ABBA and Abba: Mamma Mia! and the Gospel

Yesterday evening I saw the US tour of Mamma Mia, the Broadway production that weaves together hit music from the Swedish band ABBA into a story of a woman, about to be married, in search of her father.

The writers did a masterful job of weaving together the ABBA songs into the broader narrative. It was almost as if the songs were written to be a part of the play. Or was it that they knew the songs so well that they were able to craft the narrative around the songs themselves? Or both?

And during the musical, I got to thinking about the Gospel narratives. [I know, occupational hazard.] I was thinking about part of what the Gospel writers did, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was to weave together various Scriptural traditions that took on new meaning (or meaning that had been there all along) in light of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. They did interpretation and weaving, reordering all these disparate narratives under the broader narrative of the Advent of Messiah Jesus.

But which was it? Did the writers know the "original songs" (i.e., the Old Testament Scriptures) of Abba so well that they were able to weave them together in a coherent narrative, crafting the narrative around the songs themselves? Or was it that the "original songs" were in fact written to be part of the "master play" from the start? Or both.

I think Christians can lean toward the "for both" faithfully. After all, the Old Testament Scriptures have always been scripture for somebody. They remain Holy Scripture for both Christians and Jews. So it must be said that the "original songs" have a meaning and depth all their own, as "songs" with their own internal itegrity. But we as Christians must also say that these songs are "ordered," so to speak, and sung around the definitive center of the Christ event.

Mamma Mia!