I was listening to Arcade Fire’s song Wake Up on the way to Winnipeg today and for a change listened closely to the lyrics. I REALLY like the lyrics and find they are overwhelming and powerful. The lyrics are as follows:

 

I highlighted the lyrics "if the children don’t grow up our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up" because they seem very true. It is almost as though the song is saying that life can be tough and growing up somehow tears us up if we are not in someway hardened to it. I think in a way I would prefer to keep my childlike heart in shreds though it be then trade it for an unfeeling cast iron heart of adulthood. Somehow I think pain can be used to our benefit and growth if we allow it. The song sounds cynical but I am probably not interpreting it properly. The music in the song moves from something mournful to something hopeful so maybe that is the direction of the lyrics as well.

 

The title of the song reminds me of a spectacularly enigmatic verse from Ephesians 5:14 which says: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Christ says much about having the attitudes of children and certainly children are far more easily wounded then those of us hardened adults who have built walls around our hearts. I think perhaps this may be part of the theme of turning the other cheek. Christ is not simply admonishing non-violence but also reminding us that in our woundedness comes healing. That allowing ourselves to be wounded can lead to health. That allowing other people’s woundedness to wound us rather than running and hiding from it or walling ourselves off from it is actually what we are called to do. When we are uncomfortable with our own woundedness and pain how much moreso are we uncomfortable with someone elses? We can hardly love our enemies when we are building walls to keep them out.

 

Ephesians first and foremost is about the walls that Christ has destroyed. It is a firm warning against rebuilding those walls. Ephesians describe the wall as "the dividing wall of hostility".

 

As I think about it while pondering these lyrics and these verses it seems to me Christ never erected a single wall in his ministry. He tore them down but never did he raise up any new ones. There is a powerful lesson there I think.