Lights! Costumes! SonRise!
“Myron… I don’t think we’re at Southern anymore.”
I gazed at the transformed campus and nodded. I couldn’t disagree. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought that we had actually been transported to first century Jerusalem.
Sheep, goats, llamas, camels, chickens, and a donkey were present on school grounds – some roaming free and other locked in pens for “mess control.” People everywhere were dressed in the tunics, mantles, and sandals appropriate for the time. Some walked around as spectators, while others stood in shanty-like stands, advertising the wood, fruit, bread, beads, oils, and animals that they were supposedly trying to sell. Their eager voices rang out from every corner, along with the blacksmiths’ pounding of metal and the cries of goats being chased by small children. Roman soldiers, armored and carrying heavy-looking shields, marched back and forth between Pilate’s Palace (Wright Hall) and Mount Golgotha (the little hill behind Hulsey), all the while being monitored by their comrades on horses.
Southern had pulled out all the stops for SonRise.
It was my first time attending the annual walkthrough of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and I have to say, I was impressed. What really got me was the resurrection scene. I knew that it would be special when I read the sign outside the gymnasium that warned of the use of strobe lights, a fog machine, and pyrotechnics.
I took my seat and the scene began. After a sad burial, a startling firework signaled the entrance of the angel who had come to wake Jesus up after his three day’s sleep. As she made her way to the tomb, the devil, dressed in black with a rippling dark cape, snuck up behind her and the two became locked in an epic battle. They moved around the stage in fluid movements, occasionally shoving each other down and throwing more fireworks, until, finally, the devil was defeated when the angel summoned a sudden outburst of flames. The stone on the tomb was then rolled away and out of the fog came a white-clad Jesus. The moment he stepped out of the tomb, an explosion of light and fire rocked the room. Children and angels surrounded Jesus, music blasted from the speakers, and the curtains closed as Jesus rose into the air.
As darkness fell over the cheering crowd, I chuckled and whispered to my friend, “So that’s where my tuition went!”
Despite the climatic conclusion to event, however, I left feeling a tad bit disappointed. Don’t get me wrong – I really enjoyed the performance, but it left me with one question: when did we become so desensitized that we needed fireworks and fog machines to help us experience the awesomeness that was Jesus’ resurrection? I watched the people in the crowd as they went from scene to scene and found their reactions just that: desensitized.
The scene with Pilate at Wright Hall, for example, was extremely interesting. Actors were planted in the audience to scream out things like “crucify him!” and “give us Barabas!” while Pilate was contemplating what to do with Jesus. Everyone looked at the folk screaming with amusement and didn’t take it too seriously. I suppose we all just figured that it was just a play and that there was really nothing we could do about it. When I stopped at Wright Hall a second time a while later, I saw something that interested me.
“Give us Barabas!” one of the actors yelled, his fisted hands waving around the air. “Barabas!”
“No!” a little girl, maybe about six or seven, screamed in response. “Give us Jesus!”
“Yeah! We want Jesus!” the girl next to her agreed.
The actor, unfazed, continued to yell. “Come on everybody! Ba – Ra – Bas! Ba – Ra – Bas!”
“No!” the girl yelled again in dismay.
“What’s wrong with you?!” the other added.
As funny as I thought the two girls were, I soon realized that they probably had not yet been desensitized. Regardless of whether or not they understood that the scene was only a reenactment, they saw Jesus’ sentencing as a tragedy, while the rest of us looked on with nonchalance.
It saddens me that we needed livestock, costumes, makeup, narrators, monologues, strobe lights, fog machines, and pyrotechnics to convey the simple message that Jesus died for us because he would rather lose his life than lose ours. It’s like the guy who played the devil said: the human race will always fail Christ. We don’t deserve Christ’s love at all. We didn’t deserve his life either. Fact is, however, that Christ gave up his life for us – undeserving sinners – because he loved us far, far more than we deserve.
We can watch dramatic scenes, be blinded by eye-catching explosions, and experience climatic battles, but if we leave not understanding the true message of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice, then the entire event would have meant nothing.