Gutter

The past year has been quite a rough year for the metal music scene. It began last November with the untimely death of Suicide Silence vocalist Mitch Lucker. Mitch and his music had stood as an inspiration to many, and his death hit his fans hard. Last month, Deftones bassist Chi Cheng passed away unexpectedly during a slow recovery from a 2008 accident that put him in a coma. Cheng had touched hundreds of thousands of lives between his fans and members of other bands, and his influence within the scene will be greatly missed. At the beginning of May, another musician--Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman--passed away from alcohol abuse. Slayer is one of those bands that has been around since metal began to gain popularity, and Jeff and his impact in music will be remembered. 

Within the last week, the metal music scene was rocked with another blow as Tim Lambesis--lead vocalist for As I Lay Dying--was arrested for soliciting an undercover cop to off his wife. Out of the all the tragedies that have been happening in the metal scene lately, Lambesis' situation hits me the hardest.

I was first introduced to AILD through TVU, a Christian music video TV channel that my friend and I were obsessed with in middle school. In fact, looking back on it, they were one of my "gateway bands"--bands that began to whet my appetite for heavier styles of music. Throughout the years, I've been a moderate fan. As I Lay Dying has never made it on my list of all-time favorite bands, but I own most of their albums and have a huge respect for them. The band is full of phenomenal musicians, and Tim himself was a great lyricist. Plus, my being short made Tim my poster-child for manliness: Loves Jesus, long hair, a beard, huge muscles, and tattoos.

Over the 13 years since the bands founding they have attracted millions of listeners from the entirety of the globe. A look at some social media shows some impressive statistics. They have racked up over 38 million "scrobbles" (track listens) amongst almost 787,000 fans on Last.fm. Almost 2 million people "like" their Facebook band page, they have almost 125,000 followers on Twitter (Lambesis himself has almost 38,000), and their most popular Youtube video has almost 9 million views. As I Laying has influence.

Another fact about the band is their faith. Since their formation, they've been an outspoken band about their faith in Jesus Christ. All the members are devoted Christians, and their religion is seen in their lyrics. Tim Lambesis has talked about his faith in several earlier interviews, one which you can read here. So when I initially saw the news about Tim's arrest earlier this week, naturally I was shocked and taken aback. There had to be a gross misunderstanding somewhere. Unfortunately, this is very real.

I empathize with the rest of Tim's fans. We're hurt. We're confused. We're shocked. How could a Christian man with so much social influence fall so far? One day Tim held the adoration of his fans in the palm of his hand, and he owned an opportunity to use his status to reach and change the lives of millions around the world. A short time later his face is hollow with guilt as those who held him on such a pedestal throw him to the wolves and lose all respect for him. What he could have used for incredible good is gone. Within an instant his life has changed forever.

As I look at this through a Christian, biblical lens, I'm reminded about Israel's greatest human king, David. The beginning of David's reign is full of political and military triumph. He cleaned up the mess that Saul had left, and he acted as a mediator between God and his people. Deeply in love with his Lord, David led the nation of Israel with purity and uprightness of heart. Instead of looking for his own glorification, he always sought to glorify and give thanks and praise to God for who he was and what he was doing. Up until his downfall, God gave David amazing success.

But much like Tim Lambesis, David fell so far down. Starting with the affair with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11, David began to fail as a king. After sleeping with Bathsheba and having her husband killed (2 Sam. 11), his family and kingdom began falling apart. Amnon, David's son, rapes his sister (13:1-22) before being killed by his brother Absalom (13: 23-33). Absalom then leads a rebellion against David, his father, and forces him out of his capital city before getting himself killed (15-18). Another rebellion against David is later led by Sheba (20). Finally, David makes his final mistake in putting his faith in his military might instead of God. Against better judgment, he takes a census of the nation, but is later punished with a plague of pestilence from God (24). After passing on the kingship to his son Solomon, David died a very different man than how he had started his reign.

Looking at the story of both Tim's and David's failures is a reminder that our faith is not to be in man alone. Humanity is flawed. People are sinful, make mistakes, and betray each other. No matter how great a person may seem, they are never as great as the God in heaven. As I reel in the wake of the arrest of a role model for many, one verse in particular stood out from the Psalms this morning, which coincidentally David wrote. Psalm 40:4 states, "Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie." It can be easy to grab hold of tangible people like Tim and David because of a lot of admirable qualities. To me, Tim represented a true, manly man of God, and I looked up to him in that way. Had my faith been in Tim alone his arrest would have destroyed me.

Thankfully, I have a God who's greater than Tim. My faith is placed in God who is God, and I am not. I put my hope in a Lord who knows the future even when I don't, who acts as a "sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain" (Heb. 6:19). Even though there are assuredly rough times ahead full of grief and pain, loss and heartache, I know that sinful nature has created these and I can cling to a God who feels my pain, empathizes with my weakness, and holds me through the tears and grief of future events. It's of Him that I will not let go because I know he won't let go of me.

"If I walk away with one thing from all of this, it's to never again put my faith in man."--Gideon