I recently breezed through Stephen J. Nichols’ book Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us About Suffering and Salvation. He examines what he sees as dissonance in the Bible- David crying out in the Psalms, Elijah asking to die, Paul lamenting his heart & its longing for sin- in what he calls “theology in a minor key.” These songs of hurt, brokenness, and sin are what Nichols refers to as “Adam’s song.” They are the songs that help remind us of the brokenness of this world, our bondage to sin, and the weight of injustice. They beg for mercy & redemption.

“In broad strokes, a theology in a minor key embraces what we so often go to extremes to try and avoid in the contemporary world, the harshness & frailty of life, the presence of sin and evil, the short comings and limitations of humanity. In short, all of the realities of life under the curse. The Blues invite us to embrace the curse through its articulation of restlessness and despair, longing and estrangement- what theologians call alienation. But theology in a minor key also sounds a note of hope, as it leads us to the Man of Sorrows and the cross” (p. 34). 

Nichols does a fine job (though he often is redundant) tracing the history of the Blues- borne from slavery & spirituals of hope, then up & out of the Mississippi Delta- alongside a Biblical history of redemption. He calls us to pause on Good Friday, lingering over our immobile Savior, pierced, scarred, and shut up in death, thinking, like the disciples must have won… lest we diminish and distort the full weight of Christ’s work, lest we fail to truly examine what it cost him to reconcile God and man…

Lastly, Nichols examines the blues as an eschatology- underneath all the despair lies a quiet hope, just as there was in the spirituals from which the blues were born, that ultimate justice & healing will be coming soon and indeed are already breaking through- and as an ecclesiology- a congregation of those who know what it means to be sons & daughters of Adam, to live under the curse, and to long for the full disclosure of promised mercy & rebirth. The blues bind people together because the blues sing true and sing for hope of resolution. Simply put, “the blues is a congregation that sings on Saturday night in expectation of Sunday” (171).

Erin sent me a piece of a post by Andy Byer recently that, in a way, ties in with Nichols:

“One of the cliches Christians readily offer to those who sit in pain and turmoil should be tossed out with the false wisdom of Job’s friends: ‘God will never give you more than you can handle.’ Behind this comment is a deeply embedded resistance to acknowledge the depth of pain and misery that sin has wrought in our world.  And in Western societies, we have devised multiple means of keeping the misery of death and pain at arms length…

We assume that His love for us guarantees our protection from evil… God certainly does protect us.  But He also afflicts us.  And, often beyond the scope of our understanding, His affliction is ultimately loving.

In the opening of 2 Corinthians, Paul refers to a scene of such affliction that he and his comrades assumed they would die–”For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (1.8, ESV).

God had given them more than they could handle.  And Paul tells us why: “…that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead” (1.9, ESV).

God will indeed give us more than we can handle.  But this is so that we may relinquish our foolish, idealistic fantasies about our own strength and ingenuity and turn instead to the only true hope we have–God, who raises the dead. God will give us more than we can handle, but He will never give us more than He can handle….”

These resonate with me deeply. These are the lessons we gain from Job, from William Cowper, from David Brainerd, and countless others. Our world is broken, but our Father is loving & capable. All is not lost; dawn is yet breaking through.

UNRELATED POINT OF THE DAY: I was in the Probate Courthouse & learned that you can legally change your name for $11 and a page and a half of paperwork… Unbelievable. Any suggestions as to what my first name change should be?