U2 recorded at least two different versions of the song that was the theme of yesterday’s Catch,“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Thanks to David, my pop music/gospel connection to Canada and a regular Catch reader, we’re going to think about the second version this morning and reflect on its message. The initial recording, on U2’s “Joshua Tree” album, is somber and plaintive in tone, fully capturing the album’s pictorial image, the gnarled silhouette of a Joshua tree standing alone against a desert sky. The second came by way of a gospel choir out of New York called The New Voices of Freedom. They recorded their own version of the song, and when Bono, lead singer of U2, heard it, he arranged for a meeting with the choir and the band in their Harlem church. The result was electrifying. Choir members called the reason for the strange connection between a gospel choir and what was then the most popular arena band in the world, spiritual. It was a spiritual connection.

It’s no accident that this song contains the clearest expression of the gospel of Jesus Christ in U2’s repertoire:

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it

The stage was set for a gospel celebration, and the result was an appearance by the choir in the band’s Madison Square Garden concert and the inclusion of the song and video in U2’s acclaimed documentary, “Rattle and Hum.” This version is entirely different from the “Joshua Tree” recording. It is performed with a simplified rhythm and the exultant chorus. The style is entirely gospel and the tone is exalting, jubilant, electrifying.

I walk away from the first version wondering. I walk away from the second with my eyes sparkling like a child’s on Christmas morning. In this setting, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” takes on a new attitude, as if the whole song reverberates with the question, ‘You mean there’s more?’”

Is this not why we live: to find out more? To experience more, learn more, love more? It includes the whole thing — the joy and the sorrow, the loss and the gain. If God has redeemed it all, we have something to gain from it all. We will never have found what we’re looking for because we will never be done looking and living.

Those who are satisfied with what they have, have what they have. Those
who keep asking, seeking, and knocking will find more.

“So I [Jesus] say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you
will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks
receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be
opened.” (Luke 11: 9-10).

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The Catch is that place where questioners can question, doubters can doubt and believers can believe. We are all about looking and living. Here at the Catch we always believe there is more, and we are calling more of you to become monthly supporting members. Members are the lifeblood of the Catch. We simply can’t exist without you, and we can’t go forward without more of you. Power the Catch! Click on the shoes and become a supporting member today!