I have just started my internship at First Baptist Church of Asheville. So far it has been an ah-mazing experience. Over the past two weeks the church has been obsessed with the youth choir’s presentation of Jesus Christ Super Star. With good reason, the entire body has worked diligently on the program for nearly a year. More than the incredible skill and talent with which it was executed, I was impressed by the deep spiritual maturity the congregation and especially the youth who worked so hard on the controversial rock opera.
A few days after the presentation, the cast was interviewed by the pastor in front of the church during a talk-show style event. Each teenager acknowledged how their perceptions of Jesus had been affected by the opera. Most of them were challenged with the mystery of the incarnation and what it means for Jesus to be fully human and fully divine. They discussed heady theological issues with a maturity difficult to find in many seminaries, let alone a youth ministry. One statement, offered by an sweet young girl who played Mary Magdalene, struck me with an indelible blow.
“People always ask me who Jesus is to me, and to me Jesus has always been best friend,” she said. “My whole life he’s been the one I turn to. Well, in this musical I had the opportunity to play Jesus’ best friend. And when we started rehearsal I realized I didn’t know how to act around Jesus. I was standing right next to him and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what it looked like.” She smiled and I thought that the tears in my own eyes would be mirrored in her’s. But she simply looked out in to to audience and said in an sweet even tone “but Jesus really is with me all the time. He is my best friend, and he is standing with me. Still, most of the time I don’t know how to act around Jesus. And I think that’s true of all of us sometimes.”
Kena Hawkins Newkirk 