My (somewhat) complicated history with Jesus Christ Superstar

Posted on April 10, 2018April 11, 2018 by Matt Todd

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I’ve been a fan of the music from Jesus Christ Superstar ever since I was in high school. Since I first encountered Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera, I’ve had a somewhat complicated relationship with one of the more controversial productions about the man Jesus Christ.

Here’s how my story goes…

Basketball Pep Band

As with any high school basketball pep band, we had our go-to favorite songs to play during timeouts. Some of the favorites from our repertoire included You Can Call Me Al.* I seem to remember that some of our Saxophones liked playing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULjCSK0oOlI

Another favorite was I Got the Music in Me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQRW7J_D0U

Oh, man. That driving bass line was intense. As a tuba, I kind of had a love/hate relationship with this song. It was so fun to play that bass part. But if we happened to drag the tempo for even a split second, the entire thing could spiral out of control. So there was a lot of pressure to keep a steady beat. But we were The Tubas. We were up to it.

That’s what we told ourselves, anyway.

Then there was Jesus Christ Superstar.

The trombones played Judas’s part during the verses. They would always rush. A lot. It bugged me, but it was still a fun song to play. By the end of the song, things were almost out of control. We were probably playing the song more than three times faster than when we started. It was a borderline train wreck by the final note. But like I said, it was fun. Most of the time.

This was my first exposure to any music from Jesus Christ Superstar. I remember talking to dad about the song one night. At the time, I didn’t realize it was from a musical. I didn’t even know there were lyrics to the song. He recited a line from the chorus to me: “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, do you think you’re who they say you are.” And he informed me that a couple of songs from that musical were actually pretty well-known in the 70s.

That shocked me for some reason. I can’t tell you why. How was it that a musical could have a popular song on the radio. I guess I had forgotten the whole “Memory” craze from Cats.

Selective amnesia, I’m sure.

A free CD

Sometime around my Sophomore year, or maybe early in my Junior year, I was at Aunt Patsy’s house and she had this giant trash bag full of CDs she wanted me to go through. I could take any of the CDs that I wanted. Apparently they were defects. They were destined for the trash heap when Aunt Patsy rescued them.

I sorted through the albums and didn’t find many that interested me. Except one. That’s right. Jesus Christ Superstar.

I think it had the wrong album cover – it was the Broadway recording but it had the cover from the film, which would explain why it was in the trash heap – but I digress…

I popped that CD into a CD player and instantly fell in love with the music I heard. It had funk. It had some wild vocals. And it was the story of Passion Week told from a perspective that I hadn’t really heard very much in churches. It told the story of Jesus as a man.

I was hooked.

You know how I’ve talked about how I chose to live under a pop cultural rock, listening only to Metallica along with Simon and Garfunkel? That might have been a little bit of an exaggeration. DC Talk was always in that rotation. And once I heard this album, I listened to it nonstop while I was driving my silver Dodge 600 with a black top.

There’s one thing that really bothered me about the album, though. The final track in the album is titled John Nineteen Forty-one. John 19:41. It’s part of the Passion Story. And it marks the end of this rock opera.

That’s not the whole story, though.

That’s not where the story ends as told in the Gospels. From what I could tell from the music I listened to over and over and over again, Jesus Christ Superstar was stuck on Saturday. And this was problematic.

But that music. That music was oh so good. So I continued to listen to it.

When I was in undergrad at Milligan, Jesus Christ Superstar was required viewing in one of my classes. OK. So it wasn’t exactly “required.” But we had the option to watch it for credit in a class.

I took Life of Christ with Dr. Magness during my Junior year of college.⁺ One of the projects for the class involved watching two out of three (or maybe four) films about Jesus’ ministry and writing a paper that compared and contrasted these films with the way Jesus was portrayed in the Gospels. I don’t remember which film was the second one that I chose. It might have been Jesus of Montreal. But I do remember the first one that I watched. I know this will shock you.

It was Jesus Christ Superstar.

I had seen clips from the film before. I knew it was a bit of a trip. But even though I was a big fan of the music, I’d never watched the film. Due to the things I was paying attention to for the class project, I was especially interested in the end of the film. I knew how the Broadway soundtrack ended. But I was focused on whether the film included the resurrection or not.

I didn’t see any reference to the resurrection. While I wasn’t surprised, I was still a little disappointed. My friend, Greg Pas, however, argued that there was a hint at the resurrection. In the very final shot, when you see the empty cross against a setting sun, there’s a faint silhouette of a person walking on the horizon. Greg believed that this was a hint at the resurrection.

I wasn’t convinced.

I still don’t think I am.

But you could be. And that’s OK. I’ve got no issue if you believe there’s a resurrection at the end. It’s not worth arguing about at this point. Because even if Jesus Christ Superstar ended with a very clear shot of Jesus walking out of an empty tomb, there are plenty of other troublesome parts that stick out in this story. They have always given me pause.

Some more troublesome parts of Jesus Christ Superstar

Judas

It’s very clear they are telling this story from Judas’s perspective (perhaps that’s why there isn’t an overt reference to the resurrection?). Because of that, there are times when it feels like the story is sympathetic to Judas’s case. Here are a few examples:

In the opening song, Heaven on their Minds, Judas makes it clear who he thinks Jesus is. He doesn’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God. He says that Jesus never mentioned that in the beginning, and he says he’s been Jesus’ “right hand man” the whole time. So he should know. Right? But once Jesus got a following, the crowds started getting out of hand – and so did Jesus’ thoughts about himself. It’s clear that Judas thinks that Jesus let the hype go to his head. He read too many of his own headlines. And now, right before the Triumphal Entry, Judas is sure that they’re on a dangerous track. And he needs to stop all of this Son of God talk.

Judas makes it very clear throughout the rock opera: Jesus is not a King. He’s not God. He’s not the Son of God. Judas sings that “He’s a man. He’s just a man….He is just the same as any man I know.” And Judas believes he knows how Jesus should implement his ministry. Jesus just keeps getting it wrong, taking the wrong step, making the wrong choice, in Judas’s eyes. If Jesus had only listened to Judas, he wouldn’t have found himself in such a dire situation in Jerusalem.

OK. I get it. That might be understandable. I mean, Judas is the man who betrayed Jesus. It’s a good bet that he didn’t really believe in the divinity of Jesus. Nevermind the fact he saw it over and over again with his own two eyes.

But…what about Mary?

Mary Magdalene

She sings the same thing. “I don’t know how to take this, I don’t see why he moves me. He’s a man. He’s just a man.
And I’ve had so many men before in very many ways, he’s just one more.”

She says the same thing here. The person who, according to Jesus Christ Superstar, has the closest relationship with Jesus, says that Jesus is nothing but a man. No hint of the Divine within him.

Some people make a big deal about the premise that Jesus and Mary were in a relationship – that maybe they were even married. Almost 2,000 years of tradition say that Jesus was not married. But I don’t see any reason why Jesus having a wife should be a problem. Marriage is not a sin. In fact, the Church teaches quite the opposite. This is, in fact, a nonissue that media outlets try to blow out of proportion every few Easters or so, just to increase their audience.

That being said, I had never heard of this theory that Jesus and Mary were lovers. Until Jesus Christ Superstar, that is. And while I don’t believe it’s problematic, I get that this does cause controversy.

Jesus

It is very clear in the Gospels that Jesus is in complete control every step of the way during his betrayal, arrest, and trials.‡ But that’s not the sense you get while watching Jesus Christ Superstar. Jesus is caught up in the moment. The religious and political machine has swept him away. And while the circus-type atmosphere is in both the Gospels and Jesus Christ Superstar, Superstar makes it appear that Jesus has lost all control of what’s going on. He’s a victim of higher powers. He’s not THE higher power who has orchestrated all of this since the foundation of the world.

It’s a subtle difference on the surface. But it’s a big deal. It’s clear that Jesus doesn’t really think (or know) that he is the Son of God in Jesus Christ Superstar.

And that’s problematic.

The Gospels portray Jesus as a healer. A miracle worker. He can make the lame to walk, the blind to see, and has even risen the dead. It’s a good bet that many people in the crowd showed up because they wanted to see some kind of show when they followed Jesus.** There’s a similar attitude in Jesus Christ Superstar. But Jesus can’t keep up. He is consumed by those seeking healing. In the end of this scene, he shouts something that’s ripped out of its Gospel context: “Heal yourselves!”

A foolish mission.

Characters seem to take an extra level of joy in saying that Jesus is a fool. His mission is foolish. Outsiders take advantage of him. Judas, Pilate, and the crowds don’t understand why he makes the choices he makes. He is certainly unwise to the patterns of this world.

Does this contradict the gospel? Nope. In fact, it’s pretty obvious throughout the Gospels and the letters from the Apostle Paul that Jesus’ mission was foolish. It defied logic. It proclaimed the Kingdom of God to the least of these, not the most powerful of these. He spent his time with the sick, the poor, and the outcast. He turned everything upside down. The King of the Kingdom of God was not like anyone expected. And choosing to die on a cross for the very people who were mocking him and demanding his very public, very painful execution?

Foolishness, indeed.

But there’s something different in Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s almost like there’s a certain amount of glee in telling Jesus that he’s a fool. Maybe that’s more true to the original story than I’d like to event. But it sticks out rather obviously. It’s like they’re trying to prove a point.

We get it. What kind of God allows himself to be tortured and executed after preaching peace, goodwill, and healing to the masses? Only a fool. Right?

Without the resurrection, that might be true. I might even agree with you. But there it is again. That pesky resurrection.

It changes everything. Doesn’t it?

Here’s what Jesus Christ Superstar gets right

Jesus was a man.

Jesus Christ Superstar does a pretty good job of reminding us that Jesus of Nazareth was, in fact, a man. That’s important because there’s a certain amount of tension when contemplating the nature of the Incarnation and how Jesus could be both fully God and fully Human. There’s a tendency to attempt to ease this tension by minimizing, or flat-out denying, the humanity of Jesus. That, friends, is what we call Docetism. And it’s heresy. It’s been around since the Early Church. And it still rears its ugly head today. It’s one of those heresies that just won’t go away.++

All of that being said, it’s apparent that sometimes, even unintentionally, we forget in our church services that Jesus was a real, living human being. I think one of my professors said it best:

“Jesus Christ Superstar helped me realize that Jesus was a real man…I was 21 before I realized that Jesus wasn’t made of flannel.” ~ Dr. Street

There is a tendency to emphasize the deity of Jesus over his humanity. Jesus Christ Superstar swings the pendulum the other way, forcing the audience to remember that Jesus was also human. I realize the purpose might not be as holy as I wish, but it does a good job showing that Jesus really did have emotions – even anger, sadness, and feelings of isolation. Most movies and Easter pageants that I’ve seen fail to do that.

Jesus before King Herod

King Herod, much like the crowds, had heard about the miraculous signs and wonders that Jesus had performed. He wanted to meet Jesus so he could be wowed by a show, as described in Luke 23:8. Jesus Christ Superstar captures the circus that Herod hoped for.

https://youtu.be/JVapiOu7Hkc

“Prove to me that you’re divine and turn my water into wine…
Prove to me that you’re no fool. Walk across my swimming pool.”

I think the rock opera does a great job of capturing the atmosphere described in the Gospel of Luke. Herod really didn’t care about who Jesus was. Herod was king. And he made it very clear that he believed that he alone was royalty.

Remembering the timeline of events

While this might be a small thing, I think it’s still worth noting. Up until I started listening to the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack, I had trouble remembering the order of Jesus’ trials. Now that I know the songs and remember the order in which they appear, I also remember when Jesus appeared before Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod, and Pilate (again). I could never get that straight before.

What to do with this Jesus Christ Superstar?

I know some people who believe Jesus Christ Superstar is a lie from the pit of hell. And they might have a valid argument. I know others who used to love the musical, but now consider it “childish things” in regards to their spiritual development. They have a valid argument, too.

I watched Jesus Christ Superstar with my daughter. She asked many questions. It surprised me that she did not recognize parts of the story. I encouraged her to go back to the Scriptures to read the story. And that’s the main thing we need to remember about any of these films that portray Christ…Godspell, The Passion of the Christ, Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus of Montreal, even The Jesus Movie…go back to the Scriptures and see how these line up. Because, as followers of Jesus, that’s where the we turn. Jesus movies can be a gateway to the Good News. But they just give a taste. For a variety of reasons, including the difficulty (if not impossibility) of a visual medium to communicate everything in a written medium (or an oral medium, for that matter).

I have watched NBC’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar twice, now. I have to admit that while the final scene is a pretty amazing special effect, I felt a little…icky watching it. Because I knew they had just spent all this time emphasizing that Jesus was just a man and that he was not God or the Son of God and they ended the story with his crucifixion. No resurrection.‡‡ And it just didn’t sit well with me.

Am I going to hell because I enjoy the music of Jesus Christ Superstar? I sure hope not. Are you damned for all time because you watched this rock opera. I doubt it. The freedom available through the crucified and risen Jesus gives the believer a whole lot of leeway. But we’re also told to pursue things that are edifying to each other and glorifying to the risen Savior. If you can do that while watching Jesus Christ Superstar, that’s great.

Personally?

The jury’s kind of out for me. I’m not sure how I’ll feel about this rock opera in the coming years. But for now? I’m enjoying the songs from the soundtrack (plus a funky mashup of Jesus Christ Superstar songs and Reckless Love) that have been continually running through my head for the past month.

“Everything’s alright. Yes, everything’s fine.”

Endnotes

*My goal was to find videos of high school pep bands playing these songs. I wound up finding myself going down a Drum Corps rabbit hole, watching the Madison Scouts 1999 Jesus Christ Superstar show, their 2016 Judas show (with music from Jesus Christ Superstar), and searching for the rather elusive, almost mythical 1989 Blue Devils botched solo during the Finals (I’ll let you search for that one on your own). Holy cow, y’all. I went deep into the archives and almost didn’t make it back. That’s time I’ll never get back. But I’m pretty sure it was worth it. Yeah. It was worth it. I’m not even ashamed to admit it. I probably need help, y’all. Is there some kind of support group or something out there for this type of issue. Right?

⁺I wound up taking this class after taking the class about the Book of Acts during my Sophomore year. If you know the story of Jesus and the early Church, you know that this out of order. Why did I wind up taking the classes out of order? It has nothing to do with a blonde girl with beautiful eyes who I tried to spend every waking moment with before we ever officially started dating. Nope. Not at all.

‡One of my favorite sermons is based on this principle. If you don’t think Jesus is in control of the entire situation, read the message, Put Down Your Swords, here.

**Don’t believe me? Read John 6. Jesus feeds 5,000. He and the Disciples leave. Jesus winds up walking on water. The crowd searches for Jesus, looking for a “sign” (read: miracle – they want to be fed again). That’s what they’re asking for in verses 30 and 31. Instead of giving them another show or telling them to “Heal yourselves,” he gives them a “hard teaching” – “Eat my body. Drink my blood.” And then John 6:66 happens – many stopped following Jesus. That might be one of the saddest verses in the Gospels.

++Of course, denying the divinity of Jesus is also a heresy (cf. First Council of Nicea). And Jesus Christ Superstar comes pretty close to doing that. Some argue that it does do that.

‡‡Please spare me the argument that the curtain call counts as a resurrection. It’s lame. And hardly as noticeable as an empty tomb was. If it’s really a reference to the resurrection, it’s a cop-out.

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Matt Todd

Howdy. I'm Matt. My wife, Christy, and I have four kids and two dogs, I'm passionate about orphan care. I'm a die-hard fan of the Evansville Aces, the Indiana Hoosiers, and Star Wars. I'm trying to live life by the Todd family motto: "It behooves us to live!"