The Olympics Opening Ceremony
The 2024 Olympics opening ceremony in Paris featured a group of men dressed as women on a bridge overlooking the River Seine where the Olympic athletes traveled by boat. Many people thought this scene mocked Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, “The Last Supper,” and in essence mocked the Christian faith. The Associated Press called it a “Last Supper tableau.” (Adamson, Thomas “Drag Queens Shine at Olympics opening, but ‘Last Supper’ tableau draws criticism” Updated 8:12 PM EDT, July 27, 2024, apnews.com)
The display also featured a scantily-clad male portraying the Greek god Dionysus. A spokeswoman for France’s Olympic Committee said the organizers did not intend to offend any religious group with this display, but to celebrate community tolerance. She also said, “If people have taken any offense, we are, of course, really, really sorry.” (Mendoza, Jordan “Paris Olympics organizers apologize after critics say ‘The Last Supper’ was mocked” Updated Sun, July 28, 2024, 10:56 PM EDT, USA Today)
The ceremony became a global ad for aberrant sexuality. No doubt many watching it were unsupervised children. Why would a parent need to monitor the Olympics? What could a kid see on the Olympics that could be harmful, right? The ceremony caused a firestorm which no doubt will die down eventually. Yet the impact on young minds will last. As the saying goes, once you see something, you cannot unsee it.
Maybe the display was meant to mock the Last Supper. Maybe not. God knows the truth: “…he knoweth the secrets of the heart.” (Psalm 44:21) Enough people thought it was a mockery that logically, someone on France’s Olympic Committee should have realized the potential for offense and stopped it. Yet no one did. Hopefully, the U.S. Olympic Committee will do a better job for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
If it was a mockery, it was blasphemy against Jesus the Son of God; which prompts the question, what did Jesus do to them that was so bad? Did they not like the way He died for their sins on the cross, was buried, and rose again? Another question is, what did Dionysus do for them that they want to honor him?
Worship of false gods is the same as devil worship: “They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.” (Deuteronomy 32:16-17) To honor Dionysus, then, or any false god, is akin to devil worship.
Here’s a wonderful fact, though: even blasphemy like this can be forgiven for those who receive Jesus as Saviour. He said, “All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:” (Mark 3:28) We know this is true because Jesus, God the Son, “…bare our sins in his own body on the tree,” (1 Peter 2:24) The term “our sins” includes every sin every person who has ever lived will ever commit! No wonder John Newton called it Amazing Grace in his famous hymn!
Before he was saved, Paul persecuted Christians. He called himself “…a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious:” (1 Timothy 1:13) Yet Jesus saved him and used him mightily to spread the gospel. So it is with any sinner, no matter what he’s done. When a sinner comes to Jesus in repentance and receives Him by faith into his heart and life, Jesus gives the sinner forgiveness for all his sins and eternal life.