In Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas sings Heaven On Their Minds, expressing his concern about how Jesus’ influence was getting dangerously out of hand. With a hindsight of 2000 years, let us look at how Judas’ forewarning fared over the centuries.
If Jesus really did exist, it would not be impossible for his fans’ delusion to also get into his head. After all, he was only human. Other humans even took after him, but while most of us readily dismiss these modern-day messiahs as frauds, we do not apply the same skepticism to someone who claimed as such 2000 years ago..
Listen Jesus I don’t like what I see All I ask is that you listen to me And remember I’ve been your right hand man all along You have set them all on fire They think they’ve found the new Messiah And they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong .
Unfortunately, most of them never found out they were wrong. And the ones they hurt were those who would not acknowledge their beliefs.
I remember when this whole thing began No talk of God then, we called you a man And believe me My admiration for you hasn’t died But every word you say today Gets twisted ’round some other way And they’ll hurt you if they think you’ve lied .It got twisted so badly that countless people got killed because of a lie. The problem with Jesus’ teachings is that he never wrote them down himself. It was always his disciples who wrote, “Jesus said…”. That itself is already hearsay. Compound that with the fact that there were no printing presses at that time, so stories were passed on verbally or written manually from generation to generation. If Jesus really did exist, we cannot know for sure if those red-letter passages in the Bible were really spoken by him.
Nazareth’s most famous son Should have stayed a great unknown Like his father carving wood He’d have made good Tables, chairs and oaken chests Would have suited Jesus best He’d have caused nobody harm No one alarm .
And instead of building churches, we would be building shelters for the homeless. No trees would have been sacrificed to house a deity believed to have created those trees.
Listen Jesus, do you care for your race? Don’t you see we must keep in our place? We are occupied Have you forgotten how put down we are? I am frightened by the crowd For we are getting much too loud And they’ll crush us if we go too far If we go too far .
If Judas were alive today, he would probably have said, “Listen Jesus, do you care for the world, don’t you see into war it’s been hurled? We have occupied, have you forgotten how influential we are!”
Listen Jesus to the warning I give Please remember that I want us to live But it’s sad to see our chances weakening with ev’ry hour All your followers are blind Too much heaven on their minds It was beautiful, but now it’s sour Yes it’s all Gone sour .
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