My mind is adrift. My emotions are swirling, untethered. It’s hard to focus on what I feel.
Being a man who is gay, everything to do with religion affects me. But this story, this story, gets me every time. When John legend as Jesus—while hanging on the cross at the end of Jesus Christ Superstar—said, “It is finished“ I began to weep. And through my tears I looked up at my ceiling and I asked, Why?
Why what? Does Jesus even hear me. Who cares? Why does it matter?
“I don’t know why he moves me. He’s a man. He’s just a man.”
I believe that Jesus existed. I can’t help myself. I grew up with it. I continually try to disbelieve it, but I can’t seem to let it go. Even if I really don’t have faith, I just can’t seem to let it go.
It’s hard for me to describe the feelings that washed over me as I watched Jesus’ story, as told in JCS unfold. It wasn’t my first time to see this musical, and I’ve heard this story all of my life. But as I mentioned in the opening sentence, I am broken. I was broken before tonight’s telling of the story started. So I’m looking up at my ceiling asking, Why. Expecting what...Jesus to answer?
I’m supposed to believe Jesus died for my sins, but as a gay man the Bible says I won’t see the kingdom of Heaven anyway so what’s the point? And yet I wept. Like Jesus wept, I wept. What was he weeping about? What was I weeping about? It’s just a story. Why does it affect me so? And why is it so enduring?
Beyond even my personal life experience with Jesus I was struck by the similarities of society today and the depiction of society then. We find a charismatic leader and we fall in love. We listen, we follow. Then we change our minds, we betray. Then comes the remorse. But by then the damage is done. Doesn’t that sound like today? Celebrity is everywhere. Nothing is really different. Nothing has changed. We mock, we poke fun at, we point and laugh, we call things #Fake(News). The media shapes the story. And then there’s Twitter...thank you Twitter.
We have no faith. Or the faith we have doesn’t last when tested. And we’re all tested. But we seem to move on to the next thing much more quickly. And we’ll betray he who we once followed just as quickly. Look at the Trump supporters who have already turned on him. (Of course this could apply to any leader in politics or faith). We protect ourselves. Isn’t that what Peter was doing when he betrayed Jesus three times in one night? Yes. He was protecting himself.
I myself don’t always have the courage of my convictions. I hate confrontation. And I avoid standing up for what I believe more often than not. I feel like a coward pretending to be brave, courageous.
Jesus, in his story, is courageous. Even as he asks his father, God, to take him now before he changes his mind. He goes. He submits. He faces. He dies.
Why does his story, his death, continue to affect me so? And why does his story, his death, continue the divide our country?
If Jesus was indeed a superstar, his story is one that alternately uplifts and disheartens.
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