Looking back at the year before I became a believer I can see that I was developing a curiosity and hunger about spiritual things. One of the most moving things for me along these lines was the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. I loved the music, and I found the story very moving. My 7th grade music teacher had introduced me to it, and my mom and I used to listen to it a lot. Well, an interesting thing happened to me when I became a Christian.
Not too long after I was saved, the musical was going to be broadcast on HBO. My Christian girlfriend's family had HBO and I breathlessly told her about this neat musical that I was sure that she was going to love. She told me that she would watch it. When we met the day after I could hardly wait to hear how much she loved it. It was about Jesus, right? It was a moving story with lots of great songs. We would have something in common. Much to my dismay, she was non-committal. She did not want to dampen my enthusiasm, but it was clear to me that she really did not like it. I was really sort of crushed by this, but it was years later that I understood.
As I got to know the Jesus of the Bible on a personal level, to learn what He is like, I found that my reaction to the musical also changed. Parts of it got less interesting and finally even irritating. What changed? Just my understanding. Why did this picture not match the Person that I was coming to know? Because they left out something major.
As a Christian I understand that Jesus is the great God-Man. John 1:1-3,14 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being...And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth". Not only is Jesus God in the flesh, he came specifically to die, and he was in control at all times, giving His life of His own accord and at His own terms. John 10:18a "No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again." In the musical, however, the main character, always hidden in the background, is fate. This 'Superstar' Jesus is a great guy who is caught in the web of fate - eventually stuck like a fly in a spider's web, reluctantly assenting to his overpowering Father's will. This is seen in what originally was my favorite song (and later my least favorite song) when Jesus finally gives in to his fate: "Lord, thy will is hard, but you hold every card; I will drink your cup of poison, nail me to your cross and break me - bleed me, beat me, kill me, take me now, before I change my mind." Yikes!
How did this get so backward? They included many of the actual events from the gospels in the show. Certainly they had the same cast of characters. But one very important thing got left out: the deity of Christ. In the musical, he was 'just some guy'. With that one omission, the ENTIRE store changed completely around backwards. Hundreds of pages could be written to talk about the ramifications of Jesus being God and the crucifixion (which I will not detail here). Take that away, and you get a different story, even though the events are the same.
But wait, you say, He did ask for the cup to be taken away at Gethsemane. Yes, He did. He was not surprised by the upcoming event, though, as was portrayed in the show. In actuality, for nearly three years he had been hinting and then openly predicting His torture and death by crucifixion. He declared His intention to go through with it numerous times, and He made it clear that this was the purpose for which He had come to Earth in the first place. So why did He pray this prayer? As He said, " the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." The horror of what He was going to go through was more than his body could take.
So, was Jesus afraid of the cross? That He was going to be beaten? Spit upon? Well, I doubt He was thrilled by it. Crucifixion is one of the nastier ways mankind has devised to kill each other. (one of many hundreds of nasty ways). Nevertheless, it is in the deity of Christ that you really understand what so horrified Him that his human body was sweating drops of blood from thinking about the upcoming day. Through the doctrine of the trinity we understand that there is one God in three persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we think about it, this gives answers to many philosophical questions that would otherwise go unanswered, like the origin of communications, love, etc. The Bible portrays the Father and Son having a loving relationship for all eternity: John 17:24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." Note that Jesus always addresses God as his Father, throughout the gospels, except in one place: "About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?'—which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'". For a brief, three-hour eternity, our sins were placed on Jesus, who bore the punishment in three hours that would have taken us an eternity to pay. That the holy God would do this for us is mind-boggling. But imagine, at this point, what it meant to Him. An eternity of perfect, holy, loving, fellowship is interrupted. There is no fellowship, only wrath. God the Father turns his back on the Son in judgment. Note the pronouns in the gospel account. Jesus says "Father" many many times, then while bearing our sins, he switches from the term of endearment and relationship to a more generic appellation: "My God, my God". We can not now nor through all eternity ever understand the full import of what that was like. This was the depth of the love of God for us, and our reconciliation to God was paid for by the break in fellowship between members of the godhead.
I have more to say about this but this is a good place to take a break. Please consider the love of God for us, and how if we leave out part of the truth about who Jesus was, the story loses its heart and just becomes an ironic tragedy or something, rather than the most profound love story ever. Oh the love of God!
to be continued...
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