Friday night we held a huge gig at the Manchester Apollo. The place was packed out with teenagers from local high schools, it was a great night. One of the highlights was the 'world premier' playing of Lz7's new pop video. We're hoping to get a million downloads of this in the next few months so go on, give it a click.
I've just finished watching the final episode of The Passion on BBC One. It's been a great little series, the recreation of ancient Jerusalem felt particularly convincing (of course how would I know what ancient Jerusalem looked like!). The emphasis on the three way power struggle was a great angle on the story, particularly the Caiaphas character. I loved the tension between the protectors of the present order, Pilate representing the political and military might of Rome and Caiaphas representing the religious and cultural establishment of the Jewish homeland, both under threat by the stranger from Galilee who speaks of a new way and a new world. It reminded me again of the contagious revolutionary DNA Jesus carried.
But today is Easter Sunday, and ever since the first episode I've been feeling that this series would ultimately stand or fall by how well the resurrection was rendered. So what do I think? Well hey, a damn sight better than Jesus Christ Superstar which doesn't even include the resurrection, and I hesitate to say, even better than Mel Gibson's version with it's short but very sweet resurrection moment from inside the tomb looking out. Even so, it was still a tad underwhelming. The producer, Nigel Stafford-Clark, references Mark's gospel as his key source which may well be the problem, it's probably the least potent of the four resurrection accounts. If only he'd taken a broader creative approach the scenes could've been so much stronger, even simple touches like the location and the lighting would've helped as the dusty old hillside he used just had zero atmosphere. However, what saved it for me was the inclusion of the Emmaus road encounter (albeit with James and Matthew). I did find it genuinely moving to see their reaction as the guy they're eating with starts to break bread and then reveals his true face before their eyes.
I'm really looking forward to the BBC miniseries due to start on Sunday. There is no greater drama than those scenes surrounding Jesus of Nazareth during that fateful Passover festival 2000 years ago. For a few short days the Jerusalem air was filled with a heady cocktail of parody, irony, anger, love, justice, corruption, betrayal, loss, hope and belief. The world has never been the same.
"...but this is a Christian nation!" So ends another whining diatribe against the latest secular or islamic or humanistic or homo-erotic or politically correct initiative / incident / news story.
Two things collided this week to remind me again just how misguided these passionately held sentiments are. Firstly, I've been reading the Old Testament books of Jeremiah and Daniel, alongside Brueggemann's 'The Prophetic Imagination'. Then, midweek, Channel 4 showed 'Kingdom of Heaven' and whilst the film as a whole was largely a disappointment to me it was still thought provoking on a number of levels. At one point in the film Jeremy Irons delivers a line about Jerusalem (and I wish I could remember it) that evokes the contradiction at the heart of that much used phrase "Christian nation." The blood that has been shed over that dusty bit of land is utterly heinous. Jesus himself made it absolutely clear that his intention was not to establish a Kingdom with geographic borders but a Kingdom defined by a Way of life, exemplified by people of every ethnos living in relationship with him and harmony with one another.
And where do Jeremiah and Daniel fit into that? Well they are just two of the characters we meet in the grand timeline of biblical history who are doing exactly what we (Christians in 21st Century Britain) ought to be doing - working out by our daily choices and actions exactly what it means to honour God and live for him in the midst of a society that revolves around a very different centre of gravity. The quirk of global history known as Christendom is over and we find ourselves living out the same question as our biblical forebears - those who sweated in Egypt, wept in Babylon and faced down Caesar's lions... "How can we prove the value of our convictions over-against the current socio-political backdrop?"
Forrest Gump was an endearing character and when the film came out in 1994 it took the world by storm. It won 6 oscars (nominated for 13), it had a top selling soundtrack, it tapped into something. Yes, he was slow, simple and made sense of the world around him through his mothers childish proverbs. But as Forrest Gump blundered through life amazing things happened to him and he did amazing things.
And that touches us deep inside.
Because we yearn for simplicity in a complicated world.
We shrink from the responsibility of being grown up.
It’s comforting to believe that we’re OK as we are, that we don’t need to change, that good things will happen to us because we’re good people.
And so we can make a nice comfortable theology for ourselves by plucking verses from here and there; that we don’t need to worry because God clothes the flowers of the field, or that we must simply come to him as little children, or that his house has many rooms and one day he’ll come and take us there… but who are we trying to kid? Jesus did not live a Forrest Gump style existence! Neither did he appear on the earth as a finished product - an all-knowing rugrat revealing universal mysteries at the Bethlehem mums and tots group. He needed to grow into all his human potential just like we do. The bible says that he, "grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men." (Luke 2:52) Later it says that "in all things" we need to "grow up into him". (Ephesians 4:15)
No matter how much we want our growing pains to come to an end we should just think first what it really means to stop growing... it means we start dying.
I'm not a big movie buff, nor am I a great reader of fiction, but whenever a new work appears to great applause and acclaim I tend to do what I can to find out what the fuss is all about. That's the way I came across both Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and The Life of Pi (2002).
What's powerful about these two great works of imagination, and the reason I link them together here, is that they invite the viewer/reader into a new (or ancient) way of seeing, interpreting and understanding the world. They both use the perspective of a child to achieve this, to spellbinding effect. In each case the children, who are experiencing great danger and uncertainty, contend with their circumstances by drawing on the latent power of stories.
What I found most provocative about the film and the book is that whilst the children's realities are at odds with the realities of the adults in whose worlds they coexist they possess a compelling depth of insight. Indeed at the deeper metaphysical level of conveying meaning their 'truth' is unsurpassed. At the end of the film and at the end of the book I was left with exactly the same residual feeling: I must keep the child in me alive.
