Saturday, April 19, 2014

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Who Are You? What Have You Sacrificed?

EASTER, 2014
Jesus Christ, Superstar was the musical hit of the 1970's.  The Andrew Lloyd Webber production was filmed on location in Israel.  In my younger days, it satisfied my agnostic bent to a large extent, with Judas, played wonderfully well by Carl Anderson, asking what seemed to me to be pertinent questions.  If Jesus was the Messiah, why did he pick such a backward time and such a strange land in which to appear?  Don't get me wrong, now, I only wanna know, sings Judas.

The movie was released in 1973, a year when my life began to bloom.  I had completed college and left my six year job as a chemical laboratory technician and moved into my first accounting job in San Francisco.  I also met and fell in love with the pretty little Asian girl who would become my wife.  It was a time of change, most of it positive.  My girl saw the movie with me.

Jesus Christ, Superstar, for me anyway, captures the joy, the hope, the excitement, the pain and sorrow of the crucifixion, but also includes the questions and doubts of many people like me.

Here are two of my favorite scenes from the movie; the one with Judas asking Jesus (Ted Neeley) who he is and why did he sacrifice himself?  Jesus Christ, Superstar -- do you think that you're what they say you are?

The other video below shows the talented Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, who sang one of my favorite songs of all time, "I Don't Know How to Love Him."




 

3 comments:

Always On Watch said...

Jesus Christ, Superstar was, IMO, a stroke of genius. The musical speaks to us on so many different levels. Happy Easter, Stogie!

bro said...

People then were not as backwards as today, They knew God was real, Jesus predicted there would be a great falling away in the latter times.

Stogie Chomper said...

Happy Easter AOW.