30 Years & Still Dead

During his life former Beatle John Lennon had a lot to say about the Lord Jesus Christ. In a Interview in 1966 with a Journalist from London’s Evening Standard Newspaper Lennon said:-

‘Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity.’

Sadly there was not much of reaction at the time in the UK but when the quote was republished in August that same year in the American teen Magazine ‘Datebook’ there was a backlash from Christians with public burnings of Beatles Records. As a result of this reaction the Beatles had to cancel planned concerts and in fact they were never to play a commercial concert again.

In response to the outcry Lennon tried to calm the situation by claiming that his remarks were only reflecting the reality of falling Church attendance and Christian influence in the western world. Had Lennon left his comments at that I suppose one could have forgiven him, perhaps as a non-Christian he was not aware of Christ’s promise, ‘I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ Matthew 16 v18 However, his claim that the Beatles were more popular that Jesus was a blasphemous comment that said more about Lennon’s overly inflated ego than anything else. Imagine claiming to be ‘more popular that Jesus’.

No doubt Lennon had and still has devoted fans but I would imagine that as the years pass his popularity will, to borrow a phrase, ‘vanish and shrink’. You see there is one vital difference with Lennon and the Lord Jesus. 3 Days after the murder of the Lord Jesus Christ He rose in victory over the grave and now lives in the power of an endless life. By way of Contrast 30 years after the murder of John Lennon he is still dead and even though his earthly remains were cremated he will one day along with everyone else who ever lived be resurrected to stand before God in judgement. ‘And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:’ Hebrews 9 v27

On this the 30th Anniversary of John Lennon’s murder no doubt the media will make a big thing of it. There will be tribute shows on Television and Radio where he will be hailed as a great thinker and a man of peace. As Christians we should be careful not to become swept along with the nostalgia and media propaganda. We should never forget that John Lennon hated our Saviour and said as much.

While on this earth the Lord Jesus asked His disciples ‘Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?’ Matthew 16 v13 At that time the disciples, via Peter their spokesman Peter, confirmed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. John Lennon asked a very similar question in his own mind and answered it in his book ‘A Spaniard in the Works’ where he concluded that Jesus was ‘A Garlic-eating, Stinking little yellow greasy fascist b*****d catholic Spaniard’

I have to be honest I don’t think much of someone who comes to that conclusion about the greatest person who ever walked this earth. The writer to the Hebrews quoted below came to the correct conclusion. I for one will not be buying any Lennon tribute albums.

‘Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;’ Hebrews 7 v25-26