184. Rock Goes The Gospel - Cream "White Room"

The recording of "White Room" reportedly began in July 1967 in London at the initial session for Cream’s as-yet-unnamed third album and work continued at Atlantic Studios in New York in December and finished during three separate sessions to complete the studio part of Wheels of Fire; February, April and June 1968, all at Atlantic Studios.Jack Bruce sang and played bass on the song, Eric Clapton played overdubbed guitars, Ginger Baker played drums and a timpani, and Felix Pappalardi – the group's producer – contributed by playing violas. Clapton played his guitar through a wah-wah pedal to achieve a "talking-effect".The song is about depression and hopelessness, but the setting is an empty apartment. The lyrics were written by a beat poet named Pete Brown, who was a friend of Cream bass player Jack Bruce. Brown also wrote the words for "Sunshine Of Your Love" and "I Feel Free."Pete Brown: "It was a miracle it worked, considering it was me writing a monologue about a new flat."

In the white room with black curtains near the station.
Black-roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings.
Silver horses run down moonbeams in your dark eyes.
Dawn-light smiles on you leaving, my contentment.

I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines;
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves.

You said no strings could secure you at the station.
Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows.
I walked into such a sad time at the station.
As I walked out, felt my own need just beginning.

I'll wait in the queue when the trains come back;
Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves.

At the party she was kindness in the hard crowd.
Consolation for the old wound now forgotten.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.

I'll sleep in this place with the lonely crowd;
Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves.

Underneath the jumbled story of the boy/girl story line lies another conflict and one that is really at the centre of the song. The words have an utter lack of meaning or feeling, outside of his contact with the girl in the story. If we take the poet’s observations as reflections of his inner state, what we find is a flat existence. Let’s look again at the first two lines: “In the white room, with black curtains, near the station / Black roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings.” It's a black and white nature of the poet’s world: the room is white, the curtains and rooftops are black, the pavements are not gold. Even the birds are tired. Now contrast this flat, colorless language with that of the next line: “Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes.” Now we have excitement, motion, color, beauty, energy. This same sort of contrast is continued in the remaining verses. Beginning the third verse, we find that, even at a party, the crowd is “hard,” with the woman offering the only “kindness.” And again we have color and life associated with the woman, and the woman only: “Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.” The choruses make the poet’s situation more poignant, referring to his room as a place where “the sun never shines,” and “where the shadows run from themselves.” At this point it is hard not to identify the poet’s room with his own internal heart state. The song is about hopelessness in life, with no hope for the future it seems except in love for the person that brings colour in the darkness. The passage in the bible reading that we will be looking at this morning has the same feel to it. The World has gone dark because Jesus has gone out of it, he has ascended into glory. the disciples return to Jerusalem where darkness had descended over the last days, what would they do now? except return to the upper room and wait in the shadows for something to happen. Waiting for something that will bring colour and meaning to their darkness.

The Upper room was an inportant place for the disciples and entourage. A "White Room" as we will see during the course of this devotion. A room that was to be an incubator to new life, lets follow the story in Acts 1:12-14 a step at a time.

A Sabbath Day’s Walk (1:12)
After the extraordinary experience of watching Jesus’ ascension, the disciples and entourage returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. Luke described the distance between the two places as a “Sabbath’s day walk from the city” (1:12). This was the extent to which a pious Jew was allowed to travel on the Sabbath. The Mishnah, an early 3rd-century compendium of rabbinic regulations, tells us that Sabbath travel was limited to 2,000 cubits. [Mishnah, Sotah 5:3.] This is about a kilometer, or two-thirds of a mile, although there is some question on the exact measurement of a cubit. Estimates from one half to three quarters of a mile are given for the length of a “Sabbath’s day walk.” Luke’s use of this strictly Jewish idiom shows his intimate knowledge of local customs. It suggests that Luke received his information about Jesus’ ascension from Jerusalem-area sources. His information could have come from one of the apostles, or from someone who wrote down what the apostles had said about the ascension.

The Upper Room (1:13)
Upon returning to Jerusalem the disciples entered a house and “went upstairs to the room where they were staying” (1:13). This upper room [In ancient architecture, where interior walls were often made of stones and were painted white, was the largest room in a building was almost always on the top floor. If it were on the bottom floor, the interior walls on the floor above would place too much weight on the ceiling timbers.] may have been a well-known place to early Christians. Perhaps it was the place where Jesus and his disciples kept the Passover before his crucifixion (Mark 14:12-16). (Mark uses a different Greek word for “room.”) Some commentators speculate this could also have been the same room where Jesus appeared to some of his disciples after his resurrection (Luke 24:33-43; John 20:19, 26). Others infer that this room was in the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark. A house church was later located in the home of Mark’s mother (12:12). Of course, none of these ideas can be proven. However, it is interesting to note that this is one of several times in Acts that Luke mentions specific locations in which the social life of the church was centered. Not only is it interesting, it is again evidence that Luke had done some solid research before writing Acts.

The Group Of Followers (1:13-15)
Luke next describes the people who met or stayed in the upper room. This was the primary nucleus of people who had been witnesses to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Luke had already listed the names of the Twelve in his Gospel (Luke 6:14-16), whom he said Jesus designated as apostles (verse 13). He lists their names again (Acts 1:13), but omits Judas Iscariot, who had died. Luke moved John from fourth position to second, perhaps because only he and Peter have any active role in Acts.  The Eleven were central witnesses to Jesus’ death and resurrection. In both his Gospel and Acts, Luke limited the title “apostle” to Twelve disciples. On only one occasion did he call anyone else an apostle (Barnabas and Paul), and in an indirect way (see 14:4, 14). Luke also mentioned the names of several others besides the Eleven who were meeting together. The group included some women, one of whom was Mary the mother of Jesus. “The women” (1:14) were those who followed Jesus during his ministry and death (Luke 8:2-3; 23:49; and 23:55-24:10). No doubt Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James were part of the female contingent, whom Luke mentioned in his Gospel (24:10). But this is the last time that Luke mentioned the women or the mother of Jesus, who presumably lived with the apostle John and his family (John 19:26-27).  The brothers of Jesus were also part of the apostolic group. The reference to Jesus’ brothers is interesting because of their apparently abrupt change in attitude toward Jesus. During his ministry they thought he was crazy, or even demon-possessed (Mark 3:21-35; John 7:2-10). What changed their minds? The answer may be found in Paul’s writings. Paul recounted an appearance of the risen Christ to James (1 Corinthians 15:7) that Luke doesn’t mention. This would have happened soon after the resurrection, most probably during the 40 days of Jesus’ appearances. Presumably, the other brothers, Joses (or Joseph), Judas (or Jude), and Simon (Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 6:3) came to believe in Jesus through similar circumstances. James is important to Luke’s story, as this half-brother of Jesus would soon occupy a position of leadership in the Jerusalem church (12:17; 15:13-21; 21:18). It appears that the other half-brothers continued to have influence in the apostolic church as well (1 Corinthians 9:5). The Jude who wrote the epistle identified himself as the brother of James. He is traditionally understood to be the half-brother of Jesus called Judas, or Jude.

According to Luke, there were about 120 believers who met together in Jerusalem before the day of Pentecost (1:15). [His use of “about” here and elsewhere in Acts tells us he was dealing with real numbers, not symbolic numbers. See Acts 2:41; 4:4; 5:7, 36; 10:3; 13:18, 20; 19:7, 34.] Among the 120 must have been the disciple Cleopas and his companion, to whom Christ appeared on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Luke also mentioned two other disciples, Justus and Matthias (1:23). They must have been members of the group of 120 as well.  Jewish law required that there be 120 males before a synagogue could have its own council. Only then could a congregation elect members to its own ruling body. This may have been Luke’s implied claim that the Christian disciples formed a legitimate and legal community within Judaism. (The importance of this will become clear as we study Acts.)  There was an exception to the Jewish stipulation. In the church, women were counted as part of the legal community, and Luke later mentioned additional women in the church (5:14; 8:3, 12; 9:2; 12:12; 16:33; 17:4, 12; 22:4). At its very beginning, the community of believers was one that broke restrictive social barriers. It exemplified what Paul said: In Christ there is neither male nor female (Galatians 3:28).  This group of 120 was only part of a still larger contingent of believers. Paul wrote that on one occasion after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to “more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time” (1 Corinthians 15:6), and most of them were still alive when Paul wrote, some two decades later. This suggests a larger pre-Pentecost nucleus in the church than the 120 people meeting in Jerusalem. Commentators speculate that most of these other believers were in Galilee, with the number “about a hundred and twenty” (1:15) referring only to those in Jerusalem. Since Luke was not concerned with the church or evangelism in Galilee, it is easy to forget that there were also many disciples in that area. Luke mentions that there were churches in Galilee, but he does not give us any details, and he doesn’t describe any missionary activity in the area (9:31).

Constantly In Prayer (1:14)
The group of 120 in Galilee was said to be “joined together constantly in prayer” (1:14). Besides waiting for spiritual empowerment, the only other activity the witnesses undertook until Pentecost was to worship God.  In Acts, Luke often mentioned prayer as one of his sub-themes. His point was that the people of God do not rush out in frantic human activity — they look to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and they seek that leadership through prayer. Often, such prayer results in a powerful response from God. [Acts 1:24-26; 4:31; 9:40; 10:19, 31; 12:5, 12; 22:10; 27:23-25.] Prayer is a key to the forward motion of God’s purpose.

Here in this room they formulated their next moves. Despite the internal darkness they must have felt, this white room experience was important enough for Luke to write about it. It was a key factor on there ongoing journey as a fledgling church. They entered in the darkness, with the darkness and on the day of Pentecost they left a beacon of hope to all the nations of the known world.