September 26, 2007
It looks like a pagan worship scene from a Cecile B. DeMille rip-off featuring half-clad homosexual sadomasochists with animal masks and sex toys.
Trouble is it isn’t a scene intended to expose debauchery, but to celebrate it. Da Vinci Code, move over! You’ve been replaced by a new version of “Last Supper mockery” in honor of the “world’s largest leather event,” the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco.
Amidst black leather, tattoos and feather boas, homosexuals pose as apostles who in the original painting are depicted gathered at a table with their sweet savior to partake of the last meal together.
DaVinci’s famous painting features the bread, a symbol of Christ’s body “broken for you” as Jesus said, and the wine representing his blood, soon to be given in sacrifice for the sins of His disciples as well as for all mankind.
But on this table, rather than the symbols of that great act of a great Savior, rests sex toys—symbols for the object of their worship: the god of sex and unlicensed physical pleasure. These are perfect symbols, actually, because sex drives, motivates, consumes and demands homage in this radical community more than any other thing. It defines their lives, gives them their names, establishes their relationships, maps out their days, determines their holidays and dominates their nights.
It’s worshipped in public parks in anonymous restrooms, through soulless holes in peep show sex shops and on public streets during events like the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. It demands satisfaction at the risk of husbands, wives, children and parents; it craves adoration through song and film and art.
It’s a powerful god whose insatiability demands its worshippers risk disease and death. It sacrifices nothing while they give all. It’s a god who devours and destroys his supplicants versus the One who gives life in loving devotion to save.
Why would these men and women choose this kind of mockery to advertise such an event?
Because if the God they mock is who He says He is their lives, so entangled with perversion and decadence, must be painfully severed from thoughts, attitudes, and practices that consume them. They would have to confess sin and leave all they know for a radical new way. Far easier to mock and hopefully prove impotent this other God from that “Old Story” and practice with supposed impunity the lust that fills their minds and hearts.
But for man to mock God is for an ant to mock man. Just as a tiny insect can’t diminish the stature and power of mankind, neither can the Maker of Heaven and Earth be reduced by the foolish exercise of man. His greatness is no less great; His righteousness no less “right.”
He is still powerful enough to give life and to take it. He is greater than our thoughts and imaginations—not confined to a DaVinci painting or a religion by any moniker. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is able to forgive and restore more deeply than we can imagine while being equally capable of exacting more justice than mockers like the ones in the poster, and sinners like all of us, can conceive.
I don’t fear for His reputation, but for the men and women who think they can affect it by mocking him—those who think that because there was no bolt of lightening that struck when the digital camera clicked and captured their image, justice will not be had on the unrighteousness they pervade.
This is lawlessness—the natural result of rejecting God’s law. It’s progressive in nature. It begins with the misguided notion that morality is intolerance; that rejection of certain forms of behavior is bigotry. This worldview leads to throwing off all restraint and “tolerating” anything and everything.
Mockers beware. For God will not be mocked. Meanwhile, take a good hard look and see if the natural progression of “tolerating” everything is producing the world in which you really want to live.
Sandy Rios is the host of the “The Sandy Rios Show,” heard daily on WYLL in Chicago. Contact her at [email protected].
