This weekend I watched the movie Jesus Christ, Superstar. I don’t think I had ever seen the movie before, though I loved the sound track when I was a teenager. I mean I loved it, playing it over and over and singing along with abandon.
The movie is pretty dated by this time. It’s from the hippy days – maybe even into disco – and looked it. Still, I could handle that – I’m an old hippy myself.
<- Me in the 1960s.
What bothered me was the attitude. Both Jesus and Judas were treated as little more than puppets, acting out parts assigned to them by the puppet-master, God. Both were portrayed as confused and wondering where it all went wrong. Worse, God as puppet-master was presented as sadistic, playing games with people’s lives; and since there was no resurrection in the movie, for no particular purpose at all. People were left grief-stricken, confused, and hopeless. How sad!
The only person with any real adult humanity was Pilate who tried over and over to free Jesus, but got no help from either the prisoner or those who accused him. This is, of course, just the opposite of what we read in the gospels, where the sole puppet-like figure is Pilate, manipulated by the religious leaders to do what they wanted. The only choices he had were to condemn Jesus or to throw away his career over an unknown Galilean – for a Roman, no real choice at all.
It’s a relief that in the Bible, Peter, Mary Magdalene, and the other disciples were not left bereft. The risen Christ brought them joy, hope, and an incredible new purpose in life. Could Christianity have risen from the dispirited bunch of followers in the movie? Not likely. I’m so glad the reality was different
