Engage #2: Linkin Park, “What I’ve Done”

I was a freshman at Lamar University when I first heard Linkin Park.  I was getting a ride home from basketball practice with a teammate.  He fired up his SUV, the radio kicked on, and I was attacked by an aggressive blend of rock/rap that was completely different from anything I’d heard before.  For roughly the next 5 years it was rare for me to lift weights without a playlist containing a handful of Linkin Park songs blaring in my headphones.

Since my first listen back in 2001, the guys of Linkin Park of evolved as musicians and people quite a bit, no longer just pumping out angry work-out music.  This fact is clearly seen in the music video for their 2007 single, “What I’ve Done.”  The video gives a glimpse of LP’s growth as a band, while simultaneously illustrating one of the central truths of human existence; we are capable of horrible things, and ALL of us need someone to wipe our slate clean.

Three and a half minutes of being blitzed by vivid imagery depicting the horors men are capable of is an intense experience.  A closer look reveals an overwhelming list of people, issues and events: pollution, global warming, racism, Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, abortion, famine, terrorism, deforestation, poverty, drug addiction, obesity, destruction, rising gasoline prices, the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq War, the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina, Mother Teresa, Buddha, Abraham Lincoln, Robert Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, and Mahatma Gandhi.

Although the cast of personalities is diverse and features several people known for the vast amount of good they accomplished with their time on Earth, the over-arching theme of the video is fairly straight forward; people have done more treacherous  things than we are able to recall, and we are in desperate need of absolution…some how.  The chorus shouts out this need;

So let mercy come, and wash away what I’ve done.
I’ll face myself, to cross out what I’ve become.
Erase myself, and let go of what I’ve done.

Somehow we know the only way we can get square with the house is for someone with authority and ability to grant us mercy.  Deep down we know we’re guilty.  The only way mercy comes is if I face myself, and am honest with my need for forgiveness.  Only then can the person I’ve become be crossed out and erased.  Only then can our deeds be let go of.

Its a tall order, but its possible.  The brief moments of righteousness in the video hint at the possibility, and the grass pushing out of the dirt as a conclusion gives a glimpse of what might come to be…..IF we are able to find one qualified to usher in the mercy we so desperately need through forgiveness.

Who might that qualified individual be?

“He was pierced for our iniquities.  He was crushed for our transgressions.  The punishment that was our’s was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”  – Isaiah 53:10

“In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”  – Ephesians 1:7

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins, and purify us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9

Face yourself.  Let mercy come and wash away what you’ve done.

Amen and amen.