I can’t be the only person in the world who cries watching GODSPELL. I just don’t happen to know anyone else who does.

What an effect this movie had on me twelve or so years ago when I first saw it and watched it spell-bound for about thirty-five times. I told you about this in the Story of Heavenletters on the web site.

When I saw GODSPELL again yesterday on Turner Classic Movies, it did it to me again. I credit the music, the innocence, and the spirit of the movie.

This is not one of those movies about the Life of Christ that play the solemn serious music. In fact, the movie and music are playful, and the people become like little children.

The movie starts with ordinary people in a big city. Two of the men are caught in a traffic tie-up, and you know that doesn’t bring out the best in people. One girl works behind a lunch counter. Another is looking to have a job interview. One is a student Xeroxing pages from a book. One is a dancer, etc.

Then, you see a man dressed colorfully pushing a cart across a bridge, as if it were the most natural thing. He plays a flute or a conch of some kind. Not everyone sees him nor hears him, but he appears to the people who apparently are meant to follow him. And so they do. They leave their cars, their jobs, they kick off their shoes, toss away their purses and happily follow this man. They all jump into a park fountain and have a good time, and another world begins where everyone is like the little children and the lilies of the field.

The character who pushes the cart is playing John the Baptist. Their splashing in the fountain is the baptism. Then along comes Christ. He is wearing only shorts. He says to John the Baptist, “I want you to wash me up.” John says humbly, “I should wash you?” Christ says yes, and John does, and then Christ comes up out of the water, and he is wearing colorful clothes with initials across the front like a modest Superman. Christ has a big heart painted on his forehead, and under each eye, a black tear such as a clown might have.

After the fun in the fountain they play leapfrog and skip along to a junkyard, but nothing is a junkyard with Christ along. It becomes a marvelous playground. And they play dress-up.

Christ paints his disciples’ faces with delightful flowers and bright dots. This must represent their special short time with Christ, the glow of it, the incredible joy of it. And then later it is so sad when Christ starts to take off their make-up and tells them he must go away. They sing, “Can’t we go away with you?”

I may not have the correct titles, but here are some of my other favorite songs from the movie:

Day by Day
We Shall Build a Beautiful City
I Want to Thank the Lord for All His Love
You Are the Light of the World

Maybe my most favorite is We Shall Build a Beautiful City.

The ending is unbearable. Christ has his wrists tied with ribbon to the cyclone fence, and he sings, “I am dying, I am dying. I am dead.”

But the sadness does not last long. The child-like disciples carry Christ’s body and are singing joyously again, for, of course, Christ has risen within them.

And then they turn a corner, and the regular world appears again and there is traffic and ordinary dress.

There are a couple of questions this movie brings up for me, and one is about Judas.

Was it his will to betray Christ or was it his destiny? Christ says to Judas (now the same actor who played John the Baptist): “Do quickly what you have to do. Fulfill what the prophets have written. Friend, do quietly what you have to do.” And yet Judas feels guilt and hangs himself at what becomes later the Judas Tree.

My other question concerns the similarities between Christ and Krishna, particularly as portrayed in this movie. They both are joyful. They both charm and delight. They were pied pipers, and our souls were compelled to follow their music. No one could get enough of them. And they both actually lived.

And there’s one more question. Did we know Christ? Were we present with him?