A Change Is Gonna Come

It is often the poets, the artists, who express the truth of our situation and see the possibilities inherent in the moment that we can’t yet see.  They see the tender branch beginning to put forth its leaves, heralding the coming of summer, while we are still shivering in the chill of a seemingly endless winter.   The poets perceive the signs of life taking root in the soil of death, bringing hope to those blinded by grief and judgment upon those blinded by the illusion that all is well.

The poets speak of a world that is not yet to illumine the world as it is, and embolden us to traverse the distance between here and there:  between the wilderness and the promised land, exile and homecoming, the old creation and the new.  While Alabama state troopers beat, gassed, and rode down peaceful protestors crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, Sam Cooke could be heard singing on the radio:

Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knockin' me
Back down on my knees, oh

There have been times that I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Those beaten back from the bridge that day may not have seen the change that was coming, but Sam Cooke could see it.  Cooke placed his hope in a social movement that transcended his own brief life, trusting like Dr. King that the arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.  A change gonna come.  But in the meantime, stay woke: alert to the signs of the times, patient in the struggle, living in anticipation of the Beloved Community as if it already were here and now. 

This is what Jesus teaches us in the somewhat enigmatic apocalyptic imagery of Mark chapter 13.  It is about how to persevere in the struggle for a better world, resisting the nightmare in which we find ourselves by living into God’s dream for the earth.   Jesus weaves together the works of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zechariah, and Daniel into a new vision.  Grounded in the classics of his tradition, Jesus performs a surprisingly creative variation on the theme of prophetic hope. 

That is what artists do.  They transform the received tradition to make it fresh and relevant, so that we have eyes to see and ears to hear again.  Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” is a beautiful example.  It was rooted in a long tradition of musical protest that wended its way back through Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind,” evoking Woodie Guthrie as well as Paul Robeson’s unsurpassable rendition of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s “Ol’ Man River;” even as it drew on the existential depth and critical perspective of the spirituals and the blues to subvert the inherent racism of 19^th Century ministrel anthems.  As critic David Cantwell notes, “Thanks to ‘Ol’ Man River,’ we can move from ‘Dixie,’ the popular song most associated with the Confederacy and Jim Crow, to ‘A Change Is Gonna Come,’ one of the songs most associated with civil rights, in just two steps.”[1] 

Just as Sam Cooke skillfully drew on the best of American musical tradition to subvert its racist roots, Jesus skillfully drew on the best of his religious tradition to subverts its violent images of God.  At its best, the prophetic tradition holds up the promise that God will not forsake us.  It is a tradition of resistance to injustice and hope for a better world.  At its worst, it is a tradition rooted in the myth of redemptive violence, promoting an image of God overcoming evil through cataclysmic destruction to bring about a new creation.  Apocalypse, which simply means “revelation” or “uncovering what was hidden” – living in the truth –  becomes associated with violent end-of-the-world scenarios. 

Jesus takes over this imagery to tell a different story.  Jesus doesn’t elide the truth one bit.  Only the truth can set us free to creatively integrate the past in the service of a better future.  Jesus is profoundly in touch with the suffering of his people, the growing economic inequality between Jewish elites and peasants, the corruption arising from collaboration with Roman imperial power, and the intensification of violence engendered by Jewish resistance and Roman repression.  He uses the motif of apocalyptic to describe the reality of Roman rule, and to predict its denouement in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple.

Jesus warns his followers not to be lead astray by these forces contending against each other.  Many false Messiahs will come promoting violent resistance.  He invites them to put their trust in God’s power to sustain them amidst conflict, betrayal, and persecution.  Oppression and suffering is part of the struggle for a better world.   

What is different about Jesus’ use of apocalyptic imagery is that suffering is never the expression of divine vengeance.  It is simply the result of wars, exploitative leaders, famines, and persecution.  God has nothing to do with it.  The only reference to God’s involvement is divine intervention to bring the suffering to an end.  God’s part comes “after that suffering” – this is the good news:  suffering is not the final word. 

What does the world “after the suffering” look like?  Well, it looks like a son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  “Son of man” simply means “human being,” and it is a symbol for the advent of a community in which human beings can realize their intrinsic dignity in God’s image.  While the darkened sun and moon and falling stars sound scary, they do not portend the end of the world.  They symbolize unjust rulers falling from power. Then the “son of man” arrives in clouds of glory to gather his chosen ones from all around the world.  This is an allusion to the Book of Daniel, which described violent empires as beasts, while God’s just rule looks like a human being fully alive.

A change gonna come.  When?  No one knows except God, according to Jesus.  We can only stay awake and watch for the signs of the times.  Just as the budding of leaves on the branches of fig trees portends the coming of summer, pay attention to the signs of new life and growth indicating the advent of humanity in our all too inhumane world.  They are there if we have eyes to see.  When the human being arrives, it will be like a homecoming.  Not a stranger, not a thief breaking in, but like the master of the house returning home at last; an occasion of joy, not fear.  Watch with eager expectation, not with apprehension or dread. 

Jesus turns apocalyptic on its head.  We don’t have to be afraid that God is gone get us.  It is our fellow humans we need to worry about!  We can trust that God is coming with power to set us free, to heal and make new.  In fact, the son of man already has come.  The human one is here.  

In Mark’s Gospel, the coming of the son of man is fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Three times, Jesus predicts that the son of man will be crucified and rise again.  Three times, Jesus predicts that the son of man will come in glory.  Two ways of saying the same thing.  God’s way of intervening to address suffering is not through cataclysmic violence, but through revolutionary love continually renewed by the courageous witness of those who work for justice no matter the cost.  It is this love the makes us human and renews the world.

I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ev'r since
It's been a long time, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Sam Cooke began his career as a gospel singer and it is telling that “A Change Is Gonna Come” was included in Cooke’s final album entitled, Aint’ That Good News.  It’s been a long, a long time coming, but a change gonna come.  That was the good news that Jesus announced.  We are that change.  We are the Jesus movement, creating a genuinely human community. And through us, Jesus is coming again, and again, and again, a river that has been runnin’ ever since that first advent.   

---

[1] David Cantwell, “The Unlikely Story of ‘A Change Is Gonna Come,’” The New Yorker (March 17, 2015)