| Wilco – Theologians Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Exegesis of Theologians: This song is intensely Christian. Some have contended that Jeff Tweedy is speaking about something else like “Music” as God, but if he is then he is pillaging Scripture to do it. This song is most naturally taken from the perspective of Jesus, not Jeff Tweedy and not you or I. If we take this view then the whole song comes into perspective from beginning to end. I will move through the text of the song with this perspective and as we get near the end the primary evidence for taking the song in that context will show up. The song begins speaking to “Theologians” and how they don’t know nothing about Jesus’ soul. Theologians of Jesus time would be the Pharisees and Sadducees. While some Pharisees are seen to have insight and understanding (John 7:50-51) most of Jesus encounters dealt with dealing with their hypocrisy and correcting them about the nature of God. The theologians that Jesus deals with know and practice nothing about the soul of God, the soul of Jesus, the Spirit of God, “about my soul”. Jesus came as the ultimate revelation of God and blew away false conceptions and understandings that the theologians (Pharisees and Sadducees) had. The second stanza describes Jesus and his time here. He is an ocean. The image of the ocean in Scripture is often associated with the abyss. The Hebrew, “tehom”, means sea, ocean, abyss. The abyss is what God hovers over in the second verse of Genesis when He is creating the world. The Abyss represents Sheol, hell, and death often in the Old Testament. The image created is two old. Jesus is an ocean, he is an abyss, deep and immeasurable. God is beyond understanding, sovereign over all of creation. “The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth in the seas and all their depths.” Secondly he is an abyss in motion. God is sovereign but he also acts in this world, especially when he became man as Jesus Christ. Christ’s life culminates in his death. The Gospels present the entire life of Christ but they slow down, slow motion effect, on the last weeks of his life which culminate in his death on the cross. There is a slow motion effect because the majority of the gospel focuses on the passion narrative (the death of Christ and his sufferings) though it is an account of his entire life. Many have pointed out this slow motion effect that takes place during his last weeks in the Gospels, not to mention the general feeling that at immense moments move slower than regular time. The slow motion time relates to Christ heading to his death (abyss = death) and after his death on the cross he “descended into hell” (Apostle’s Creed). Again, the abyss = hell / death. Briefly to emphasize the refrain, none of the theologians of the day, even the disciples, expected that the Christ, the Messiah, was to have to die. They didn’t know nothing about his soul, his spirit which would come to us through his death (more on this below). The next stanza breaks into some Latin, the choice language of the early Church fathers, the theologians who came after Christ. Inlitterati lumen fidei translates literally “illiterate lights faith” or if we put it into proper grammatical order “faith lightens the illiterate” or “the illiterate are enlightened”. Christ is the light of the world. He is “the true light, which enlightens everyone” (John 1:9). His name is “Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matthew 1:23, cf. Isaiah 7:14). Christ, again is the revelation of God to the world, he lightens are understanding he is God with us. Interestingly, Christ is also referred to as the “Word” of God so that the illiterate, those who can not read, are able to “read” the “word” when he, Christ, illuminates them. He is with us day and night, which is a biblical writing technique called a merism, which means He is with us all the time. The refrain again, theologians (Pharisees, religious leaders) don’t know nothing about my soul. They don’t understand that Christ has to die, that Jesus is the Christ, that Christ’s soul, the Spirit, comes through his death, that Jesus is the light of the world. The next stanza is a criticism that Jesus made of the theologians, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They thin his heart with little things. They ignore the weightier elements of God’s soul, justice, mercy, and love, and focus on the little things of the law. Jesus says “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin (you tithe on the smallest of things, the little things) and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. (Matthew 23:23). They change the law more and more each day so that all these rules and regulations take away from the revelation of God (the Law is God’s revelation). Jesus, God, finds more missing every day. Matthew Chapter 23 is all about this. Finally! We get into the meat and the culmination of the song. These verses are all but copied from the bible. Jesus says “I am going away” (John 14:28) speaking of going through his death, to be with the Father in heaven. The song has been pointing to this the whole time. The theologians of the day don’t know, understand why the Christ would have to die. John 13:33 says “You will seek me…Where I am going you cannot come.” Word for word in that last line! Christ is going to heaven to prepare a place for us, we can not follow him. The fact that these verses, the culmination, are word for word from Christ, puts the whole song into this context. Jesus is the one singing the song. Interestingly, more than one of Wilco’s songs make sense if you put them as though Christ or God is singing the song and Jeff Tweedy is also singing the song, just as the Psalms can be seen to be sung by both David and Christ at the same time. It continues, culminating (I sometimes cry here).Christ says “No one takes it [his life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again (aka resurrection) (John 10:17-18). Again this is basically word for word with the song “No one’s ever gonna take my life from me , I lay it down…” Christ lays down his life willingly and by his own authority. No one can take his life from him but he lays it down as propitiation for sin. What happens when he lays down his life? He leaves but His spirit comes...the HOLY SPIRIT, he dies and a ghost is born. The word for ghost in Greek (the language of the New Testament) is “pneuma” which is also the word used for Spirit as in the Holy Spirit, also sometimes referred to as the Holy Ghost. Christ leaves and sends his Spirit to all believers. Christ says before he dies that “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26, cf. 15:26, 16:13) When Christ dies he says “It is finished” and then bows his head and gives up his spirit, ghost (John 19:30). He returns after his resurrection and breathes on his disciples giving them his spirit, his ghost. (John 20:22). “A ghost is born” is said 3 times, which is a significant number in scripture indicating completeness and surety. This is the culmination of the song. Christ is an ocean, Jesus is God, beyond all understanding. He’s all emotion, this point of the “passion narrative” has the most emotion to be sure. Christ is God, God is Spirit. The three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit form one in the trinity. I’m an ocean, the sovereignty of God usually associated with the Father, I’m all emotion, Jesus Christ the love of God on earth, I’m a cherry ghost, the Holy Spirit. Finally what is this term “Cherry ghost”. A cherry is a deep scarlet red which is the color associated with blood, specifically in the death of Christ, his blood plays a vital component in the redemption of His people. His spilled cherry blood is what makes us clean as snow. The colors are most likely Tweedy’s intent as in another song he describes Hell as being Chrome there seems to be some attraction to focusing on color and the spiritual. But also, it is interesting that the holy ghost is God’s Spirit, it is a Spirit of Grace (Hebrews 10:29). The Greek word for Grace is “charis” which if pronounced by dropping the S on the end would be “car-ee” or in some pronunciations “Cher-ee”, cherry. Email me for more explanation of anything in this. |
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