Listening to Guiseppe Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem,” we were asked to select pictures which we felt reflected the music in regards to the atrocities in Darfur. The music was beautifully written, and a few insights into what was being said in the Latin gave it some measure of power. Then images selected by us were displayed in the final movement. Seen were horrors from humanity, perversities to life. Sin danced before our eyes. We beheld visions of relatives we may never know, stolen from us, choked, dying, dead.
“Why does the wicked one despise God? He has said in his heart, ‘You will not demand it.’” This is a true word. Every one will make an account of themselves before the judge. But perhaps there might be reconciliation before judgment, so that peace might be in place of terror and condemnation. And “perhaps the Christian faith will bring peace to Darfur.” This also is a faithful word. For whether the motivation for ending the tears comes in response to the law or to the gospel, if it comes, it could not come apart from it, even if peace comes unconscious of the faith of Christ and in ignorance of revelation.
As far as myself, my personal reaction to this was perhaps different than those of others, at least their visible reactions, for I saw the same images of horror, but those same images to me were living personifications of immaterials: the transgressional divorce into death, the reign of that transgression in humanity’s heart, the manifestation of our transgression in the outpouring of our own putridness, and the response of the god whom we divorced originally, a response of pure love, self-sacrificing, even the punishment of his own firstborn son as a transgressor so that the true transgressors might be passed over and escape being judged. For this reason I selected pictures which represented what I saw in Darfur: a skull, a man and woman drunk together, an atomic explosion, and the Lord being crucified. A skull is commonly associated with piracy. When we transgressed in the garden, we pirated God. We took up arms, invaded where we were forbidden, and stole what belonged to God, not only the fruit but even ourselves. We stole ourselves away from God. And into what? Into death. A skull is also associated with death. The flesh has eroded from the skull and returned to the dust; the breath of life has departed. And meanwhile, man and woman, they are getting drunk together, drunk on wine, gluttonous, drunk on self, over indulgent, drunk on passion, lacking self control, drunk on learning, no contentment, drunk on the sin in their hearts, death, becoming the skull. But not before they tear apart the tiniest spec of God’s work and detonate utter devastation; an atomic bomb explodes. The piracy leads to drunkenness which leads to total desolation. But desolation is where we find joy. For amidst the wilderness of our transgression, God himself works an abomination. He kills his own holy son, his only, his beloved one. Amidst the desolation the Prince of life is himself made desolate. He is choked into death just like us. And where? Golgotha, place of a skull. But this abomination is good. The skull has been restored to living. The stolen may now return home. The drunken may become sober. And the Prince of life lives again forever on our behalf, reconciling the world to God.