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“JESUS, YOU DON’T REALLY MEAN THAT!” #5

THE UNSAINTLY SUPERSTAR

It had a song called “What’s the Buzz?”, and for a long time, the Christian reaction to Jesus Christ Superstar WAS itself the buzz. A double-album described by critics as a “rock musical” told the story of the last seven days of Jesus’ life, as seen through the eyes of Judas Iscariot. The plain brown record went on to become the best-selling album of 1971 here in the United States.

But what was the controversy? Many born-again believers didn’t just object to the edgy, rock ‘n’ roll music on the two records. Or to the fact that in the end of the very ambitious project, Jesus simply dies. There’s no resurrection, no hope, no indication that this Carpenter from Nazareth is anything other than a deluded street preacher whose dreams never came true.

But it’s the very human, sometimes frail character of Jesus Himself that caused such emotional response on the part of believers who consider Jesus to be the divine Son of God. Because, according to lyricist Tim Rice, this bearded Teacher with His female groupies and 12 fisherman devotees can get downright impatient with people. In the Upper Room, where Jesus is having the Last Supper with His men, He sighs in frustration:

“The end is just a little harder when brought about by friends. . . . I must be mad thinking I’ll be remembered — yes, I must be out of my head! Look at your blank faces! My name will mean nothing ten minutes after I’m dead.”

But the toughest scene of all is earlier in His ministry, where all sort of poor and lame people crowd around Jesus, requesting healing. Wanting a miracle. Begging for money. Expecting a favor. And the clamor grows to a swelling flood of insistent demands:

“See my eyes I can hardly see; See me stand I can hardly walk; I believe you can make me whole; See my tongue I can hardly talk. See my skin I’m a mass of blood;
See my legs I can hardly stand;
I believe you can make me well;
See my purse I’m a poor, poor man.”

And then they begin to push and shove and grab at this overworked Messiah:

“Will you touch, will you mend me Christ? Won’t you touch, will you heal me Christ? Will you kiss, you can heal me Christ? Won’t you kiss, won’t you pay me Christ?”

And it just keeps piling up, building up to an angry crescendo. And finally, Ian Gillan, lead singer of the rock group “Deep Purple,” playing the part of Jesus, shouts at them:

“There’s too many of you, don’t push me. There’s too little of me, don’t crowd me. Heal yourselves!!”

And there you have it. That’s the “Jesus” of Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s no wonder there were boycotts and letters to the editor.

But now, guess what? We can push aside this album liner with its offensive lyrics, and go instead to the reliable Word of God. And in Matthew 17, we find a hard-to-understand story that sounds eerily similar. It comes right after Jesus and three of His closest disciples travel up to the top of what scholars feel was probably Mount Hermon. The beautiful moment we know as the “Transfiguration” happens. Moses and Elijah appear with the divine Savior; God’s voice thunders through the hills that Jesus is His beloved Son. Peter, James, and John are in awe: so much so that Peter is reduced to being a dribbling lunatic. But the glow fades, the voice dies away, the rainbows recede, and the four men now go back down into the valley of humanity, where people are still hurting.

And a man whose boy has been taken over by a demon comes to Jesus, desperate for help. Here’s verse 15:

“‘Lord, have mercy on my son,’ he said. ‘He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not heal him.’”

Let’s remember that Jesus HAD given His 12 followers the power to heal the sick and cast out demons. You can read that back in chapter 10. But here, for some reason, their spiritual batteries had drained dry and the warranty had run out on their healing power. They tried to cast out demons, and the demons just laughed at them. But now let’s focus on what Jesus says to His disciples. Here’s verse 16:

“‘O unbelieving and perverse generation,’ Jesus replied, ‘how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to Me.’”

And Jesus, with just a word of power, did what nine strong men could not do. He “rebuked” the demon and it left. The boy was instantly fine.

But we still have these brutal, seemingly impatient words by Jesus. Here’s the way it sounds in The Message rendition:

“What a generation!” Jesus sighs. “No sense of God! No focus to your lives! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this?”

Another Bible scholar who’s put together his own personal “paraphrase” project called the Clear Word has Jesus saying this:

“What am I going to do with such faithless disciples? Will I ever be able to teach them the proper use of faith?”

Well, these transcripts sound cranky, don’t they? It seems like Jesus is impatient with His slow-witted followers. And do you know what? The Bible does reveal a God who raises His voice in warning when our sleepy laziness threatens to jeopardize our salvation, or damage the cause of Christ. Back in the Old Testament book of Numbers, God says to Moses and Aaron:

“How long will this wicked community grumble against Me?”

In Hebrews, the Bible writer refers back to that passage in his own letter. Here’s chapter three, verses 17-19:

“With whom was Moses angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were unable to enter, because of their unbelief.”

David was telling me about a probability theory math class he took many, many summers ago . . . and for some reason, the entire class got stuck on one concept. They simply could not grasp that the area of a probability space was one — or something like that. Time after time, the professor, a very gentle-spoken Dr. Rockwell, would have to explain it. And one day, when the length of the probability space was two, and that meant the height of it should be one-half — so that two times on-half could be one, like always, like every single other time — one student (David won’t admit if it was him) — asked The Question yet again. “Uh, how come? How come one half?” And for the millionth time, Rockwell explained, as if to a row of very small children. Finally, in a calm voice he said: “Class, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Even if . . .” And his voice trailed away, because what he wanted to say was so obvious: “Even if you’re a bunch of TV-watching, surfing, Cheeto-snacking, not-paying-attention, probably-going-to-flunk-and-go-on-welfare math morons!” He wanted to say it, but didn’t . . . and yet the implication was so clear that the class began to laugh. AND — they buckled down and learned the concept. David became a math teacher, and all the others went on to good careers as well, because the teacher cared enough to finally say: “Come on, you guys! This is important.”

Here in this difficult Matthew 17 passage, the disciples accept their tongue-lashing, and then later ask Jesus: “Uh, how come we couldn’t drive that demon out, even after You showed us how?” And Jesus tells them frankly, maybe for the 100th time:

“This kind can come out only by prayer.”

And as you read through the Gospels — especially this story and its context in Luke 9 — we find that the disciples were just not taking the whole mission seriously. “You’ve got to have real faith,” Jesus said. Well, what is real faith? It’s a total sacrificing of self and a complete reliance on God. It comes by fasting and prayer. And the disciples weren’t doing that. Jesus was getting up early and praying, but they weren’t. Jesus was sacrificing His own will, but His 12 followers were spending half their time arguing about which of them was the greatest. In fact, Luke’s version has this casting-out-demon failure and their big “I want to be prime minister” fight in the very same passage! And so Jesus says to them very frankly, “You want the power and the fame and the ticker tape from casting out demons, but you’ve gotten to where you think you can do it by yourselves, instead of humbly falling at heaven’s throne and asking your heavenly Father for help.” The NIV text notes add:

“The disciples apparently had taken for granted the power given to them or had come to believe that it was inherent in them. Lack of prayer indicated they had forgotten that their power over the demonic spirits was from Jesus.”

Friend, if you ever read in the Bible where Jesus sounds impatient, listen, it’s just because He’s impatient to have you safely in His family. Impatient to have His Father’s kingdom triumph and to have the demonic forces of hell driven to cover permanently. He’s the kind of tough-and-loving Teacher and Friend, the kind of superstar Savior you and I really need.