In the mid 1960’s Professor Marshall McLuhan noted that the, then new, medium of television was changing how people processed the data of their lives. The sequence of 5-second-long video shots and 20 second sound bites were re-programming our attention spans. His phrase was “the Medium is the Massage”, meaning that any medium works us over and kneads us into a format compatible with itself. Eventually our default setting is to see life through the eyes of that medium. The medium changes the eyes of our heart.
The default medium, in the current pandemic has been fear; fear of the disease, fear of dying, fear of each other and fear for the future of our children. There are stories of kindergarten age children fearful that if they don’t wear their masks that they might die. By using the camouflage of pandemic management fear has invaded our land.
The book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 21 opens with “...an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror”. Bob Dylan’s song, “All Along the Watchtower”, lifts its theme from Isaiah 21 and starts with the lyric, "There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief, "There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief”. After a bit of dialogue between the joker and the thief, the thief says, “So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late". In other words, this is the time for truth and apocalypse. In the distance, from their vantage point on the watchtower, the lookouts spy something and the song ends with, “Two riders were approaching, and the wind began to howl.”
Who were the two riders? Isaiah tells us that they were messengers coming with the good news, the gospel, that Babylon has fallen! Babylon the place of disfunction, the city where evil and fear were given full reign is gone! Note that coming of the Good News was also accompanied by, “the sound of a mighty rushing wind” (Acts 2:2).
It was only from the perspective of the watchtower that the lookouts could see that the good news, that their terror was gone, was on its way. What is our watchtower where we can catch a glimpse that our “redemption draweth nigh.” Luke 21:28 (KJV). It is the view from the cross.
We have a stake in this drama. Its our choice to allow ourselves to either be swallowed alive by fear, the medium of evil, or to be enveloped by love, the medium of Christ. For “perfect love casts out fear”, 1 John 4:18
Image courtesy of Picryl
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