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May 21, 2006
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Da Vinci Code
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Was there a Conspiracy?"
2 Peter 2:13-22; Jude 1-4
John Towne will begin this message with a loud and boisterous affirmation of everything in Da Vinci Code along with the fact that "Brian has been lying to us!"
I will enter from the back door, having been tied up and need to be unbound by Dave Burke.
J: Dave! What are you doing? Don't untie him!
B: Why on earth did you tie me up like that? You tell me to come talk to you and I find myself bound and gagged!
J: Well, you are not telling the people the truth!
B: The truth, John?
J: Yes, you tell them these lies about Jesus that he was God, that he was not married, when it is true that he was! I read the book, I saw the movie!
B: John, the movie? You are ditching the entire Scriptural record for what a movie told you?
J: Well, the book says the same thing, you know. Jesus was married!
B: John, no he wasn't! You know you really ought to come to church more often so that you can hear what has been said so you get your facts straight.
J: Look, I couldn't be here last week, I was visiting my mom and dad, doing penance! If you were a nice guy you would have gone for me!
B: What a vicarious visit? Well, John, I am sorry you missed it for I talked about how the Bible affirms that Jesus was not married.
J: Not married? What about the wedding at Cana! He was there and changed the water into wine.
B: John, what groom gets invited to his own wedding!
J: Hey, I was invited. I would not have gone had I not been invited.
B: Karen and I invited all our guests, I was not invited among them.
J: Yes, you were.
B: Well, actually in Jesus' era it was the groom's family that did the inviting!
J: They did.
B: Besides, John, Jesus goes home with his mom.
J: Well, that's a bit odd.
B: So, he was not married.
J: Ah, yes he was! I have proof! Lenny Da Vinci…
B: Do you mean Leonardo?
J: Yes, that guy, in that picture he painted of all the guys seated around having a meal.
B: The Last Supper?
J: Yes, and there is Mary Magdalene with Jesus, leaning on his shoulder.
B: John, that is not Mary but John the Apostle! He was the youngest disciple and they often painted him as if a youth, which can be interpreted as feminine. But any art historian would tell you the idea that this is Mary is absurd.
J: I suppose you don't think that Da Vinci actually hid more messages in his art.
B: Actually, there are all kinds of possibilities for that artist, but don't you think people would have noticed it before. You cannot find any reputable art historian who will claim such a thing. True scholars do not seem to share the book's confidence.
John Martin of the Renaissance Society of America told News-Press.com: "I think the idea that Leonardo da Vinci had secret information passed down for 40 generations that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child is entertaining, but it is not history."
"Absurd" is how J.V. Field, president of the Leonardo da Vinci Society and historian of art at the University of London, described the book's theory about Leonardo's reputably hidden messages. "Everything I know about how pictures were used to communicate indicates that the theory is absurd. This means that I should require very strong evidence indeed to make me take it seriously-such as a document written by Leonardo himself giving an explanation of the procedure he followed; and the authority of the document would need to be established by unassailable provenance. In the present case, that is clearly an unattainable standard of proof." Authentic history requires proof, said Field, but "The Da Vinci Code offers none that scholars would recognize."
(http://maclaurin.org/article_detail.php?a_id=53
By R. Pearcey)
J: Ah, but what about what Da Vinci wrote. The movie quoted him as having written:
Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude and Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes! (p 250, DVC)
And wasn't he speaking about the Bible when he said those things?
B: Oh, John, surely you cannot believe this. I looked up those quotes of Da Vinci's and know what I discovered? They are pulled from writings of his, no doubt but he was not speaking of the Bible in either of them. Indeed the first one he is attacking necromancy and black magic! That is the "trade of delusions" and in the second he is lamenting people who don't study mathematics, O wretched mortals! Open your eyes!
J: Why should I believe you anyway?
B: John you don't have to believe me, but at least believe Da Vinci himself. If his own quotes have been pulled from context surely that is proof that he was not saying what the book claims!
J: Well, perhaps, but I cannot believe you anyway, for you are part of the Constantinian Conspiracy.
B: The what?
J: the Constantinian Conspiracy. You have been bought out. You get a check every month for 1 million dollars so that you keep the secret achieved by Emperor Constantine when they promoted Jesus to be God a long time ago. So you are a part of the ruse to keep it all under wraps.
B: My, you have swallowed this whole story hook, line and sinker, brother! Have you seen where I live? And I am still concerned about my kids' college expenses.
J: That is all part of the ruse, it is all an act.
B: Well, John, that is really inaccurate. So, you think that the emperor did some shady deal to make a new religion and foisted it upon the people!
J: Yes, at the Council of NICE.
B: That would be "Nicaea".
J: Yes, Nice, but not so nice, I would say. For the powerful rewrote history in order to keep us all under their thumbs, like you have us, under your thumb. They gathered all these guys together, gathered all the true documents and burned them, and kept the fake ones that talked about Jesus being the Son of God. It was all a power move. The winners write the history books you know.
B: Wow, I didn't know that! John, the emperor prior to Constantine did try to burn all the Christian books, but failed.
J: He did?
B: Yep, and besides, Christianity was not a faith of the powerful. But it was the story of the multitude, the real life experiences of ordinary people who knew and loved Jesus who spread the good word that He is alive. It was thousands of people who had been touched by Jesus, some wrote what they had seen, and these stories were passed person to person. Christianity was not the faith of the powerful, but of the weak, of the ordinary. The books written were passed around person to person, and copies were carefully made, so there soon were literally thousands of copies all through the empire. You cannot gather and burn so many. Besides, wouldn't the history books have recorded if such a thing happened?
J: I suppose you are going to tell me next that Christianity was not fundamentally altered at Nice by Constantine.
B: Again, you cannot believe this without dismissing Christian history. By the time 325 rolled around there were literally hundreds of manuscripts of books currently included in our New Testaments already circulating throughout the whole church. Most of these were being read alongside the Hebrew Scriptures as a part of regular worship. So, they were accepted as God's Word!
Hundreds over even thousands of manuscripts all declaring the same message that Jesus is the Son of the Living God, that he came, died and rose from the dead. Manuscript upon manuscript from the mouths and pens of eyewitnesses who had been there were being passed around, being read, memorized, studied, and preached upon.
These manuscripts confirmed one another and also validated the strong oral tradition of the church which had kept sacred the actions and teachings of Jesus during the first years following his death and resurrection before anything was written down.
You could not edit away such an oral tradition. The Da Vinci Code says that there were some 80 gospels in circulation from which only the four were chosen, yet, 2 weeks ago we looked at how the four we know, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all written by eyewitnesses or disciples, were accepted as sacred scripture by the church by 140 AD. No, there were no 80 gospels to choose from.
This was the public and oral tradition of the church. Not even the most Stalinesque emperor could make thousands of documents disappear and replace them in a strong political maneuver, let alone an emperor who ruled for a short time nearly 300 years after the time of Jesus. The whole church had believed in the divinity of Jesus from the start.
J: So, what really happened at Nicaea?
B: Okay regarding the Council of Nicaea, let's review some facts. Yes, Constantine did convert to Christianity, and no, it was not a deathbed conversion for the sake of swinging his power base, it appears to have been a true conversion. But no one can truly say whether or not it was. He did wait to be baptized and then suddenly became mortally ill and so was baptized on his death bed.
Constantine invited and funded the gathering at Nicaea. But was his intent to create a new movement from what had been? Did he create a totally new Bible at this event that had previously not existed? That is hardly the case. Actually he had 220 bishops gather because of the controversy around the teachings of a priest named Arius among other smaller issues.
"There was God the Father before there was the Son, said Arius; the Father and the Son were two separate beings, the One prior to the Other. The question before the council was whether or not this novel teaching Arius was compatible with what the apostles taught in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament."
So this council focused upon this area of doctrine - since the Son is divine, something they all accepted and that had been accepted by the church since Jesus lived, died and rose, how is he divine. Their conclusion was that there was never God the Father without His Son. The Son was not a creature before the Father but both were God simultaneously. The council decided to state this reality with the wording that said they are "of the same being" (homoousios in the Greek language). This had been taught since the time of the apostles making Arius wrong. ()http://www.thedavincidialogue.com/expert.cfm?e=164)
J: Okay, you have convinced me. I believe you.
B: You do? Wow. I need to relish this for a moment.
J: But, even if I believe you I still am not going to let go of this whole thing.
B: What whole thing.
J: Well, the goddess thing. Remember how you talked me out of worshipping Benny the Benign God a few months ago?
B: Yes, that was a great move of mine.
J: Well, this one I am not giving up! We could make great money, build a whole religion on this basis, and even start our own TV network: GBN: Goddess Broadcast Network and we could be the stars! Brian think of the money!
B: Wait, John, that is foolish. Look at what the Bible says about such a thing! "In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up…"
J: See, the Bible agrees. Greed is a good thing I once learned in a movie I saw.
B: John, but look at the result! They are under God's condemnation! That is not a good thing. What do you think of when you hear "condemnation"?
J: Ooo. Wrath! I don't like wrath. I'd rather have God's blessings.
B: John, you cannot, no, no, no, go this road. Do you know that the gift God gave in the Gospel was to help people turn from such false paths? Paul wrote and stood against such practices in Corinth among other places. When he arrived at Corinth there were 1000 temple prostitutes employed.
J: I bet they made good money!
B: John, money is not going to help! Look, Peter writes that such men who pursue such things are an "accursed brood". That doesn't sound good.
J: Okay, I give. I guess I won't be able to make all this money after all.
B: Besides, John, what did you expect, that Janet would applaud your involvement in goddess worship?
J: I suppose she would not be too pleased.
B: Right. She wouldn't.
J: So, you have gone and ruined another idea!
B: Hah! I straightened you out for once. And John you cannot just go for whatever "tickles your ears" you know. You have to discern what is good and true.
J: But I like the sensation.
B: Yes, we like the ears to be tickled but God wants to have our lives transformed. Now, can you go back to your seat?
J: I suppose.
B: Oh, and John, don't tie me up again, okay?
J: Well, if you would quit reading these books and seeing these movies and getting all off base encouraging us to worship goddesses I wouldn't have to would I.
B: I don't think I was the one encouraging goddess worship!
J: Oh, yes you were. So, do you promise not to tell us to worship a goddess again?
B: No problem there. I promise.
J: Okay, I won't tie you up again with duct tape.
B: Oh my.
(applause)
Friends, Dan Brown has given a gift to the church in the Da Vinci Code, for it has brought the subject of Jesus to center stage. So, what do you do when someone wants to talk about it? You can listen first to them. Then, you can offer to share what you know in response to what they have shared. Finally, share from your own experience with the living Jesus. Invite them to read a few chapters of the New Testament, to encounter who Jesus is in that book after having read Dan Brown's.
(http://www.thedavincidialogue.com/expert.cfm?e=198+ Vishal Mangalwadi, LLD)
http://www.thedavincidialogue.com/
http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/davinciopportunity.htm#faq10
http://www.thedavincidialogue.com/expert.cfm?e=164 (Pr Patrick H Reardon)
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