Jesus Christ, Supersacrifice


Back in the early 1970's the album Jesus Christ Superstar was released. Today, NPR did a piece on the "resurrection" of the musical to the stage.

I started to think about what I considered when I listened to the album at that time. I recall that as a kid I sensed that Jesus Christ Superstar's rendition of the last seven days of Christ's life to be heresy. I hardly knew the Bible and doctrine, but even I could smell the rat of revisionism. I really liked the music though...most of it. "What's The Buzz" gave me the creeps.

Everything is Alright, despite its sexual overtone between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, is a beautiful song.

It was odd, the Catholic Church used to have an approved list of what the faithful could consume of popular media and Jesus Christ Superstar passed the test. I saw the list. Of course, the Catholic Church is no stranger to inventing dogma without and contrary to biblical warrant. So, perhaps--in retrospect--I should not be surprised of their willingness to OK Jesus Christ Superstar's version.  I can critique Catholicism as an insider. I paid my dues in the pews.

Essentially in the musical, Jesus is only a mistakenly messianic man with a decidedly cross nature, Judas is the tragic hero...the stark realist, the truth teller, the only one who is grounded. The Superstar title is more of a mocking moniker. Jesus is sort of a rabbinic school drop-out who could not cut it following the standard route to religious respectability.

It bothers me that the Church could not produce a Rock Opera about Jesus with orthodoxy being the score. Why does the world get to rip-off our stories, change them, and re-serve them with dangerous doctrine hidden by captivating artistic flavor? It is a really bad combination...artistically excellent, theologically from Lucifer himself. Lest we be  dismissive of the danger, many have been misled by crafty heterodoxy. Remember "The DaVinci Code?" Many people presumed that this was the real inside story about the life of Jesus. I had more than one conversation with people who thought that book was well-researched historically rather than fictitious conjecture.  

The real story of Jesus is actually much more dramatic than any human invention. God becomes man to deliver enslaved-by-sin humanity to freedom by offering Himself as a sacrifice, not a superstar on a stage, but a criminal's death on the Cross. Let us not lose ourselves in the familiarity of the story. Only God Himself could write a script like that, penned in the blood of Christ.

Biblical scholars believe that this verse below is a stanza in an ancient hymn sung by early Christians:

Philippians 2:8


And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!        
      

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