It was beautiful, terrible, profound, disturbing, powerful, awe-inspiring. If you ever have the opportunity to go to a performance, you absolutely should take it!
The work contains the usual sorts of pieces you would expect from a mass, but the theme deals with war - it is rightly called a mass for peace though, because it drives home the message that war is a terrible evil. What makes this mass different though, is the inclusion of video and photographic material on a massive screen behind the choir. In the way that a film score matches the cinematography, the imagery was chosen to coincide with the music except that, in this case, the music was written first.
The mass opens with scenes of military marches by Hitler and Stalin's armies, continues through scenes of armaments manufacturing, to battle scenes, then on to the aftermath of war, and the rebuilding post-war. It ends with a measure of hope. There were scenes from the Apartheid government forces beating up protestors, the falling of the Twin Towers, nuclear bombs exploding, Confederate re-enactment soldiers, from both World Wars, and more. The images are graphic, and combined with the inspiring and insightful music, incredibly emotive.
I was particularly struck by several things. Firstly, after the Sanctus, the mass includes the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer. As the muezzin was singing, I wondered whether this performance was the first time that religious content other than that from Christianity, but especially from Islam, had ever been performed in City Hall. I was also struck that if I spoke Arabic, I would call God Allah, even as I prayed to a different God; that the adhan, while a call for muslims to pray, could just as easily be a call for Christians to gather & pray.
The Kyrie Eleison (Lord, have mercy) was performed while imagery of battles were shown, and it struck me as particularly poignant that children were singing this piece while adults (mainly men) were shown warring - contrasting their innocence with the death of innocence, their age with the age of the soldiers, their supposed lack of wisdom with the supposed wisdom of adults who 'know better', their cries for mercy with the relentless action of war.
"Save me from bloody men" was... unusual. Sung a Capella, in near total darkness, with monochrome footage of trenches and men crossing no man's land, it ended with a massive blast on the drums (I think it was both timpani and drum kit combined) that coincided with colour footage of a nuclear bomb explosion. I nearly left my seat with fright!
I won't go through the performance item by item, save to say that each piece left me more wounded, broken, horrified. I found myself silently calling out to God, both in horror at the evil in our hearts that would allow us to perpetrate such violence against one another and against the earth; and for forgiveness. I was reminded of Paul's words that 'if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone'. Rom 12:18.
The scenes of the attack on the Twin Towers was particularly upsetting, as I was transported back to that day, and I remembered the horror of watching people jump to their deaths all on my own, and then wondering whether Graeme would be able to return home to me in London.
The scenes of the Allies helping the victims of the concentration camps was disturbing. There are no words for the horror of seeing living corpses, for that is how they seemed.
By the time we got to the Benedictus, it was almost all I could do not to moan in anguish. I found myself fervently praying that Jesus would return soon, to put an end to all this evil and suffering, once and for all.
Given that the line between good and evil runs through the middle of every heart, we cannot solve the problem of evil, or of war and violence, on our own. If we cannot manage our own tempers, if we cannot prevent ourselves from gossiping or slandering others, if we cannot deal with our own jealousy or desire for power/ fame/ recognition, if we cannot control our thought life, if we cannot control the anger in our hearts, then there will never be peace. Jesus really is the only hope in this world, because he alone has the power to change us - after seeing this performance, I am more convinced of that than ever.
The final irony for me, was that the City Hall is a war memorial. (Sadly, it is a memorial only for those whites who died; it does not name people of colour.)
Afterwards, I wondered anew at the situation we face in Cape Town with the army coming in to support police in areas of gang violence. Gangs foment violence and war, but is retaliating with violence and war the solution? Even Paul recognised that sometimes peace is not possible. Sometimes radical responses are needed. If the Allies had not responded radically and violently, what would the world have looked like today? Would Hitler have conquered the whole of Europe, the world? Do the ends justify the means? Do the death, destruction and mayhem caused by a tyrannical racist warrant a world war? I suppose the problem is that we don't know what sort of death, destruction or mayhem would have resulted had there not been a world war.
Returning to our gangland problem, surely a better solution would be changing hearts and minds? But doing so is harder than perpetrating violence - it's easier to beat someone up, arrest them, throw them in jail, or whatever, than it is to walk alongside them in conversation for days, weeks, months, years, until you have helped them to see themselves and their circumstances differently. War is evil, no doubt. War is abhorrent. But peace is worth fighting for, right, no matter the cost?
True peace is not just the absence of war though. True peace comes from a healed and restored heart, one that does not covet, is not proud, or jealous, that does not hate, that is not insecure, that can love and forgive freely. True peace is found in a heart that knows and loves Jesus, and that, without a doubt, is worth the greatest price of all.
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