Musicals, Faith and Chocolate Eggs
My absolute favourite musical, since I saw it on stage at the age of 7, is Jesus Christ Superstar. I know, I know, Andrew Lloyd Webber. But musical taste doesn’t come into it when you’re 7 years old and it had never occurred to you that King Herod could dance the Charleston.
I still watch it every year on Good Friday (and you can too, since it’s currently on i-Player!), and thoroughly enjoy the high-campery. The libretto was, of course, written by a non-believer (Tim Rice) from the perspective of Judas, the disciple who so desperately wanted Jesus to be a revolutionary fighter that he sold him out to the authorities, in a bid to make him act. Yeah. That really backfired.
What I really love about this musical though (apart from the insane ‘70’s costumes, obvs), is the focus on Jesus’ humanity. He’s portrayed as tired, sometimes overwhelmed, angry and afraid of the end he sees is coming. This is a Jesus who doesn’t feel in control, and who is achingly vulnerable as the events of his last week of life overtake him. He rails against his impending death before he submits to it, and the audience are invited to question who he really is along with himself and Judas. This Jesus is entirely relatable, and far more human than God-like.
Having said this, it’s definitely a musical for Holy Week but not for Easter! Tim Rice and Andrew LW were telling the story of a man called Jesus who was potentially quite deluded – and so the musical ends with the crucifixion, and the disciples scattered and lost. It ends on Good Friday.
If you’re with Tim and Andrew, then this is fine – it’s a great story, powerfully told, and there’s the end to it. But to a Christian, I have to admit that it always feels like the last chapter’s missing. Like someone snuck into the library and tore the last few pages out of every book, so you never quite get closure. Like someone’s nicked off with your cup of tea before you’ve quite finished, so you spend the rest of the day with the half-cup-of-tea feeling. Whenever I watch JCS these days, I feel like I need to flip a Gospel open and read the last chapter, so that everything’s properly tied up.
Except that the story of Jesus is one that’s never really finished. Unlike a novel – unlike the Bible, even – there’s no last page to this story, for Christians. Instead, we believe that the story goes on in us, without end, just as Jesus proved, in rising again, that even death itself isn’t the end. It’s the resurrection that makes sense of Jesus’ life and ministry, and it’s the resurrection that meant people have carried on following his way for hundreds and hundreds of years after his time on earth. Just as you wouldn’t have Lent without Easter at the end, so you couldn’t have Jesus’ life without his death and resurrection at the end. In the Christian faith, times of sorrow are always followed by times of joy. The resurrection of Jesus is the thing that gives us hope, that keeps us going through hard times, and that brings us light even when the world seems very, very dark.
So, I hope you’ve all been having a splendid Easter, and one that has completely made up for any deprivations you imposed on yourself during Lent. I mean, if you haven’t eaten your own body weight in Cadbury’s Creme Eggs, is it even Easter?? There’s a story that when the early Church Fathers were working out the Christian calendar, they awarded 40 days to Lent, for fasting and repenting. But they gave 50 days to Easter, for joy and celebration. Why the extra 10 days? they were asked. They responded that we are very good at berating ourselves and feeling bad, but that we need at least 10 days’ extra practice in feeling glad, and happy, and worthy.
Unlike Jesus Christ Superstar, the Easter story has a happy ending. Not just because we get massive chocolate eggs to scoff (hopefully…), but because we have hope that whatever bad things may happen in this life, there is always something far, far better to come. Happy Easter!
By Revd Jane Speck – York St John University Chaplain
