Against the outcry of insulted Christians, committee representatives claimed it wasn’t a parody of the Lord’s Supper (that it just happened to look like it) and that, instead of being an allusion to Jesus’ Passover feast on the eve of His crucifixion, it was a playful nod to the ancient Greek god of wine, Dionysus (a salute to France’s wine industry). As the feast takes place, a nearly naked blue man emerges from the food and sings about how much more wonderful the world would be if we were all naked all the time: “Would there be wars if we had stayed entirely naked? Where to hide a revolver when you’re entirely naked?”

The intended message couldn’t be clearer—the problem with the world today is restraint. We just need more “freedom.” If we could just break free from all the restrictions, all the religious rules, all the sexual mores, and even these pesky clothes, then the world would be happy and there would be no more war. If there be any question of the message, it is answered by the next major musical event of the ceremony—a sentimental rendition of Lennon’s famous “Imagine,” which envisions how wonderful it would be if “there’s no heaven or hell … and no religion too.”

Was it Really a Parody of DaVinci’s “The Last Supper” and a Mockery of Jesus?

The scene was clearly a parody of the Lord’s Supper for multiple reasons. 1) The image of a central figure with a halo, flanked by close associates in varied colors at a long table for a meal IS the exact scene of DaVinci’s famous painting; 2) The central figure, the haloed DJ, was played by a lesbian French activitist and disc jockey named Barbara Butch who tweeted of the scene: “Oh Yes! Oh Yes! The New Gay Testament.” She has since deleted the tweet that mocked Christ’s Passover announcement of the “New Covenant.” 3) French news outlets repeatedly referred to the scene title with a play on words in French, “La Cène Sur La Scene Sur La Seine” which translates “The Last Supper on the Stage on the Siene.”

Looks like a duck. Quacks like a duck. Walks like a duck. It’s a duck.

Clearly, the scene was intended to signify some kind of reversal or reinterpretation of the Last Supper. But why? Why pick on a central image of Christianity? And why add this Dionysus figure with his odd song?

The Great Deception Underlying it All

The opening ceremonies aimed to artistically reveal the French values reflected in their national motto that finds its origins in the French Revolution: “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity). They’re beautiful words evoking noble aspirations upon which can all agree—for which we all long: that we live in freedom and that all human beings are equally valued and that we enjoy authentic commonality, like a brotherhood, amidst our differences.

If we think of biblical values, we see the three virtues on glorious display: Liberty—Christ came to set us free; Equality— in Christ there is no free or slave; and Fraternity—we, in Christ, are children of God, brothers and sisters to one another—one body with diverse gifts.

But hell has a counterfeit agenda for every beautiful biblical ideology. Especially when it comes to what “liberty” means.

The problem, the real, underlying problem in the offensive Lord’s Supper parody is the wrong definition of liberty – a complete distortion of the biblical notion of freedom.

Earlier in the opening ceremonies, there’s a powerful connection to Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable when a moving scene reprises a song from the musical, a song of liberation “Do You Hear the People Sing?” Its lyrics include the cry of a revolution “It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again…”

Les Mis, included in every list of greatest novels of all time, tells a story about the yearning for freedom. It is an epic tale about the power of grace over law as seen through the eyes of former chain gang prisoner, Jean Valjean. After serving his time, Valjean is set free from his chains but isn’t free in his heart until he’s caught stealing from a bishop who, instead of pressing charges, claims that the silver Valjean stole was a gift from the bishop. That godly act of unmerited grace changed everything in Valjean’s life—he was free to start a new life and help others to the best of his ability.

Valjean’s story is a gospel story that portrays the deep essence of true freedom. Freedom is not the absence of restraint. It is not the liberty to pursue selfish appetites. Real freedom, God’s kind of freedom, is the glorious gift that comes when we experience a radical grace that forgives us and calls us to a new way of life—a life of service and ministry and giving.

But when the ceremonies upended the Lord’s Supper, it is an artistic expression of the opposite definition of freedom. In contrast to Jean Valjean’s freedom to serve and give because the experience of grace liberated him from guilt and shame, the Lord’s Supper parody presents a distorted version of freedom that promotes disorder.

The spirit of the age cries out: “Cast off restraint and be free! Let no one tell you what to do and be free! Remove the restrictions and be free!”

In other words, the modern secular notion of freedom believes that the pathway to liberty is through less commitments and more choices. But what Christ came to give us is exactly the opposite.

We err to assume in the modern world that “broad” is good and “narrow” is bad. We have been duped into believing that more choices are always better—that it’s more life-giving to keep your options open. Want to be a man or a woman? You have the choice. Want to have sex with a man or woman or both? Your choice. Want to include an underage child in the spectacle. Your choice. Want to dress in the opposite gender or take off all your clothes. Your choice. That’s the definition of freedom according to the spirit of the age.

Not all that is narrow is bad. Sometimes, it is the very best. Sometimes, narrow is the only pathway to more vast blessing. Thirty-nine years ago, I promised to love and be faithful to one woman as long as we both shall live. That exclusive, narrow commitment has opened to me an expanse of blessing I could have never imagined or obtained had I prioritized “keeping my options open”. The exclusive, narrow gate of marriage opened into an immeasurable field of blessedness, including children, a grandchild, a shared ministry, an enduring best friend, a shared bed, a constant prayer partner and the comfort of growing older together. I’m “free” to enjoy such vast blessing over the “freedom” of keeping my options open.

I’ll explore more in my next post about the beauty and power of the true, biblical meaning of freedom. And I’ll attempt to show you how the image of the Dionysus figure in the Olympics ceremony scene betrays the world’s perverted longing for endless carnival, the perpetual turning upside down of order. That longing for disorder, for the chaos of unrestrained living, is at the heart of hell’s ploys. More on that next.