Sometimes the loudest voice is the one that hardly speaks at all. That certainly was the case this week during and after the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The opening showcase found itself at the centre of a huge controversy as around the world christians and non-christians cried out at the parody of the last supper which appeared to be at the heart of the ceremony.
On social media a maddened crowd amassed until it could aptly be described by the Biblical verse Acts 2 v 32, “the frenzied crowd shouted out one thing, and others shouted out something else, until they were all in mass confusion with many, not even knowing why they were there”
The voices began on social media, and like a wildfire burned around the world, it wasn’t just christians who noticed, but people of every faith and no faith at all found themselves talking and listening to this moment, which overshadowed the art, artistry, beauty and performance that was the opening. I, like millions of Christians was both horrified and shocked by the mockery offered to our faith. Truth be told I was shocked, but not surprised, mockery of Christ and the open contempt for our most cherished values and institutions are now so common that statements that would’ve been radical and revolutionary in previous generations are so banal now that they are mainstream. So the voices began to cry out. First came the shock, then came the denials and the defenders as the Olympic committee sought to backpedal and gaslight the public. They pointed to other gods. It was about Dionysus and Bacchus they said. It was Sequana, goddess of the Seine who rode in on that lighted horse they tried to tell us, until posts (now deleted ) from one of the performers on social media, crowing about the “gay new testament”, gave the lie to their words.
So as the dust begins to settle, and the voices start to quiet, what remains? For me the voice I cannot help but hear is not the lovely voice of Céline Dion, which many thought had been silenced forever by disease, but another quiet voice. I hear the voice they tried to silence, I feel the presence they seek to deny, because suddenly across the world the name of Jesus is on everyone’s lips. I am reminded of G.K. Chesterton‘s poem.
The Donkey (reproduced here in part)
With monstrous head and sickening cry.
And ears like errant wings,
The devils walking parody.
On all four footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the Earth,
Of ancient crooked will:
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb!
I keep my secrets still!
Fools! I also had my hour
One far, fierce, hour and sweet:
there was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
2000 years ago when Christ came to Jerusalem, he sent his disciples ahead of him to prepare a place for him to eat his last supper with them. He told him to find a donkey on which he could enter into Jerusalem and if challenged, they were just to say, “the master has need of him”. We all got to watch Jesus eating his last meal with his disciples as “The Last Supper” was splashed across the media last week. Like the donkey in Chesterton‘s poem the devil‘s parody and mockery of this holy moment in history carried the presence of Jesus into the city of Paris and all over the world we felt him. As they flashed what should be kept hidden, to their chagrin, they unveiled the One they had wanted to hide. In mocking him, they only made an ass of themselves.
In da Vinci’s painting Christ sits in the centre, because he is the centre. The last supper was the prelude to the crucifixion but after the crucifixion came the resurrection. When Christ died and rose again from the dead he validated what he had taught; that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. As the debate raged last week whether what was depicted was right or whether it was wrong many failed to see that without Christ at the centre the very debate itself was meaningless. Because without God, without truth, there is no such thing as right and wrong. Around the figure of Christ, we see his disciples and his detractors trying to make sense of the moment using words such as freedom, love, inclusion and tolerance. As Tom Holland says “Today we are all like fish swimming in Christian water” because before Jesus’ time these concepts -freedom, love, inclusion, tolerance were so far from the norm of the culture but today due to the life and the teaching of Jesus Christ these concepts have so permeated our the world that we take them for granted.
In G.K. Chesterton’s poem, Christ is not mentioned at all, and yet his presence hangs in the air above the words. In a similar way, the presence of Jesus hangs over the Olympics as once again he comes riding into the world’s consciousness. Then, as now, his presence is humble and quiet. There are shouts of adulation and rejection in equal measure, but if we stop and listen carefully we may hear his voice.
His followers shout and seek to make him king, King of the world-but he hasn’t come for that. He is already the King of Kings. We have no more power to make him what he is, than his enemies have to make him something that he is not. Some in the crowd mock and jeer and believe that perhaps tomorrow they can crucify him out of the mind of the world, but all they managed to do is once again lift him up for all to see.
So, why has Jesus ridden into Paris? He’s at the centre of the painting and of our minds and of history because by his humiliation in death we saw the weak overcome the powerful, we saw the marginalised uplifted and the aliens become citizens of heaven. Simply put he came to die that we might live. He died for the powerful who arrested and crucified him. He died for Judas, who sold the privilege of being in his presence to make a quick buck. He died for the broken, the poor, the weary, the weak. He’s at the centre because he died for Peter who denied him, for the disciples who ran away in his hour of need. He died for slaves and masters, men and women, Jews and gentiles.
His presence was felt at the Parisian table because he came to die for the drag queens, who like the soldiers of Rome mock him, not knowing that in his eyes, and in his love they could find their truest identity. He died for the IOC, he died for the crowds on each bank of the Seine and who look on online. He died for each athlete making their way down the river carrying flags of nations he calls us to disciple.
And it grows quiet, all I hear is the steady beating of the blood in my ears and then I hear his voice like a whisper, he’s calling out my name.
He looks up and catches my eye, and I realise he has also come to be crucified for my sin, for me.
Can you see him, can you hear him now?