The danger of treating Christ as a joke

If you thought the opening of the Olympics in France made a blasphemous mockery out of Christ’s Last Supper, well, you’re clearly a no-nothing, uneducated religious bigot who’s way too sensitive and saw something that wasn’t there. So say lots of folks outside the Christian faith.

“Fake news!”, a lot said. “Get a book on Greek mythology!”, others angrily wrote online in response to the numerous Christian protests.

Well, I have a few books on Greek culture and mythology, as well as paganism and more, that I studied during my master’s program and I can say, sure, there were references to both in the opening ceremonies. But that wasn’t all they were imitating.

At least, that’s what Barbara Butch, the self-proclaimed “fat, Jewish, queer lesbian” DJ seen in the middle playing the role of Jesus, admitted to in her now-deleted Instagram post that showed the ceremony’s scene above Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, which was captioned: “Oh Yes! Oh Yes! The New Gay Testament!” Moreover, another Olympics spokesperson admitted basically the same to the New York Post.

As Piers Morgan said, “They knew exactly what they were doing.”

And it shouldn’t surprise or shock us. Peter warned his readers a long time ago, “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts” (2 Pet. 3:3).

While I can easily get sad and angry watching such things, I also have a strange sense of satisfaction that washes over me when I see those denying God’s existence and truth acting in the very ways His Word tells them they’ll behave. It’s both comical and tragic at the same time.

The truth is, such sardonic actions are nothing new — they’ve been around since Christ landed in His manger and ascended back into Heaven. For example, a while back, archaeologists discovered a crude stone drawing in a Roman guardhouse that dates back to the very early periods after Christ. The sketch is of a crucified man with the head of a donkey, a person bowing down to it, and an inscription that reads, “Alexamenos worships his God.”    

To that “artist” and those like him today, Christ is one big, fat joke. And in no place in Scripture is this better depicted than in what happened to Him during His crucifixion.

The clown at Calvary

Jesus warned His disciples ahead of time that His persecutors would ridicule Him before His death; that they would: “Hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify” (Matt. 20:19).

The joke was, this is the King of the Jews? Well, let’s have a coronation.

Matthew tells us: “Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on Him and took the reed and began to beat Him on the head. After they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet robe off Him and put His own garments back on Him and led Him away to crucify Him” (Matt. 27:27–31).

But the joke didn’t stop there.

The Roman and Jewish leaders then enthroned Jesus like a king is instated above the people, only in Jesus’ case, it was on a cross.  Scripture also tells us they crucified two thieves on both sides of Jesus — something that was no accident. This was to spoof the fact that a king normally had a person on his right and left who represented the second and the third-most honorable people in the king’s court. 

The Jewish religious leaders liked the fact that Jesus’ death was designed to be one big laugh. But in 70 A.D., everyone stopped laughing.

Unfortunately, we usually fly right past something in the crucifixion narrative that’s really important. It’s significant because it was a warning to the people of that time and also carries over to us today.

During His march to Calvary, Jesus said to the grieving women who were following after him: “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children” (Luke 23:28). Jesus was essentially saying, everyone is making a joke out of Me now, but you’ll be crying later. And they did; in rejecting Jesus, their joke backfired on them.

If you’ve ever read the historian Josephus’ account of what happened to Jerusalem in 70 A.D., it’s the kind of horror story that stops a person’s heart. And it’s what this world that still mocks Jesus every chance it gets has to look forward to.

Because “fools mock at sin” (Prov 14:9), we see constant signposts in Scripture that foretell what will happen when God’s doomsday clock runs out. For example: “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, until there was no remedy” (2 Chron. 36:15–16).

The German poet Heinrich Heine said, “God will forgive, that’s His job!” Yes, God does forgive those who come to Him in repentance with a contrite heart. But to those who mock and reject Christ, “they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed” (1 Peter 2:8).  

And what happens then?

“Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; and you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof; I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD. They would not accept my counsel, they spurned all my reproof. So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices” (Prov. 1:24–31).

That’s the danger of treating Christ as a joke.

In “coronating” Him in the middle of two low-lives to imitate a king and his court, Jesus’ crucifixion crowd may have thought He was a clown. But the truth is, they were doing God’s bidding, dooming many, but saving us who look at Calvary and agree with what Rhett Walker says in one of his songs:

I've been the one on the left, full of guilt and regret
Long-gone on the wrong side of living
I've been the one on the right, always looking for a fight
Thinking I could never be forgiven
I'm standing here today, overwhelmed by grace
'Cause I know who paid my cost
Thank God for the Man on the middle cross

Amen to that. Christ is no joke but is instead Lord of all. And if you don’t bow to Him now, you will later, but by then, it will be too late — your 70A.D. will have come upon you.