How the Christology of Broadway Saved Me

A story has power. A story that resonates with your soul sings in concert with your heart creating space for growth; and a story well told reverberates through time.  I often find truth not only in the library that is scripture; but in the expressions of God evidenced by those artists who creations extol the knowledge and wisdom of God.  I am grateful for artists.  I am grateful for those souls who bare themselves before the burning and pure presence of God.  They are akin to David—dancing naked before the holy of holies.  They, without regard for convention, bring the pure Imago Dei into view.  Art saves me time and time again.  Victor Hugo was this artist when writting his essays which formed into the narratives we now know as Les Misérables.  He expressed God’s truth through his creative word crafting.  Indeed, he stated as much noting that “Wherever men go in ignorance or despair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Misérablesknocks at the door and says: ‘open up, I am here for you.’” Hugo created this work to stand in opposition to a narrative prevalent in his and our time today.  He crafts and fashions an image of the Christ that is often lost in practice.  It is an image of Christ from which we, like the Father, turn our heads unable to look on at such suffering.  Yet, in Hugo’s work, when we meet Gavroche, Jean Valjean, Cosette, Fantine, or Éponine, one meets Christ.  The Christ that makes sense to me--the Christ who is not the hero of our fashioning.  

The Christ of our making is one that builds faith not tempered by sorrow, grief, loss, pain, and suffering. It is a faith unwittingly built on a sandy foundation; one on which I have seen many houses come to collapse. For in this false gospel that is preached, there is no room for a broken savior.  Often this foundation is one laid on the back of a person or even a personality.  Once the inevitable occurs, they walk away from any expression of faith, contemptable to any truth.  They are lost.  This experience lived out in those I love have brought me to a point of questioning. They, like I, can no longer tolerate the pretense required to maintain the thin veil of faith.  It is a faith that lacks the deeper substance.  It is here, in this place of doubt, where Hugo introduced me to the true Christ.  One that does not step in and save the day right at the moment we want; but one that lets Éponine die without knowing the love she sought; one that lets Fantine slip into the quiet of death having not seen her daughter again; and one that watches Gavroche die in the streets of Paris in his childhood fighting for dignity.  It confounds those who chant the mantra of the Christ they imagine; however, to those who know suffering, it resonates deeply.  To the clients that walk into my office, they have understanding. Understanding not taught upon a pulpit; but one taught through their own measure of horror.  It is in that place where one can hardly be looked upon that they gain something deeper than truth—they find the Truth in the suffering Christ.  

Hugo lead me back to Isaiah’s description of Christ— “a man of sorrows; a man acquainted with grief.”  Here is suffering.  Here is Christ.  On this Christ, one can build a faith that can stand the storm coming.  It weathers the loss that has yet to be experienced and the pain having yet born out in our lives.  It is a gospel not lacking hope.  It is a a gospel that stretches hope beyond the confines of this lived experience.  It is the hope that lasts when one stretches out to take hold of that which cannot be grasped this side of eternity.  In the musical derivative of Hugo’s work, a lyric that ends the narrative is sung by those characters who die in the midst of their suffering.  

do you hear the people sing?
lost in the valley of the night
it is the music of a people who are climbing to the light
for the wretched of the earth
there is a flame that never dies
even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise

they will live again in freedom in the garden of the lord
they will walk behind the bloodshed
they will put away the sword
the chain will be broken and all men will have their reward!

will you join in our crusade?
who will be strong and stand with me?
somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?
do you hear the people sing?
say, do you hear the distant drums?
it is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes!

I would invite you into this deeper truth; and for you to dive into this knowledge of a savior who suffers still.  I give you a caveat before leaping into this hope.  You will suffer; and you will let go of the cheap hope without the sureness of your foot underneath; but there, in the wavering, you will see the light that does not dim even as your eyes close at the last!

~The Christ I Know

I Know thee, Christ. 

Flesh and spirit part 

As sinew from bone;

It’s piercing marked with iron thorn.

Agony of cleaving and it’s release;

It’s pain felt and heard and known.

How might I know thee but in great affliction and delight? 

One kneads the other—working its yeast to bloom. 

And I, in love and fear, am scorned and lost in it’s merit. 

Redemption without salvation; no rescue from its sting. 

Experience yields to understanding. 

Wisdom forms in polarities. 

One without it’s other is lost:

Strangely entangled are these.

Proclaim the Christ who hangs

—bleeding, pierced and abandoned! 

We now are known and seen by

Brother sufferer; lonely wayfarer. 

I know thee, Christ.