BONO ON EASTER

Bono on Easter…

Michka Assayas’s book Bono In Conversation came out the day my updated version of Walk On was to be with the publisher. We hit Vancouver stores around midnight to get a copy. We did. It was a revelation. 

French journalist Assayas is the perfect interrogator. He is a trusted confidant of Bono. Yet he is also secularist and agnostic who cannot quite accept that a man of Bono’s intelligence and cultural sharpness could believe this Christian stuff. It is ideal provocation that allows Bono to nail his theological perspective. From there it is clearly seen that his life is lived in the light of how he identifies Christ and his identification with Christ.

When Assyas suggests that is Christ among the world’s great thinkers maybe, but son of God might be a bit far fetched, Bono is on it with CS Lewis-like apologetic: “But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off the hook. Christ says: No I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me a teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: “I’m the Messiah.” I’m saying: “I am God incarnate.”… So what you’re left with is: either Christ was who he said he was – the Messiah – or a complete nutcase. I mean we’re talking nut case on the level of Charles Manson.”

Bono also defines God’s view of the world. He says he loves “the idea that God says: ‘Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s mortality as part of the sinful nature, and, let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions.’” 

No hint of the usual modern political correctness or tolerance from an anything and everything goes rock star. Where Bono brings grace to the human condition is exactly there – grace. His relationships with fellow rock stars, no matter how hedonistic or political figures no matter how right wing is laced with a love and mercy that he himself finds in the grace of God. He says: “Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which is in my case very good news indeed.”

That grace is centred on Christ’s cross; “I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.” Bono’s self deprecation is evident throughout which again is neither the regular disposition of rock stars in general or for some who don’t look carefully enough, Bono in particular. 

A closer look at the songs and performances and you’ll see that any egotistical celebrity poses Bono throws are a role play with the absurdity of his occupation. Finishing many gigs on the Vertigo Tour with Yahweh, a prayer of commitment, that ends with a pleading that God would take his heart and make it break is a little upside down in a music world more renowned for its selfish indulgence. 

Bono tells Assayas that it is at the Cross where he gets humbled: “The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point it should keep us humbled…It’s not our own good works that gets us through the gates of Heaven.”

At the end maybe too influenced by Eugene Peterson whose paraphrase The Message Bono endorsed he says, “’Be silent, and know that I am God.’ That’s a favourite line from Scriptures. ‘Shut Up and Let Me Love You’ would be the pop song. It’s really what it means. If ever I needed to hear a comment, it might be that.”