The first time I traveled to Germany was in 1998 to visit my good friend Eva, my roommate from 1993 to 1996. I was in my second year of medical school and I took a few extra days on either side of the Thanksgiving holiday. I brought my notes to study since I would get back just before an exam - we were doing gastroenterology, I believe. Eva's community orchestra was doing Tchaikovsky's violin concerto at the time, and many days I studied while she was at rehearsals -- Tchaikovsky's gorgeous music accompanying my work. I have often recalled this time, remembering it as one of the great blessings that I have received -- in the middle of med school craziness I was able to visit a dear friend and hear one of the loveliest pieces of all time, live. I was even there for the concert which was held in a lovely modern hall (next to a castle).
This year Eva's orchestra is doing a staged presentation of portions of Bach's various Passions. Tonight I sat in on a rehearsal at the same beautiful concert hall I was at nearly fifteen years ago.
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As the choir started their warm-up exercises I was reading Walter Wink's Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament. I was immersed in this complex text about personal and structural and institutional evil and how Jesus' death changed everything -- not just for me personally but for the whole world. Then the house lights dimmed and rehearsal started: beautiful choral music with painful pictures beamed onto the white panels in the back: bombed-out buildings, crying children.
Since this is Bach's Passion, I knew we were about to hear about the event I'd just been reading about, the event that somehow "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them." (Colossians 2:15) The "already accomplished" peace and reconciliation of all things (see Colossians 1:20), even with the visible "not yet" of war and famine. |
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| The Last Supper. I think the breakdancing disciple in front of the table is Judas. |
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| Jesus picks up the table at the end of supper and it looks remarkably like him carrying his cross. It was a powerful image, and I wish I'd understood the words to know what the chorus was singing about at this time. |
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By this point in the rehearsal I'd started practicing memory verses, using flash cards I'd written out years ago. When the stage lighting was too dim to see I held the cards close to the floor lights that were lighting up the stairs. As this scene began I was reciting Lamentations 3:21 - 23, "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." The dancer portraying Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane moved with passion -- at one point he looked like he was flying like a bird.
I'd never before thought of this verse as referring to Jesus, but since I was reciting it at the same time as this scene started I reflected on its fuller meaning. Last year I read Peter Enns' The Evolution of Adam, and one incredibly helpful thing he wrote was that the early New Testament writers re-evaluated everything in the Hebrew Scriptures in the light of Jesus. This helped me to understand the (at first glance sort of wacky) way they seemed to quote the Old Testament.
So tonight, I was watching this incredibly talented dancer portraying Jesus begin to tremble, to reach up for help. At one point his entire body was convulsing in agony as he prayed. I continued to meditate on the fact that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases -- and manifests itself in God pouring out himself for us. |
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| Jesus' hip-hop dancing disciples (center) start to physically engage the soldiers (right) who have come to arrest Jesus. |
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| Jesus leads his disciples in a dance. I love the way this shows Jesus teaching them the "third way" of creative, loving, non-violent resistance. |
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| Here Jesus puts himself between his disciples and the soldiers and then gives himself up to the soldiers. A disciple breaks through and cuts off a soldier's ear. Jesus heals the man's ear. |
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| The soldiers interrogate and torture Jesus as the soprano (left) sings a haunting aria. At this point I was going over Philippians 2:5 - 11, which begins: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross. | | |
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The chorus sings part of "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded." Later just a few instruments start the same theme and the crowd begins to shout, "Crucify him!" nearly drowning out the instruments.
"May the Lord direct [our] hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ." (2 Thessalonians 3:5)
