Why the 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony was a Wake-Up Call for the Church
When the organizers of the 2024 Olympics in France depicted Jesus Christ and the disciples as drag queens at the Last Supper, the whole world took notice. While planners of the opening ceremony denied it was their intent to mock Christianity, the damage was done. The resulting uproar led to a half-baked apology by the Paris 2024 committee. They claimed their depiction was merely designed to communicate “community tolerance.”
But what if the depiction was a wake-up call for the Church? We live in a day of many such “wake up calls.” But it is also clear that the Church’s snoring and dreaming about all the wrong things is drowning those calls out.
God has His ways of getting His people’s attention and He often uses symbolism that can’t be missed. The Lord’s Supper serves a powerful symbolic function. It reminds believers of our unity in Christ and the significance of the New Covenant in His blood. Unfortunately, the way the Church has been displaying that unity has come into question of late.
Take for example the recent split within the United Methodist Church (UMC). Over 7000 UMC congregations recently left the denomination over LGBTQ+ issues and same sex marriage. I doubt those who stayed with the denomination had much to say against depicting Christ and the disciples as drag queens. It is the natural outworking of their warped theology. Might God be saying to the UMC through Paris’ despicable imagery, “This is what you have become!” Isaiah put it well to Jerusalem in Isaiah 1:21 “How the faithful city has become a harlot!” Many formerly faithful churches have become defiled by their teachings.
Consider another example: How many evangelical churches participate in the Lord’s Supper with unaddressed sin in their congregations? Moral failures go unrepented of. Suspect doctrine masquerades as the Gospel. Rebellions and church splits abound. When evangelical churches take communion as if these things don’t matter, we insult the Lord just as the Olympic opening ceremony did. Might God be saying to His people through the Paris debacle, “It is time to get your house in order!”
What does the Bible mean in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 when it refers to taking the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner? It means we should individually and corporately examine ourselves before partaking. Otherwise, we mock the Lord’s Supper by participating in it with unconfessed sin in our lives.
Taking the Lord’s Supper in an worthy manner also means “discerning the body,” i.e., the true state of one’s congregation. We mock the Lord and His purposes for His Church by partaking in the Lord’s Supper with known divisions in the body. There are serious warnings attached to doing so.
Why is the world emboldened to mock Jesus Christ? The world feels free to deride Christianity because the Church is in poor spiritual condition. And no doubt some of that is due to the many “unworthy manners” in which His people abuse of the Lord’s Supper.
May the Paris mockery prod us who love Jesus around the world, including you and me, to seek the Lord afresh. May He reveal the ways we grieve Him before the next time communion Sunday rolls around. Then, perhaps, the Holy Spirit will empower us to better represent what it means to live in communion with Him. That’s a depiction the world desperately needs to see.
Mark Barnard serves with Blessing Point Ministries. Since 2006 Blessing Point Ministries has worked to heal ministries with painful histories. Barnard is the author of the recently released book The Corporate Church – Why We Need To Get our House in Order.