Saturday, June 13, 2015

The 3rd song of the U2 concert at the L.A. Forum on May 27 was Vertigo. Vertigo, of course, is dysfunctional dizziness, often resulting from certain movements or motion. Flying vertigo is disorientation because you’ve lost a true understanding of the horizon. Bono has explained the song: “In the case of 'Vertigo,' I was thinking about this awful nightclub we've all been to. You're supposed to be having a great time and everything's extraordinary around you and the drinks are the price of buying a bar in a Third World country. ...you're just looking around and you see big, fat Capitalism at the top of its mountain, just about to topple. It's that woozy, sick feeling of realizing that here we are, drinking, eating, polluting, robbing ourselves to death. And in the middle of the club, there's this girl. She has crimson nails. I don't even know if she's beautiful, it doesn't matter but she has a cross around her neck, and the character in this [song] stares at the cross just to steady himself”—Bono, U2 by U2. My take as Bono shouted the opening line, “Uno, dos, tres, catorce” is that U2 sings of how dissonant this world is because of brokenness due to Adam’s Fall into sin and rebellion…that resulted in our own sin and brokenness. 1,2, 3…14? That makes no sense…and neither does this world many times. Just turn on the news. Or…just look around you…OR…just look WITHIN you. The wonder of the Biblical Christian World and Life View is that we have an answer as to why the world is so messed up. Sin and Satan are real. Thus Bono’s lyric in Vertigo…that he always sings with such clarity… “All of this, all of this can be yours All of this, all of this can be yours All of this, all of this can be yours Just give me what I want And no one gets hurt.” Bono is clearly reciting the devil’s words to Jesus during His temptation (Matthew 4:8-9). But not only does the Christian World View have an answer as to WHY the world is upside-down. The Gospel offers a solution..Faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The only answer to the world’s Vertigo? Christ’s response to Satan: “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.” Look at the Cross...and steady yourself.

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