Octogenerians present Passion Play
Congregation members from St Andrews Lutheran Church in Glynde performed in a Passion Play just before Easter to an appreciative audience at Glynde Lutheran Homes. The play was also relayed digitally into the residential care home on site. The group’s third Passion Play, this year’s was titled Here Is the Truth, and took the form of an investigative TV show set in the year 33AD, focusing on the question ‘Who was Jesus of Nazareth?’
A total of 17 church members and friends, mostly over eighty, participated in this dramatic search for the real truth.
Below is an overview of the play’s plot, as told by the program host, Amos Gideon (aka Irwin Traeger):
Throughout the play there were many discoveries made by the characters, including that, contrary to common belief, Jesus was not from Nazareth after all, but came in fact, from Bethlehem, born some 33 years ago. Another staggering revelation was that his mother (a teenager named Mary) claimed she gave birth to Jesus without having relations with a man. At first, the on-screen presenters scoffed at this, but were not prepared for what followed. Further research by a journalist attached to their Bethlehem Studios, as well as analytical commentary from a Professor Hezekiah, a religious expert from the University of Jerusalem, Jesus’ mother’s claims were substantiated. Later they were supported also by her husband, Joseph, who reported that an angel had told him.”More and more evidence was forthcoming from many interviews with people who had known Jesus, and numerous cross-references with 400-year-old prophecies in the Jewish holy writings. All this led to both the program host, Amos Gideon, and Professor Hezekiah leaning towards the possibility that perhaps, after all, Jesus was not just an ordinary man. The Professor said, “An ordinary man in exceptional circumstances, is no longer an ordinary man”.
When asked whether he then was willing to believe that Jesus was in fact divine, the Professor hesitated, then said, “Well, actually, yes, I am inclined to . . . except for the inescapable fact that he is dead and buried.” Here, he was referring to Jesus’ execution by crucifixion, at the Governor Pilate’s decree just three days earlier. That seemed to bring the whole investigation to a halt.
Just when the program was about to end, soldiers burst into the broadcast studio confessing that the High Priest had bribed them to lie and say that Jesus’ followers had kidnapped Jesus’ body from his tomb. On-air confusion in the studio was further interrupted when an exhausted woman from Magdala rushed in. Almost breathless, she shouted as best she could, that Jesus was alive. “He lives. I have seen him. I have talked with him this morning. He truly is alive again,” she almost shouted. Her face displayed the biggest smile the writer of this article has ever seen.
Faced with these two reports, the program’s host, Amos announced, “Thankyou for watching the award-winning program Here Is the Truth. We now conclude this sensational episode, and confess that our plan to investigate the question ‘Who was Jesus of Nazareth’ was a mistake. All the time, we should have been investigating the question, Who IS Jesus of Nazareth?”
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