Joe Satriani, "God Is Crying", Holy Week, and the Attributes of God

Recently, I have been listening to Joe Satriani’s latest album “Black Swans and Worm Hole Wizards”.  Over this Holy Week, I have been particularly drawn to track 11 “God Is Crying”:

http://www.myspace.com/joesatriani/music/albums/black-swans-and-wormhole-wizards-16732530 
(Above is the link to the album “Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards” on Satriani’s MySpace page.  Scroll down to track 11 and click on the play icon.  If you do not have a MySpace membership you can only listen to about three songs in their entirety; if you have a MySpace membership you have unlimited access to listen to whole albums that are posted on an artist’s page)

For those of you who may not know much about Joe Satriani (a.k.a. Satch, the Professor, the Extremist), he is a rock and roll guitar virtuoso, innovator, and technical genius.  He has released 13 studio albums, sold over 10 million albums, and he has had 15 Grammy nominations (he has the 2^nd most Grammy nominations without a win, after Brian McKnight).  He is a guitar player’s guitar player. (Most of the content of this paragraph was taken from Wikipedia.)

Through Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday – looking forward to Easter – among other things pertaining to the atonement, I have been reflecting on God’s sorrow over human sin, Jesus weeping at Lazarus’ tomb (John 11:1—43, esp. v. 35), and Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:28—44, esp. v. 41).  And, so, I have been listening to “God Is Crying” by Joe Satriani.  By Satch’s own admission on a Facebook video podcast, this song “is not what you would expect given the title “God Is Crying””, which you may have gathered for yourself by listening to the song on his MySpace page.  You may have expected to hear a slow, moody, lilting, haunting melody line, or you may have expected to hear a series of scale runs, some with a smooth descending legato, and others with punctuated staccato evoking the image of streaming or falling tears.  Instead, as Satch describes it, “God Is Crying” is an “intense” and “explosive” song with a “heavy groove.”  In an A flat minor key with 4/4 drive, the song is powerful and aggressive.  And, I would also describe the song as being a bit angry.  Overtop of the drive, Satch lays down a soaring melody line with heavy use of a wha peddle (made famous by the Dunlop Cry Baby Wha peddle). This is what makes this song so interesting to me during Holy Week: the song seems to depict God’s crying, weeping, sorrowful tears mixed with intense power and anger. 

Now, it’s not that Satch isn’t capable of playing a slow song with a dark, somber, smooth tone (he is known for being able to play such songs alongside blazing fast technical masterpieces).  Two examples of Satch’s slow, easy, moody, haunting, and lilting melodies come to mind from his last album “Super Colossal”:

First, “The Meaning of Love” (track # 8)

Second, “A Love Eternal” (track # 12)
http://www.myspace.com/joesatriani/music/albums/super-colossal-8120159
(Actually, the song “Slow and Easy” from the album “Engines of Creation” came to mind first, but I couldn’t find a link to an online sample.)

As to those songs filled with legato and staccato scale runs that fall like tears, two songs come to mind:

First, “Made of Tears” from the album “Super Colossal” (track # 9)

http://www.myspace.com/joesatriani/music/albums/super-colossal-8120159

Second, “Wind in the Trees” from the album “Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards” (track # 10 – as you listen to this track try to picture a willow tree being moved by the wind.)

http://www.myspace.com/joesatriani/music/albums/black-swans-and-wormhole-wizards-16732530

In the March 9, 2011 issue of Guitar World Magazine Satch was asked about the song “God Is Crying”; these are his comments:

I was thinking about God – the concept of God actually.  Where is he?  Why do we need him? . . . But I started to think, what would happen if God came down to earth?  Not just as a spirit, but really came down here physically and walked around and took a look at what we’ve done to the world.  And, all I could think was, he would cry.

In a heightened way, from Advent and Christmas through Lent and Easter, Christians are confronted with the reality that God, through the Second Person of the Trinity – Jesus Christ, came to earth and took on the form of a man – he took on the form of a lowly humble servant (Phil. 2: 5—10).  And, Jesus wept (John 11:35).  He didn’t just weep over what we had done to the world (though this surely is part of what causes God sorrow).  He wept over us and our corrupt sinful nature, which causes us to commit sin and defile God’s precious creation.  Surely the way we twist and distort culture causes God sorrow; surely the way we pollute and abuse nature causes God sorrow; surely our broken homes and our chuck full prisons cause God sorrow; surely wars and poverty cause God sorrow.  Yet, it’s the sinful heart of man caused Jesus Christ to weep. 

Here’s the good news, God didn’t just weep and wring his hands in the far distant recesses of heaven; he did something about our sinful predicament.  (This is where I think Satriani is intuitively on to something in his song “God Is Crying”.)  When God did something about our sinful existence, his sorrow over sinful mankind was joined with his omnipotent power.  When God redeemed us from our sin, his love and mercy stood side by side with his just wrath. 

In a Facebook video podcast, Satch said, “It [the songs juxtaposed title and heavy grove] makes sense when you think about it.”  Well, I thought about it, and it does make perfect sense.  The genocidal slaughter of 800,000 in Rwanda causes me to weep, while at the same time it gave rise to appropriate anger at the perpetrators of such atrocities.  As human beings we all experience such a mix of emotions on a regular basis.  Now, amplify that instance of Rwandan atrocity by the whole of human history; and, then, try to imagine viewing that sum total of human history from God’s perfect perspective.  (An impossible exercise, yet a valuable exercise in the hermeneutic of “how much more then does God . . .”) 

Is there some way of making sense of a God who is at the same time sorrowful, wrathful, loving, merciful, compassionate, angry, omnipotent, holy, and just?  The key to this question is the doctrine of the simplicity of God.  This is not simplicity in the sense of a simple back woods country bumpkin.  By the simplicity of God we mean that God is one and his attributes are united in a simple whole.  God is not a conglomeration of attributes that are linked together like so many Legos.  God’s attributes are inextricably united in the oneness of God’s being.  Where one of his attributes is, there all his other attributes are.  And, the cross is the best place to see the beautiful commingling of God’s attributes.  In his love, compassion, and mercy God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die to save sinners.  God’s holiness and justice is maintained when Jesus Christ died to pay the price of our sin.  The right wrath of God against human sin is satisfied upon the cross.  God exercises his omnipotent power by vanquishing sin, death and Satan through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

So, what about Satch’s musings and questions about God?  God did come into our midst as a man, and he did cry.  But, he did so much more than weep over the human condition: he did something about the human condition; He sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins.

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