As Jesus does in His Sermon on the Mount, so the music of Superstar does. It jolts us out of spiritual complacency. Because these are very human emotions and expectations, human fears and anxieties sung in this now-classic work. Very human. Very real. Too real! Too human! And that’s a problem for a spiritual Christianity, which is never too comfortable with the human element of our faith. Especially when it comes to Jesus.
Sermons
Just listen to people on either side of an issue talk about each other. How Packer fans and Viking fans talk about each other, for instance. The words people on either side of the national health care debate use to describe each other. How different groups down in Madison have been characterizing each other this past week. The other side just can’t see straight. They must be idiots. They must be out to ruin things for everybody. If people get particularly riled up, we hear accusations that begin, “This is just like what the Nazis were doing.” If it has something to do with religious issues, then the wrong side of the debate are the enemies of God, and are probably going to get what’s coming to them in the end anyway.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:27-30 ESV)
Christ came and died for us who had no spiritual identity, who had no assurance of who we were and what we were to do. Through His blood, he brings us near to God. Through His Cross we have been reconciled to God. “Through Him we have access in one Spirit to the Father.” (Eph 2:17) In our baptisms, we have been called out of our former lives, we have been given new identities. Who we are and what we do has been drastically changed. And through the Word of God, read and heard at home and in worship, and the Body and Blood of Christ that we partake of, we continue to be shaped in that identity.