Second Tuesday of Advent
Forty years ago today, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment building in Manhattan. It was a shocking event that took the life of a young husband and father of just 40 years old and changed the course of music history. I was 21 at the time, and for many in my generation and older, it was a “day the music died” along the lines of that day in 1959 when Buddy Holly died.
In some of the reflections posted today, there have been references to that infamous quote from 1966 when Lennon said of The Beatles, “We’re more popular than Jesus now.” As often happens, Lennon’s statement was longer and more complex than that, but the sound bite was taken to be a brag that the Beatles were greater than Jesus. That interpretation led to denouncements, protests, concert bans and record burnings around the world.
What Lennon was saying — and he explained it better a few months later — was that the screaming, hysterical fans that ultimately drove The Beatles off the concert stage and into the studio had more interest and regard for them than they did for Jesus.
“I’m not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I was not knocking it. I was not saying we are greater or better,” he said. In fact, he said he was commenting on the decline of Christianity in the United Kingdom specifically.
Forty years on, it’s clear that Lennon is still revered by many for his musical creativity and his imagining of a more equitable, caring world where “all you need is love.” But Lennon is gone, and new generations of artists and thinkers have taken his place on the stage.
Meanwhile, Jesus is alive in the world and more relevant than ever. That’s because while others have carried a torch for Lennon, Jesus requires no torch. Jesus is the one true light of the world, born into each of us to illuminate our lives if we’ll let him. As followers, we’re not responsible so much for fanning the flames of Jesus’ popularity as we are for helping others to find that light in themselves.
Perhaps this year more than ever, in this season of Advent when the commercialism of Christmas has been curtailed somewhat by the pandemic, we can strive to focus more on that one true light in ourselves and each other.