The Greatest Show – Introduction

  Ok, cards on the table: I quite like musicals.  I love the Wizard of Oz, and I really quite like The Greatest Showman.  For those who are less familiar with the latter, it is a highly stylized interpretation of the life of P T Barnum, who is credited with inventing the modern circus (he did a lot of other stuff too).  In the film, Barnum recruits people who are very much on the outside of society – ‘curiosities’ – and invites them to display their uniqueness to the world.  I saw the film at a time in my life when I was dealing with a lot of stuff, in my own life, and in a world where prejudice and oppression seemed rife.  This movie reminded me of the Good News.  That’s a technical term in Christian circles, sometimes called ‘the Gospel’, which is its Old English version.  What is the Gospel, or the Good News?

  In the New Testament (the Christian addition to the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament), there are 4 books called Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).  They tell the story of the life of Jesus – well, the 3 years before his death at least.  I found echoes of that story in the narrative (and perhaps especially in the soundtrack) of The Greatest Showman.  I want to explore this over my next few blog posts.

  You may have heard the expression, ‘good show’, or ‘jolly good show, chaps’.  It signifies approval, like ‘well done’.  I think the Gospel could be called The Greatest Show on a similar basis.  It represents the best news the world could ever receive.  But as well as being transformative, it is also performative.  It’s a story.  It has ‘actors’, in the sense of people who participate and make it happen.  The Gospel is never a slogan, a statement, a theory, a doctrine, an abstract belief… It is lived out in real life.  Jesus painted it in his stories, which were brought to life in his actions and attitudes.  He lived the good news of God’s kingdom – a counter-reality to the dominant structures and cultures.

  Probably the first Gospel to be written was Mark’s version.  It’s the shortest, it’s punchy and draws you in, with lots of little details to make it real, like you’re there.  Mark’s Gospel is quite political – written for Christians in Rome in the mid-first century – in the belly of the beast of a vast empire.  It’s in this context that Mark begins:

 

“The beginning of the good news [gospel] of Jesus Christ…” (Mark 1:1)

 

  The term used for ‘good news’ is a word that was sometimes used by the Romans to bring tidings of a general’s victory.  In fact, Mark uses lots of Roman imperial language and imagery in his Gospel – especially around the Easter story, where the Crucifixion narrative is a mock imperial coronation.

  Mark is, of course, turning everything on its head, subverting the dominant order, with Good News of a different kingdom, which invites us to join in the Greatest Show.