Holy Week Post

(Rembrandt, The Three Crosses)

My Church did its Passion Play last Sunday. The eldest Llama-ette had the role of the donkey Jesus rode (or in this case, walked beside) into Jerusalem. While I could not resist joking about her being typecast for the role, I did at least manage to restrain myself from doing so within earshot of her.

After the rather disorganized rehearsal we went through Saturday afternoon, I really was not expecting very much on Sunday morning. However, I was pleasantly surprised and, I must say, quite moved by the performance.

The play was done outside with scene changes being effected by moving from one part of the Church grounds to another, with various backdrops raised to denote different settings: The gates of Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the Garden, Golgotha and so on. It was a dreary, misty day, which fit well with the solemnity of the story. But what really made it go was the way the kids stepped up to their parts. Jesus was played by a boy with very large blue eyes. He had actually memorized his lines and spoke them with a very gentle, deliberate delivery that reenforced their weight. A girl played Judas. She had a naturally gloomy countenance and was dressed in dark robes. To see her standing in the Garden of Gethsemane, brooding on her treachery, was quite chilling. There were a couple of brash young boys playing the centurions, who were obviously quite proud of their cloaks and swords. And a little girl with big, dark eyes played Peter - both her claims and denials of loyalty to Jesus were delivered in exactly the same manner of child-like earnestness, saying to me something about human spiritual frailty. And watching the faces of the crowd of other disciples, townsfolk and Pharisees, I couldn't help thinking of the studies in expression that one often sees filling in the corners and behind the main action in medieval painting and glasswork.

Somehow, someway, the kids weren't just kids going through the motions. By whatever combination of their effort and my imagination, they became their characters. In short, at least to me, the whole production was really, well, transcendant.

I must say that this has not been one of my more successful Lenten seasons (by that, I mean one in which I've been able to properly center and focus in preparation for Easter). Part of it certainly has to do with the fact that Lent is so early this year. I simply wasn't ready for Ash Wednesday right at the beginning of February, and I've felt off balance ever since. And as I grumbled yesterday, I don't think Easter is going to be the joyous event it ought to be. (This isn't just because of the C&E crowd. Even if they all behave like lambs, the mere fact that I have to usher means that I miss out on participating in much of the service.) Given all that, moments like those last Sunday when I have felt I've been able to break through have been all the more rewarding.

Speaking of such things, I've been trying to figure out all day how to respond to this post by Dean Esmay about the relationship between Jews and Christians. Dean is usually a very level-headed guy, but here I think he makes some vast overgeneralizations about Christian understanding of, respect for and potential reaction to Jewish law and tradition (which basically says that we Christians are all heretical loonies). Sure, there is anti-Semitic ignorance, condescension and hostility out there. But Dean tars so many of us with those brushes that I am, frankly, rather offended. Furthermore, I find his suggestion that "most of the Jewish Community" itself views Christians as a solid block of Inquisition-spouting, Holocaust-pushing, turn-or-burn goons capable of coming after them at the drop of a hat, to be quite sad. If that is the prevelant feeling, then evidently there is much to be learned on both sides of the, ah, Testimental Divide.

Yips! to our pal Lintenfiniel Jen, who also was puzzled by Dean's outburst and gives a pretty nifty summary of the Christian belief of Jesus' role in fulfilling both the Old and New Covenant. (I like her "incorrect or incomplete" comparison.)