Woodstock, Heaven and Hell on Earth

Spiritual realities from the famous rock festival:

Just over 55 years ago one of the most memorable and iconic rock concerts of all time was held in upstate New York. The three-day festival was a one of a kind. With some 32 different acts, and a half million people, it really was an incomparable event.

There have been various films and documentaries made over the years about this music and lifestyle experience. I think I have seen most of these over the years. One film is the 98-minute PBS documentary Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation released in 2019. It aired on television again the other night, so I sat through it again with keen interest. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AeaG-7tGxs&rco=1

The PBS site says this about the doco:

In August 1969, nearly half a million people gathered at a farm in upstate New York to hear music. What happened over the next three days, however, was far more than a concert. It would become a legendary event, one that would define a generation and mark the end of one of the most turbulent decades in modern history. Occurring just weeks after an American set foot on the moon, the Woodstock music festival took place against a backdrop of a nation in conflict over sexual politics, civil rights and the Vietnam War. A sense of an America in transition—a handoff of the country between generations with far different values and ideals—was tangibly present at what promoters billed as “An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace and Music.

 

Woodstock turns the lens back at the audience, at the swarming, impromptu city that grew up overnight on a few acres of farmland. What took place in that teeming mass of humanity — the rain-soaked, starving, tripping, half-a-million strong throng of young people — was nothing less than a miracle of teamwork, a manifestation of the “peace and love” the festival had touted and a validation of the counter-culture’s promise to the world. Who were these kids? What experiences and stories did they carry with them to Bethel, New York that weekend, and how were they changed by three days in the muck and mire of Yasgur’s farm? https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/woodstock/

These docos and shows about Woodstock are for me not just some historical event from long ago that I can look back on, but part of my own story. No, I did not end up making it to Woodstock, although some of my friends had tried to get there (it is a bit of a hike from Wisconsin to New York, and too many drugs made it hard to get anywhere).

Some of you know my background. Two years after Woodstock (in August of 1971) at age 18 I became a Christian. That ended my four-year life as a hippy and counterculturalist. I did make it to at least one other weekend rock festival, and went to many dozens of rock concerts during that period. You can read more about this part of my life here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/06/27/coming-home-my-testimony-part-1/

I was on a journey back then – like so many other young people. I was not happy with the status quo and the establishment. I knew there must be something better. So I was using lots of drugs and getting into various eastern religions and Marxist politics, and so on.

Something like Woodstock captured the romantic and utopian vision that so many of us had. We really did think we could bring heaven to earth. We thought we could create a new society made of peace and love, along with a lot of drugs and rock and roll.

If you view the doco above, you will see just what a religious and transcendent experience it was for so many young people. They thought this was the wave of the future. They believed that the world could be remade into its image. They thought that Woodstock could become the norm.

Of course it is one thing to have a three-day music festival. It is another thing to live in the real world. Someone needs to be able to build the stages, to provide the food, to deal with medical emergencies, to provide all the electricity to keep it going, and so on. And you needed a generous farmer like Max Yasgur to let your land be used and abused for the weekend.

Altamont

I have written about Woodstock before, and I have written about the Altamont rock concert held almost 4 months later in San Francisco. I have contrasted how heaven on earth became hell on earth in December of 1969. Here is part of what I said about that event:

At Altamont the bubble burst. The Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones were among the hardcore highlights. Unfortunately however, some of the groups seem to have decided that the Hells Angels would make for handy bodyguards and security.

 

They had served in this capacity at other rock events, after all. Unfortunately, they gave the bikers free beer as a payment – supposed around $500 worth – which was a pretty good amount back then. But Hells Angels and plenty of free beer is a bad combination.

 

I remember often as a young teenager back in Wisconsin being high on drugs, and meeting up with hardcore bikers. On the one hand we were on the same page, because we were both into dope, and lots of it. But it was always such a heavy trip when they were around, and I at least really got bad vibes.

 

It was just scary to be around them, even though we shared a common drug culture. And that was certainly the case at Altamont. As was to be expected, the crowd was always getting out of hand and trying to rush the stage. Before the eyes of thousands of young counterculture idealists, the Angels stabbed to death an over-zealous fan, and the demise of the counterculture began.

 

The really interesting thing is – looking back now as a Christian – that this happened while the Stones were singing their song, “Sympathy for the Devil”! Wow. “We always have something very funny happen when we start that number” Jagger said as he restarted the song.

 

There are various accounts of how and why 18-year-old Meredith Hunter was killed. Some say he pulled a gun as he again charged the stage. Whatever the case, it was a seismic shift in the entire hippy culture. When the Hells Angels stabbed to death a young concert goer that night, we all knew the Age of Aquarius was over. It was the most devastating moment in our lives. It just left so many of us cold, and dead inside. Everything that Woodstock was and achieved, was lost at Altamont. This was the end. There could be no coming back. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/11/07/the-rolling-stones-the-end-of-the-hippy-dream-and-my-story/

The New Heavens and the New Earth

There is nothing wrong with yearning for a better world, for a peaceful and free and loving world. But reality needs to be faced. Woodstock was built on sinking sand, not on solid rock. Lots of drugs and music and sex will not overcome our major problem: human sin.

We are all selfish sinners who when push comes to shove will easily turn on others to look after ourselves. We need something from outside of ourselves to make us the sort of persons we long to be. We need the transformational power of the risen Christ to make us into the people we should be, and the society that we long to live in.

What all believers long for, and what even non-believers crave, whether they know it or not, is a world that Woodstock could only very partially and imperfectly hint at. A world where peace and love reign, and where we all just get along and care for one another. Altamont showed that Woodstock was not and could not be the answer.

And the good news is the sort of world that so many desire IS a reality and it will become a permanent reality. We read various descriptions of what it will be like when Christ returns, puts down his enemies, finally and fully frees us from all sin, and a new world does come into being.

Both Testaments speak to this. Consider just a few key texts:

Isaiah 11:6–9 “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Isaiah 65:17-19 “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.”

Revelation 21:1–5 “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’ Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And He said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful’.”

Every old hippy would love reading about such things. But so many of them missed it. As did I – I almost missed it. Between drug overdoses and suicides a number of my hippy friends did not make it. I should not have made it either. But God was gracious, patient and merciful with me. And he reached down and pulled me out of my dead-end lifestyle.

So now, some 53 years after my conversion, I continue to tell others about the wonder-working power of God in changing lives – even really messed up lives such as mine. If he can save me, he can save you. As John Newton, the former slave ship captain who later was changed by Christ and penned the hymn Amazing Grace had said: “My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.”

I too am aging, but that truth is as real for me today as it was back in August of 1971. Have you met the risen Christ?

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