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What Would Jesus Say If He Saw Me Now?

1/31/2009   

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.” (Isaiah 5:20)

A new 2800-seat performing arts center opened in the community in which Robbie and I live. It’s a wonderful facility, and its operator announced last year that it would sponsor a series of four Broadway plays this year. We were so excited we bought tickets to all four productions as soon as they went on sale and could not wait for the first production, “Rent”.

Here’s where our naiveté is going to show up. We both knew that “Rent” was a musical about a group of young people living in New York City, one of who was dying of AIDS and wanted to write a song before he died. We thought the story line was a warm one and maybe, just maybe, we could draw something from the story that would help us better understand the plight of those afflicted with a disease that has a 100% death rate.

The production was sold out and the excitement was obvious as we made our way to our seats. When the play began, however, we soon realized that “Rent” was not for us. We were offended, not by the story, but by the language and the immorality that the musical seemed to emphasize at the expense of what we thought could have been a great story to tell. At one point, one of the actresses even mooned the audience. We could not believe our ears and eyes.

I looked at Robbie and said, “I sure hope Jesus doesn’t come back tonight. I do not want Him to find me here!” She agreed and we immediately left the theatre offended, surprised and disappointed.

Both of us later discussed the musical with our office workers and friends. No one seemed very surprised but us about what we saw and heard. “I can’t believe y’all went,” one friend told Robbie. A co-worker told me, “I thought about you when I saw it on Thursday night. How long did you stay?”

What surprised me the most is how no one seemed to agree with us that the musical went way over the line. One co-worker told me, “I guess you’re a little too conservative to sit through a musical like that one”.

Conservative was the wrong label to explain my reaction to “Rent”. Political philosophy had absolutely nothing to do with our reaction to it. It offended our Christian principles. What I could not believe is the number Christians I know who attended and thought it was great.

The Bible talks about the day when wrong will seem right and right will appear to be wrong. That’s exactly what’s going on here. We have become so desensitized to vulgar language, nudity and immorality that we sometimes do not recognize it when we see it.

The Scripture verse I used includes the word, “woe”. Woe is used frequently in the Bible - depending upon which translation you use, around 125 times. Just about every time you see this word used in Scripture, it represents an alarm call – usually a denunciation, or a foreshadowing of God’s wrath.

Isaiah prophesied that the day would come when even Christians would have a hard time distinguishing right from wrong, or good from evil. I saw that played out last Saturday night. What scares me is while I recognized it this time, I am quite sure I don’t see it so vividly every time. And that truth, my friends, should scare us all!

posted by Mike Ruffin on 1/31/2009