Roll Away Your Stone

  So today I went to a...thingy...at my church, and one of the classes I was sitting in was lead by absolutely the most cultured woman I know. (She wrote a book and has a blog and is simply maaaagicaaal... and I love her muchly.) And she was mentioning how the Gospel can be found in everything. She asked for examples and I mentioned Mumford and Sons, a lovely band from England. The song "Roll Away Your Stone," specifically.  The lyrics are:

Roll away your stone, I’ll roll away mine
Together we can see what we will find
Don’t leave me alone at this time,
For I am afraid of what I will discover inside


This sounds to me like a moment of introspection. 
The speaker is beginning to commit to looking inside
of himself, to removing his mask of solidness and look 
at how he really is. But he is afraid of seeing how jacked
up he really is. This speaks to the Christian life as a whole,
the process of conversion, if you will. The first step is to 
see how how messed up we are, even if we are afraid of 
what we will find.

You told me that I would find a hole,
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal,
And all the while my character it steals

This "hole" is the place in our lives where we try to fill
our emptiness with something other than Christ. It's in
this fragile place in us (our souls). And we try and fill 
this place with "things unreal," things that distract us for 
a moment like people and music. These passions consume 
us and eat away at all we are, essentially stealing our 
character.

Darkness is a harsh term don't you think?
And yet it dominates the things I seek


This is the realization that we have to come to that darkness,
no matter how scary it may sound, is the source of everything 
we seek without Christ.

It seems that all my bridges have been burned,
But, you say that's exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home 
that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive with the restart

The burning of the bridges to me means the relationships that
have to be lost in order to receive the grace. And the way to
heaven is hard and long and painful, but the reward of heaven 
in the end is what you look forward to when things are hard.


Darkness is a harsh term don't you think?
And yet it dominates the things I seek
Darkness is a harsh term don't you think?
And yet it dominates the things I seek
Darkness is a harsh term don't you think?
And yet it dominates the things I seek

Stars hide your fires,
And these here are my desires
And I will give them up to you this time around
And so, I’ll be found 
with my steak stuck in this ground
Marking its territory of this newly impassioned soul
hide your fires,
these are my desires
And I will give them up to you this time around
ADD:And so, I’ll be found 
with my steak stuck in this ground
Marking its territory of this newly impassioned soul


The lines "these here are my desires/and I will give them up to
you this time around," to me are the words of repentance. When
one is pursuing something that one loves, but for the wrong
reasons, it's like pursuing the wrong thing. But when one gives his
desires up, it's a new start. It's a line in the sand, a stake in the
ground, that marks what this newly renewed soul will and will not do.

But you, you've gone too far this time
You have neither reason nor rhyme
With which to take this soul that is so rightfully mine


This, I see as a joyful scoff at Satan. Christ is claiming what is His, 
telling Satan that he has no place now with this soul that is so
properly His.

(from  http://www.lyricsmania.com/roll_away_your_stone_lyrics_mumford_and_sons.html)












We didn't say all that in the class session thingy, but this is what I saw in the lyrics as I read them, like just now.