I just finished watching and listening to the 2012 Arena performance of Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Jesus Christ Superstar". This is how I started my birthday today. My husband was still sleeping and I watched it in my office on my computer with head phones. What's the saying?... "I still have goosebumps." Wow. What an incredible performance and the amazing vocals of Tim Minchin are what inspired me to add this to my birthday celebration.
I am a big Tim Minchin fan... and he knocked this one out of the park. He is joined by an amazing cast and amazing performances by Ben Forster as Jesus and Melanie C. as Mary Magdalene.
I'm not a big opera fan, but I just added this to my collection of movie favourites.
This is now my favourite Jesus movie. Why? Because the show ends and they don't bring him back to life. There is no resurrection of Jesus... but Judas came back to life... or did he? Very artistic and poetic justice. This wouldn't do good in the marketing department of Christianity. But this is art at it's best.
A lot of lines stick out for me, but this one sticks out the most. "Who are you, what have you sacrificed?" Profound question. Some would say not much... Matt Dillahunty commented that Jesus "had a bad weekend". Was that really a sacrifice? I guess we'll never really know. We are all two thousand years past the story.
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I wanted to conclude Authentic Lent with Tim, because of my planned watching of JSC... but also because I wanted to end it with music. The deep dive into all the incredible minds has been great, but I need to let my mind rest and allow my body to move with the music. I will conclude with some of my favourite Tim Minchin songs. He has been an incredible influence both with music and with his intellect. I think I will be watching JSC at least one more time today if not twice.
