\n"}\n\nFor the 1960s generation, the shift from the secular to the spiritual embodied a form of political conservatism.\u00a0Thus the figure of Jesus in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice\u2019s musical\u00a0Jesus Christ Superstar\u00a0(1970), who abandons the political in a personal search for the divine.
\nJesus is set against a collaborationist Judas (\u201dDon\u2019t you see we must keep in our place?\u201c) and a nationalist Simon Zealotes (\u201dWe will win ourselves a home!\u201d) but rejects their political concerns. He has none (\u201dI have got no kingdom in this world\u201d) and expressly rejects them all in turn:
\n\nNeither you, Simon, nor the fifty thousand
Nor the Romans, nor the Jews
Nor Judas, nor the twelve, nor the Priests, nor the scribes
Nor doomed Jerusalem itself
Understand what power isJesus\u00a0dismisses secular change (\u201dThere will be poor always\u201c) and his own power to effect it (\u201dThere\u2019s too many of you \u2026\u00a0There\u2019s too little of me,\u201d he tells the beggars), because he is essentially fatalistic (\u201dEverything is fixed, and you can\u2019t change it\u201d).\u00a0
\nJesus describes himself as a political leader, but a truth-seeker (\u201cI look for truth\u201d). His ambitions are spiritual:\u00a0To know and to see his God. For that, he accepts his potential personal irrelevance and ultimately his own annihilation:\u00a0\u201cTo conquer death you only have to die.\u201d
\nAt the time of the Broadway premiere, Webber and Rice were described in the Times as coming from \u201csolid, middle\u2010class Anglican homes.\u201d They explained the show as an escape from the political, which was why it did better in America than England:
\n\n\nIn England, they didn\u2019t seem to agree with Him at all. In fact, it\u2019s the one country where \u201cSuperstar\u201d fizzled.
\n\u201cEngland is a most easygoing country,\u201d Andrew says, almost unhappily. \u201cWhen a country is easygoing, its people are less likely to turn to religion. In the last analysis, England\u2019s national character is such that the young people don\u2019t need to turn to anything for escape.\u201d
\n\u201cThe average kid in England is less likely to be uptight about things.\u201d Tim adds. \u201cThe draft and the Vietnam War do not involve him to any great extent. The policemen are not armed there, as they are here. Something like Kent State could never happen in England. Though the Irish business is a bit grim.\u201d
\nFor the generation concerned with war and police brutality,\u00a0Superstar had a simple message: abandon politics, abandon the struggle (\u201dWhy are you obsessed with fighting/Times and fates you can\u2019t defy?\u201d)\u00a0and embrace the present:
\n\nDon\u2019t you mind about the future
Don\u2019t you try to think ahead
Save tomorrow for tomorrow
Think about today insteadFind material contentment (\u201cLook at the good things you\u2019ve got!\u201d) and embrace a personal spirituality that was open to all:\u00a0\u201cSing out for yourselves for you are blessed/There is not one of you who cannot win the kingdom\u201d. As Mary Magdalene sings to Jesus:
\n\nTry not to get worried, try not to turn on to
Problems that upset you, oh
Don\u2019t you know
Everything\u2019s alright, yes, everything\u2019s fineLate in life, the Conservatives made Lloyd Webber a life peer. It was a fitting honor for a man whose work was so deeply conservative, but not one the man himself appreciated. He\u00a0found the political demands too pressing.
\nLloyd Webber resigned the peerage a few years ago. \u201cI\u2019m fed up with the fact that I keep being asked now to go in and vote for things,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are more important things in my life.\u201d\u00a0
\n@siliquasquama\u200b:\u00a0
Look at all my trials and tribulations/sinking in a gentle pool of wine\u2026
\u201cThe Last Supper\u201d contrasts the Apostles\u2019 spiritual contentment and Jesus\u2019s spiritual struggle and as a commentary on Jesus\u2019s concerns about his personal irrelevance. It presents\u00a0a series of challenges to Jesus, to which \u201cGesthemane\u201d, immediately following, is its complement and resolution.
The Apostles are not merely materially contented, but also spiritually contented (\u201cDon\u2019t disturb me now; I can see the answers\u201d).\u00a0It is the latter Jesus condemns in \u201cThe Last Supper\u201d. He challenges their spiritual contentment and their \u201cblank faces\u201d, which are unthinking, without doubt.
\n\nThe Apostles\u2019 spiritual contentment is contrasted with Jesus\u2019s search \u201cfor truth.\u201d He\u00a0himself is wracked by doubt (\u201cI\u2019m not as sure as when we started \u2026 \n\nIf I die, what will be my reward?\u201d), but accepts God\u2019s will without reassurance, without conviction (\u201cTake me now/Before I change my mind\u201d) and with doubt.
In \u201cThe Last Supper\u201d, Jesus condemns the Apostles for abandoning that spiritual struggle. It is that spiritual struggle (their \u201dtrials and tribulations\u201d) that sinks in Jesus\u2019s own blood (that \u201cgentle pool of wine\u201d):
Look at all my trials and tribulations
Sinking in a gentle pool of wine
Don\u2019t disturb me now; I can see the answers
Till \u2018this evening\u2019 is ‘this morning\u2019, life is fineThere is another contrast here. In \u201cThe Last Supper\u201d, the Apostles repeatedly express personal ambitions:
\n\nAlways hoped that I\u2019d be an apostle
Knew that I would make it if I tried
Then when we retire we can write the gospels
So they\u2019ll still talk about us when we\u2019ve diedThe Apostles\u2019 contentment stems from their conviction that they are personally relevant beyond their own lives, a conviction Jesus denies for himself (\u201dI must be mad thinking I\u2019ll be remembered\u00a0\u2026 My name will mean nothing/Ten minutes after I\u2019m dead!\u201d).
\n\nJesus accepts God\u2019s will without conviction of his own personal relevance. He asks God for knowledge (\u201dCan you show me now that I would not be killed in vain?\u201d) but receives none.\u00a0
Jesus embodies spiritual struggle, without conviction in one\u2019s own personal salvation, resolved faith in a God beyond understanding (\u201dGod, thy will is hard/But you hold every card\u201d) to whom we ultimately entrust our fates (\u201dFather, into your hands, I commend my spirit\u201d).
\n\nJesus\u2019s condemnation of the Apostles points not to their material contentment, but to their unwarranted spiritual convictions. He condemns their unwarranted faith in their efficacy, their relevance, and their life after death.\u00a0They be \u201c[s]inking in a gentle pool of wine,\u201d but the problem is the sinking, not the wine.
It is his blood, after all.