Kurt Cobain: A Tragic Figure in Music and a Reflection on Spirituality

I read that Kurt Cobain, lead singer and guitarist for the rock band Nirvana committed suicide in 1994. But I have since learned that the exact nature of his death is contested. The album Nevermind by Nirvana sold ten million copies, surpassing Michael Jackson on the charts back in the day.

Nirvana is a Buddhist term for salvation through a person’s extinction, losing all individuality into nothingness or emptiness. This sounds to me like a flight from the fact that God has spoken.

God spoke and the world came into existence. God spoke and revealed His holy character in the giving of the law. God speaks life to dead souls. He spoke and light came into being. God spoke love to a race that did not deserve and fought against His love. Jesus Himself is identified as God’s Word. God established a covenant in which He spoke words of commitment to save sinners at His own expense.

Reportedly, 68 people who believed Kurt Cobain committed suicide decided to follow him. Cobain had tried to cope with a hard family situation early in life, emotional instability and repeated unfruitful attempts to find happiness in drugs. Would emptiness provide an escape? It is hard to believe that comfort could be found in fleeing toward nothing rather than something.

The lead-in to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:1-2 simply says, “And seeing the multitudes, He [Jesus] went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying . . . .”

Jesus is God the Son. He has spoken. He took on flesh and blood in order to make known the invisible God to us. It is better that there be something to address our emptiness and hurts and to satisfy and comfort us than that there be nothing.

Yet sometimes we don’t like when God speaks. Why would that be? Because He is a rival to us who would be little gods of our own worlds. We want to be admired and respected for what we say. We want our words to powerfully shape our own world, using anything from magic to bravado to ensure our success. We want our words to destroy people we don’t like. We want our words to be hailed as wise and even worshiped, looking for likes on social media.

In order to give proper place to God’s speech, we must admit we are not Him. If the unique, almighty and loving God has spoken, we must learn to listen. Revelation 19:15 pictures Jesus as having a sword for a tongue. His Word is so powerful, that by it He will bring judgment on nations. But His powerful words bring life also. Maybe you would want to start in Matthew 5 and read the Sermon on the Mount Jesus preached and ask the Holy Spirit to give you understanding and faith to live by it so that you might be filled with life.