Upon my liar’s chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here.

Crown of Thorns

The line above comes from the pain of Trent Resner of Nine Inch Nails fame. I know him because of Johnny Cash. Cash began a journey for me. Cash is the type of Christian that I easily identify with.

My journey with Cash began the day I heard “Ring of Fire.” I connected with Cash in part because he never claimed to be perfect or have it all together. He was a mess. A wonderful beautiful mess. The biopic Walk The Line was a reawakening of Cash to me. The movie is played well by Joaquin Phoenix another mess that I hope will one day be wonderful. Phoenix is another story. Johnny was a rebel because that is who he identified with. He was a rebel with a cause. He cared deeply about the less fortunate and the outcast. He came to a point where he fell in love with Jesus. How it happened is left to conjecture but it simply isn’t debatable if you study the man’s life. Cash saw himself and identified himself as a Christian.

His music never became the all to common “Christian” music that never showed deep struggles. In one of his last albums he covered other people’s materials including Trent Resner. Resner’s work connected with Cash. The line above taken from the song Hurt reflected Resner disillusionment and disappointments with religion and life. It showed Johnny’s continued struggles. Yet in the end it was a honest reflection of a man that was hurt. He was hurt by all his past sins. They were many. He was hurt by the loss of his beloved second wife. He was a man hurt by his own foolishness.

Yet this wasn’t Cash only work. He wrote a book called Man in White that was a biography on the conversion of Saul to Paul. That book was Cash’s hope for himself. It was his hope that he would go on and be changed. Johnny lived a life of hope. Johnny had worn a crown of thorns. He was honest about it. He never put on heirs of pretense. Instead he chose to identify with the errs of sinners. His hope was ground in another man’s crown of thorns. A crown that Cash believed would set him free. I hope he found that freedom and I believe he did. My hope for this is found in the words of Jesus.

“Whoever the son sets free is really free.” Cash lived a life full of regrets. Yet he had hope. His freedom and our only hope of freedom is found in another man’s thorns.