Okay, so maybe I'm feeling a little overdramatic and a touch grandiose. Hopefully nobody finds this offensive (because if you do, there's more coming and you should probably go back to Susan Boyle and/or lolcats) It's just that, as inevitably happens, my paper writing anguish has now intensified. I have left behind Stage 1 "Book Report on Peter Rabbit" distress and have moved on to full-on "take this cup away from me" dread. All alone, looking down the barrel of some deadline, wishing there were a way out but knowing that there is no turning back now.
"Gethsemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar. This is one of those rare songs whose music tells the story just as much as its lyrics. And the Jesus in this scene is so alone. I am so glad that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Co. had the courage and artistic integrity to let him go there. At one point he screams at God, "Watch me die," and the music kicks into this tragic, epic, relentless death march as photos of famous paintings and sculptures depicting the crucifixion flash up on the screen, one after the other, mercilessly.
I've mentioned on this blog before that this Jesus is my Jesus, and I was gratified to read on YouTube that there are plenty of others who feel the same way. Most, if not all of the Biblical scenes in Jesus Christ Superstar are from the Gospel of John, which I've got on the brain. I'm supposed to have an oral exam on it on Sunday. I had forgotten how beautiful it is. It's so passionate and poetic. This semester we read the Gospels of Matthew and John. I went into it assuming I would like Matthew the best. As my gf says, "Matthew has got all of Jesus' greatest hits" - the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, plus it's definitely the book in the Bible that best proves that while God may be a Republican, Jesus is definitely a Democrat. It's the one where he tells the rich man who wants to follow him but can't part with his stuff that it's harder to for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
At the same time I thought I would not like John because instead of preaching about compassion and taking care of the poor and less fortunate, in the Gospel of John, Jesus and all of the other 'main' characters are obsessed with his identity and supposed divinity. The Gospel of John is where the phrase "born again" comes from. which is the Protestant equivalent of that which Protestants are baffled by in Catholicism. Protestants do not have a pope, relics, transubstantiation, or rosary beads, but are instead fixated primarily on being "saved." Getting saved is something that happens to both nonbelievers living in non-Christian countries and to atheists, but more often it happens to people brought up in the church. Instead of going to the Vatican and buying a souvenir that has been blessed by the Pope, a saved, born again Christian has to be able to point to a specific, often emotional, conversion experience that has occurred at a particular point in time. The day you are saved is the most important day of your life. Once you are saved, you become a completely different person. You have "accepted Jesus Christ" into your heart, as your Personal Lord and Savior, and once you have "Got Jesus," as a bumper sticker currently in circulation puts it, you now have to get as many people saved as you can, because without salvation they are going to hell to suffer the worst torment possible for eternity. There are no 'mortal sins' in Protestantism. There is no semi-saved state. You are either saved or not saved, and it makes no difference if you are Pol Pot or Lenny Bruce - both are currently burning in hell, and only because (we assume) they were not Saved. Being saved is the orgasm, it is the Super Bowl. It is the reason that Evangelical churches tend to be devoid of architectural majesty, mystery and musical sublimity, because what matters is not the way in which any project is carried out. All that matters is that there is a final product, and the most important product is salvation and making sure that as many people as possible get saved before they die or before Jesus returns, whichever comes first. It's why we have Interstates and strip malls, and why we elected George W. Bush President twice. It's the reason why so many Protestant Christians are so sanguine about the idea that the world might end because of global warming, since The World does not matter and was going to be destroyed at some point anyway. It is the ultimate victory of function over form.
John 3:16 is the e=mc2 of evangelical Protestantism. It is the focal point of the Bible, sucking up into itself anything that looks like it might taste good, be beautiful, intriguing, outrageous, or humorous.
This is the Good News. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
And this is the Bad News:
18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
The part that scares me is where it says "he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." I've always read that and thought how sick it is to go on about how much God loves you, when if you don't love him back, he's unfortunately going to have to stick you in hell forever to roast in unbearable torment. What if you just don't have that faith? You can't just fake it.
But, looking at it again--and I am pretty sure I am not reading this in some kind of gay, French, San Francisco-style liberal way-- it says "he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." Maybe that's it. That's the condemnation. NOT believing. And if you think that sounds like heresy, just look at the next verse, which pretty much confirms what I just said, "And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."
That's hell. Missing the Love Boat. Maybe that is so wonderful that just to stay your same old, shallow, resentful, bitter self feels like eternal, Old School Hell by contrast. What if the mode of life that so many of us experience as 'normal' is actually what has been Hell all along?
It's funny, but Jesus kind of reminds me a little bit of Socrates.... posted by Lisa #
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