Good Friday: The Musical

"Jesus Christ Superstar", the 1973 version, not the remake of 2000. That one might be worthy of its own consideration. Judas Iscariot is an understandable figure. Jesus the man is growing in his own ego. His preaching and teaching are going to challenge the political order. Those teachings will bring on the wrath of the Romans. He must be stopped.

Jesus, preacher, teacher, frowning as he considers where the trail he leads must end. He is wrestling with the reality that he is going to become a political liability. Two scenes about him strike me. One is when the infirmed and the ill gather around him, all in rags, more like a zombie scene out of "Night of the Living Dead", surrounding Jesus, pressing in on him, until he disappears beneath their weight. Not the Jesus the Bible teaches me about.

The second is the endpoint. They crucify him, he dies, thus endeth the trouble. Judas kills himself out of guilt, Pilate has washed his hands of the matter-he was rather wimpy for the Roman governor of a troublesome province, Caiphas can mark off one more political reason for the Romans to crack down. It is like the ending of Mark without the verses 'added later'. It stops at Good Friday, it stops at the death of Jesus, then a shot of an empty cross...just in case we Christians got it right.

Then Mary Magdalene, falling into the prostitute tradition. She is not someone the 'movement' should be associated with according to Judas, bad PR. The girlfriend of, the lover of, comforter of Jesus, a foreshadowing of the married Jesus Dan Brown touts in The Da Vinci Code.

Then the disciples, bunch of dummies, "What's the buzz, tell me what's a happening..."

And yet I liked it. The music I grew up with-one of the few albums not classical in the house. It was a phenomenon in the Philippines, where I was living when it was released. Then again, every Good Friday is a phenomenon in the Philippines. It was like how I enjoyed the Da Vinci Code, a nice piece of fiction, divorced from my Lord of the Scriptures.

And they played it like that. At the opening, the bus pulls up, the actors and crew pile out, at the end, they strike the set and leave. It was just a story, not the Truth, not the witness, not the gospel.