhole?When will this nightmare be over? Tell me
When can I empty my head?
Will someone tell me the answer?
Is God really dead?
Is God really dead?To safeguard my philosophy
Until my dying breath
I transfer from reality
Into a mental death
I empathize with enemies
Until the timing's right
With God and Satan at my side
From darkness will come lightI watch the rain as it turns red
Give me more wine, I don't need breadThese riddles that live in my head
I don't believe that God is dead
God is deadNowhere to run
Nowhere to hide
Wondering if we will meet again on the other side
Do you believe a word
What the Good Book said?
Or is it just a holy fairytale and God is dead?
God is dead
God is dead
God is dead
God is deadRight
But still the voices in my head
Are telling me that God is dead
The blood pours down, the rain turns red
I don't believe that God is dead
God is dead
God is dead
God is deadSource: LyricFind
Songwriters: John Osbourne / Terence Butler / Tony Iommi
The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. " Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him, - you and I! We are all his murderers!
But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forewards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction? - for even Gods putrefy!
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!
by Friedrich Neiztxsche in 1882, The Gay Science, Book 3, page 125
Waiting in grief and sorrow for the Black Sabbath to be over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went to the market with heavy-hearts and bought traditional burial spices so that they might go in secret to anoint Jesus’ dead body. Very early, then, on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, in quiet haste they were on their way to the rock-hewn tomb when they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
Thank you.