That great film

Everywhere I look, people are talking about the Da Vinci Code. The film seems to have reawakened interest in the novel. One day, I was standing with a group of friends. We were preaching the gospel when someone shouted “so what about the Da Vinci Code?” It was almost as though I was one of those who had kept the church’s dark secret for two thousand years.

Well, so what about it? It’s a film based on a novel. Actually, I’ve neither read the book nor watched the film; but I’ve heard so much about it, i’m sure I can hold forth with the best pundits. That is, unless the novel didn’t allege that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter.

Maybe it’s my African upbringing, but I don’t think I could ever show such disrespect to another’s faith. I have often said that I believe that Christianity is the only way, and I recognize that implicitly, I’m saying that all other faiths do not answer the important human questions. But even in doing that, I try to be sensitive to the fact that other faiths have adherents who truely believe in what they do, and have taken their decisions after much thought. I can’t imagine that I could ever fictionalise a basic tenet of another’s faith.

I see that many Christians have started to refute the various ‘claims’ of this book and film. I have heard arguments about how Dan Brown mixes fact and fiction without clearly distinguishing them in the minds of his readers. I believe that this is taking the argument to his level, and he would probably do much better than me in that. Moreover, it cannot work as a strategy unless we go to each person who has read the book and try to remove the preconceptions that have already been planted. In the end, people will believe what they want.

But to the man who asked me about the Da Vinci code, all I can say is this: Jesus did not marry Mary Magdalene, we do not have his physical bloodline wandering around France. It did not happen, because Jesus was God coming down to our level. He did not need a wife, or a child to carry his genes. Any potential wife would have been wholly human, and Jesus was not. We Christians believe that Jesus was not just a man. He was not even born by the usual fusion of sperm and egg. Jesus willingly came down to earth, not for Himself, but for us. In fact, He did say that His kingdom was not of this world.

As a Christian, I believe that Jesus has a bigger family than this bloodline could ever give Him. We’re described as adopted into His family, as co-heirs of His kingdom. We believe that when we take the communion, we symbolically and spiritually take His body and blood, that He washed away our sins with His blood. All these are spiritual, because as He said, “God is a Spirit …” He therefore does not need this physical bloodline thing.

I think we’ve got something wrong here. The Bible says we were made in God’s image. I think that these days, we try to make God in our image, we invest in Him, our own expectations and feelings. Someone once said that if they look at me, they must see God in me. So, for example, if you’re looking at me through a mirror, what you see is not me, just a representation. I can’t talk through the mirror, though you’ll see my lips moving. If my image in the mirror decided that I must be like it, it’d be a gross underrepresentation, as it cannot move, talk, or think. In the same way, if i decided that God must think and act like me, i’d be expecting Him to get married and have a bloodline which can be traced somewhere in France.