Words'nTone

It’s my mother’s birthday today, and if he were still alive, it would be Elvis’ birthday, too.  (And don’t forget Todd’s, too!).  It is already eight years into the new century and Elvis seems to be showing up again and again (as an imposter, or maybe the real deal—who knows).  Thus far, Elvis Presley remains the most certified artist in the history of recorded music: 80 gold, 43 platinum, and 19 multiplatinum records.  Lester Bangs said of the king of Rock and Roll: “Not Sinatra, not [Mick] Jagger, not the Beatles, nobody you can come up with ever elicited such hysteria among so many.”

Elvis’ calendar birthday is January 8th.  However, amid a hot and muggy Memphis night, on August 16, 1977, one of the last century’s most influential cultural icons suffered a humiliating death.  Struggling everyday with substance abuse and pumped up on more drugs than a Pharmacy, insomnia plagued him.  The king picked up a book and tells his girlfriend he was going to the bathroom.  Hours later, the girl friend awakes to discover Elvis had not returned to bed.  Concerned, she makes her way to the bathroom only to find the king, unconscious on the floor, the book left open.

So many have speculated on how this man of great talent and drive could end up this way.  But that night, whatever drug invested condition he was in, the king of rock and roll left this earth while reading The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus.

Let’s move from the aroma of death in this Memphis bathroom to another palace of another king.  This one in London, England.  In this room we hear King George VI’s Christmas Eve address to the British Commonwealth.  The closing of his address would be etched into the memories of England’s leadership as the close of World War II was upon them and difficult days lay ahead: 

“I said to the man at the Gate of the Year, ‘Give me a light that I may walk safely into the unknown.’ He said to me, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand in the hand of God, and it shall be to you better than the light, and safer than the known’.”

As he spoke his, listeners were unaware that the king was dying of cancer.  Although, provoking the nation to a higher calling, they were his own, for his own life, for a place of reference in a place of suffering and uncertainty.

The King’s words remind me of Isaiah the prophet’s own words in 50:10:

“Who is among you that fears the LORD, that obeys the voice of His servant, that walks in darkness and has no light?  Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.”

Whether it is a real earthly King or a lonely drug saturated soul masquerading as king, the only legitimate hope that makes sense is the hope that comes from God, the hope for life and beyond death.

With sting of death staring them in the face, both the King of England and the king of Rock and Roll needed to hear the Apostle Paul’s words: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

The king of pop culture, in his last seconds on earth, was reading about the search for the face of Jesus Christ.  A little known fact, but one very insightful to the heart’s longing.  With a culture of a thousand distractions for boredom (none of which ultimately work) and seemingly multiple reasons for disbelief, it will be the face of Christ that haunts us of a reality we all need.

© Chip M. Anderson (January 2008)
    Words’nTone, Habits of the Mind

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