April 14, 2006
Sifting Through the Static: A Brief Look at The Da Vinci Code
During Holy Week, it is assumed that Christians around the world are stopping in the middle of their streams of busy-ness and preoccupation to consider and reflect upon the amazing love and work of grace accomplished by our Savior for His glory and for our sakes. We pause to consider the great message of the Cross in seeing our Lord offer Himself in our place to pay for our sin. We pause to reflect upon the tremendous hope that we share in the knowledge that death could not contain Him and we too are made heirs to eternal life through that same power.
But living, as we do, in the “Information Age”, it sadly becomes all too clear that such a practice of reflection and prayerful consideration is challenging at the very least and that we are beset by demands on our time, energies, and resources. And let’s face it, not all of the information that bombards us constantly is accurate and reliable anyway… there is a whole lot of “static” attempting to drown out the lovely story of redemption and victory that the Gospel of God paints us in the Bible.
Consider, if you will, that more and more folks in this technologically savvy culture, are frequent users of the internet. If you are perhaps one of them, then you have likely become acquainted with something called “spam”. Spam is basically the junk mail of our cybernetic world. Once you get an email address, it’s only a matter a time before it gets onto the lists of all sorts of businesses (some of which are legitimate perhaps, but most are not) making you the unhappy recipient of a plague of annoying emails..
You’re also under a constant onslaught of a spiritual sort of spam in the pressures you face to keep up with others’ possessions, their ambitious social schedules, and their expectations on what it means to be successful. All of these things are constantly distorting the very things most deserving of your attention, time, and even passion. The things that are temporary, time and time again, steal the investment of our best from those things that will last forever.
Perhaps you’re aware of a fairly new electronic predation. Similar in some ways to spam, it makes a lot of phony promises, highly emotional appeals, or heavy-handed threats in order to provoke you to some sort of action that betrays your personal information (so that a bad guy, who is very likely in some other country, can charge up your credit card or empty your bank account into his or her own coffers). This method, called “phishing”, often even uses the names of legitimate banking or commercial institutions to pull the wool over people’s eyes. It evidently works. I’ve been told that people fall prey to it every day.
But even more sinister than this electronic phishing, and far more deadly, is the spiritual phishing taking place around the world. Aside from the false teachings and cults that have for awhile now been deceitfully pulling folks away from the truth of Christ, pop culture has flamboyantly thrust the misleading message of The Da Vinci Code in front of us via the silver screen. The book by Dan Brown has sold over 4 million copies worldwide and is likely to persist in its sales volume for some time due simply to the controversy surrounding it (in spite of the fact that it was noted “a book so bad it makes bad books look good” by one writer living in the United Kingdom).
Mr. Brown opens his book with a statement attesting to what he claims is historical fact, but what he really does is run amuck with some conspiracy theories that are not so innovative as he would like to have us believe. When he is called on the carpet about some of his “facts” not being so reliable, he simply refers to the book as being a work of fiction and then doesn’t have to account for his botched attempt at scholarly achievement.
Compounding the message of the cross and the resurrection even further today is the National Geographic’s highly promoted discovery of an ancient text referred to as the “Gospel of Judas”. I have read several translated pages of it and again must note that it doesn’t really say anything of consequence that hasn’t been said by other misled persons somewhere along the way since Jesus’ ascension into heaven after His resurrection.
It is simply another manifestation of what is referred to today as a “Gnostic Gospel”. Gnosticism was a mystical and occultic movement that can trace its beginnings to about the same time as the early days of the Church. Noting that many, many people were turning to Christianity, Gnosticism moved in on Christianity and attempted to piggyback its way also into prominence by declaring that Jesus’ teachings were somehow compatible with those of Gnostic masters.
But, as early Christian leaders wisely noted, it distorted the simple message of grace by faith, the forgiveness of sin and the promise of atonement, as well as the abiding work of the Holy Spirit. The “gospel of Judas” was most likely written retroactively to support those positions (especially if written, as some scholars have said, about the fourth century AD).
This, and other bad things in the world today, are “phishing” for your attention, your support, and ultimately your soul. “…There will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master Who bought them (by His Own blood from the power of sin and death), bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep” (2 Peter 2:1-3 NAS).
I grieve somewhat over the fact that many are snared in the confusion wrought by these counterfeits. On the other hand, I smile when I think of the power of the true Gospel of Jesus. Nothing can really stand up against the “good news” of God’s love triumphing over human sin. Nor can anything really resist the reality of God’s truth housed in Jesus’ flesh as He confronted and conquered subtle snares of deceit. And certainly nothing can cover or deny the shining glory of God as revealed in Christ as He conquered the dreadful specter of death.
Easter, otherwise known as “Resurrection Sunday”, is the most poignant holiday in the Christian calendar… not because of Easter bunnies, chocolate candies, or painted eggs. It isn’t even because of the glad feeling we get as we celebrate the return of spring to our winter-weary world. It is because we who have genuinely placed our hope and faith in Christ Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection know that God has bridged a gap that we couldn’t and that death has no power over us.
“…What I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a Man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 20-22 NIV).
(Thom Mollohan and his family have ministered in southern Ohio the past ten and a half years. He is the pastor of Pathway Community Church, which meets on Sunday mornings at the Ariel Theatre. He may be reached for comments or questions by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).
