By Marvin A. McMickle
Newsweek and Time magazines have done front-page stories on The DaVinci Code. Last week on ABC there was an hour-long special on whether or not the claims in that book are true. Ricky Williams, the All-Pro running back from the Miami Dolphins announced that after he had read The DaVinci Code he was retiring from football so he devote himself to the search for truth about the issues raised in that book. This man gave up a multi-million dollar contract because of a book. Our generation has become obsessed with this one book.
In case you have not read that book, I have read it for you and this is what it is about. The DaVinci Code is about long hidden evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and they had a child together. The Holy Grail for which people have been searching since the time of Christ was not the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper, instead the Holy Grail is the womb of Mary from which their son was born. The proof that Mary and Jesus were married, says this book, is that upon a close inspection of the painting of the Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci one of the persons standing close to Jesus is actually a woman and that woman is Mary Magdalene.
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If the truth about Jesus and Mary Magdalene were to get out, says The DaVinci Code, it would undermine much of the theology upon which the Roman Catholic Church was established. Therefore, a secret society had been protecting this information for these last 2000 years, and the Roman Catholic Church was having the last surviving members of this secret society killed in order to prevent them from releasing this information to the public. The book takes the reader from the Louvre Museum in Paris, to Westminster Abbey in London, to a small parish church in Scotland and then back to Paris again.
According to The DaVinci Code, the Bible is a lie because it does not accurately report the relationship between Mary and Jesus, and worse, Jesus cannot be the sinless savior of the world because he has engaged in the same carnal acts as the rest of the world. Moreover, how can the Roman Catholic Church require celibacy of its priests if Jesus was married and had a child with Mary Magdalene? That, in essence, is the story-line of The DaVinci Code, and as a result of that novel an entire society has been thrown into a frenzy over whether or not their faith is authentic, whether the Bible can be trusted, and whether or not Jesus is really the Son of God and the savior of the world.
I asked that man in the parking lot if he had seen the film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a film with Sean Connery and Harrison Ford that was also about the quest for the Holy Grail. He said he had, so I asked him if that film had undermined his faith, and he said that it had not. So why, I asked him, did a novel do what a film could not? He promised to think about that question and get back with me.
Let me tell you what I told him that day in the parking lot. I am not prepared to hand in my Bible with its truths that are thousands of years old in exchange for a book that was written last year. I am not trading in Jesus Christ for Leonardo DaVinci. I am not going to abandon my faith because a storyteller named Dan Brown has weaved a wonderful novel. I am saving myself from this corrupt and perverse generation. Others can put their faith in the pages of The DaVinci Code if they want to, but as for me I have just two things to say. First of all, I say with Isaiah 40:8, "the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God shall stand forever." Second, I say with the hymn writer, "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."
This time next year copies of The DaVinci Code will be gathering dust on bookshelves all over the world. At the same time, men and women will still be saying, "The Lord is my shepherd", and they will still be saying "Thy word is a light unto my feet and a lamp unto my path", and they will still be saying "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against God."
Never mind what this world may do and never mind what some people in this world may believe. Hear the words of our slave ancestors who taught us how to sing, "You may have all this world, just give me Jesus. On a sick bed, I want Jesus and not DaVinci. When I am approaching my grave I want Jesus and not DaVinci. When my money is short, and my mind is confused, and my heart is heavy and the way before me seems dark and drear, please do not hand me a copy of The DaVinci Code. Somebody just call the name of Jesus. Just remind me to lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. Save yourself from this corrupt generation and cast your life, your hope and your faith on Christ.
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Marvin A. McMickle is Pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, OH.
