The Passion as Drama
My love of the theater stretches back to childhood when neighborhood kids would put on plays in our single car garage (the swinging doors serving as the curtain) and when we presented class pageants to celebrate our pastor’s birthday every May 22. Now I find myself taking courses in acting at a local community college and subscribing to three separate professional theater series.I suspect this reflects the popularity of the performing arts as well as the printed word throughout history. It says something about the human imagination and the desire to see life portrayed, offering more opportunities to reflect on the human experience.What we do every Palm Sunday is an attempt to tell a story of not just the last days of Jesus, but like any great story, we tell or act out a story to see ourselves. The cast of characters is rich, the story line is compelling, the tension between opposing forces palpable. Though we know exactly what the outcome will be, we are spellbound by the power of the story because we are in fact part of the story.As in the words of the spiritual “Were you there…., ”we are part of this drama.more than any other story in the Bible Even if we choose not to see ourselves as “an extra” or to take the part of any one of the characters, we are in the story. Like any story the motivation of the characters drives the action, and in this story we are the motivation of the protagonist.Today we hold palms as the story is told. In the coming days we will be invited to enter the drama even more deeply as we wash feet, kiss the wood of the cross, and keep vigil. All of this is to emphasize our presence in the story, to urge us to make the story our story. But no matter how we see ourselves in the drama unfolding this week, we cannot escape where the story leads, which is probably the reason it is so treasured! 