Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Prayer for Wednesday of Holy Week
Assist us mercifully with Thy help, O Lord God of our salvation; that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts, whereby Thou hast given unto us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Prayer for Tuesday of Holy Week
O Lord God, whose blessed Son, our Saviour, gave His back to the smiters and hid not His face from shame; Grant us grace to take joyfully the sufferings of the present time, in full assurance of the glory that shall be revealed; through the same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Upon Further Review, It's Still Not Funny
Just a few further thoughts on the laughing at Jesus suffering in the play in my congregation last night.
My level of being appalled at the laughter in my church last night is still quite high. My sadness that some people would think it was funny that Jesus was beaten or that how it was portrayed was funny is still overwhelming.
Yet, after the play, as we were closing up the church and a few of us were standing around talking, I was listening to some of the younger people talk and realized there may be a reason for the laughter that rests in our culture. They were talking about a new horror movie that has just opened at the theater on our island. This is a movie that is rated R for prolonged sequences of strong gruesome horror violence, rape and language.
I guess there were scenes in this movie where blood flies and body parts come off given the conversation about it. This was conversation among teenagers and young adults ages roughly 13 to 25. And they were laughing about the violence in the movie. They thought it was funny.
As I thought about it later, hearing their laughter about the violence in the flick helped explain why they thought the beating and suffering of Jesus was funny. If they laugh at what the movies portray as gruesome, they will laugh when Jesus gets hit. They will not see what is sad or horrific about either.
In many ways, people who can laugh at such scenes have been desensitized to such stuff or have had their consciences seared by witnessing such things on screen, in music or books for too long. I wonder if they are not borderline sociopaths. I wonder what our society will look like as these individuals grow older and begin raising their own children.
If people see such horror played out on the screen as funny or things to laugh about later, what will happen when such horror and gruesomeness takes place in real life? Will they laugh at the poor soul who was unfortunate enough to be assaulted, raped, tortured and murdered?
Our society is being inundated with extreme violence, and it is not just in the movies, check out promos for network primetime dramas during football or basketball games for example. I know others have probably said it first, but we are deteriorating to the same level as the Romans who were entertained by watching gladiators fight to the death or people get eaten by wild beasts.
The flood of such violence on our society is destroying our compassion for the weak and the defenseless. The very people God says He cares about. The ones Jesus said that when we care for them, we have cared for Him. We can laugh at Jesus’ suffering and torture because we have been taught to laugh at that violence everywhere else in our society.
He came to heal, forgive, and give life. We are promoting harm, vengeance, and death. C.S. Lewis had a character in one of his books who enjoyed tearing apart innocent creatures just because they were innocent and he could do it. He left a bloody trail wherever he went. We are becoming like that character. Lord, have mercy on us and lead us to better paths.
My level of being appalled at the laughter in my church last night is still quite high. My sadness that some people would think it was funny that Jesus was beaten or that how it was portrayed was funny is still overwhelming.
Yet, after the play, as we were closing up the church and a few of us were standing around talking, I was listening to some of the younger people talk and realized there may be a reason for the laughter that rests in our culture. They were talking about a new horror movie that has just opened at the theater on our island. This is a movie that is rated R for prolonged sequences of strong gruesome horror violence, rape and language.
I guess there were scenes in this movie where blood flies and body parts come off given the conversation about it. This was conversation among teenagers and young adults ages roughly 13 to 25. And they were laughing about the violence in the movie. They thought it was funny.
As I thought about it later, hearing their laughter about the violence in the flick helped explain why they thought the beating and suffering of Jesus was funny. If they laugh at what the movies portray as gruesome, they will laugh when Jesus gets hit. They will not see what is sad or horrific about either.
In many ways, people who can laugh at such scenes have been desensitized to such stuff or have had their consciences seared by witnessing such things on screen, in music or books for too long. I wonder if they are not borderline sociopaths. I wonder what our society will look like as these individuals grow older and begin raising their own children.
If people see such horror played out on the screen as funny or things to laugh about later, what will happen when such horror and gruesomeness takes place in real life? Will they laugh at the poor soul who was unfortunate enough to be assaulted, raped, tortured and murdered?
Our society is being inundated with extreme violence, and it is not just in the movies, check out promos for network primetime dramas during football or basketball games for example. I know others have probably said it first, but we are deteriorating to the same level as the Romans who were entertained by watching gladiators fight to the death or people get eaten by wild beasts.
The flood of such violence on our society is destroying our compassion for the weak and the defenseless. The very people God says He cares about. The ones Jesus said that when we care for them, we have cared for Him. We can laugh at Jesus’ suffering and torture because we have been taught to laugh at that violence everywhere else in our society.
He came to heal, forgive, and give life. We are promoting harm, vengeance, and death. C.S. Lewis had a character in one of his books who enjoyed tearing apart innocent creatures just because they were innocent and he could do it. He left a bloody trail wherever he went. We are becoming like that character. Lord, have mercy on us and lead us to better paths.
It is Not Supposed to Be Funny
Last night my church put on a drama skit called The Trial during our Sunday evening worship service. It was the culmination of weeks of practice for the 12 people involved in the skit. Overall they did a fairly good job considering only one or two of them have a sense of drama or acting in telling a story. However, no one is going to say they are ready for the big stage as actors or costume designers.
The drama was about the trial of Jesus and was taken as much as possible from the words of Scripture in the four Gospels. One of the ladies in the church had been working on it for a few years putting together the different pieces from the different Gospel accounts to create a harmonized version that told the story of Jesus’ arrest and trial in a simple way.
Given that we are a small church, this was an ambitious undertaking. The hope was that we would use this play as an outreach to the friends and family members of the people of our church. When I looked around, I noticed that the church was fairly full and about one-third of those people were visitors. So I thought it was reasonably successful in being in an outreach.
The idea was to keep the play simple and yet the storyline faithful to the Gospel accounts. In reading the script ahead of time and watching the practices, I thought they had done a fairly good job in keeping to that goal. It wasn’t the Jesus Film or The Passion of The Christ, but for our church and our location it was pretty good.
Yet during the play something unusual happened. After Jesus is arrested and brought to the house of Caiaphas to be tried before the chief priests and rulers, He is beaten by the guards who blindfold Him and tell Him to prophesy who hit Him. It is the first of several beatings in the play that ultimately culminate in Jesus’ scourging as commanded by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.
In the play last night every time Jesus was struck people would chuckle. It started early as a little tittering here and there, but by the end people were laughing great big belly laughs every time the actor playing Jesus was hit. When it was just a little tittering I thought that was weird, but by the end I was appalled. It was as if the people weren’t seeing the story played out on stage.
Now I admit no one on that stage was going for an Oscar or a Tony award. It may be that the people were amused by the scene of a very popular elder in the church being struck by another well-liked elder. But when the action was taken off stage but with sound effects continuing to demonstrate the brutality of the beating given to Jesus, the laughing got louder. When the two actors playing Jesus and the Roman soldier came back on stage and the one playing Jesus was covered in stage blood with torn clothes and bloody purple robe on his shoulders, the audience lost it laughing so hard.
How horribly tragic.
Even my almost ten-year-old came up to me right after the play and said, “Dad, that wasn’t a drama. It was a comedy!” What a thing to have left as an impression upon a kid who knows better. The story of Jesus’ trial and suffering became a comedy of laughter for many people. This should have caused us the greatest shock and sadness as we realized what was happening on stage.
The most horrific event in human history should not be seen as a comedy. It is not a laughing matter that Jesus suffered and died in our place. We shouldn’t laugh at His beating or give people a reason to laugh about it as if it were some great form of entertainment like the Romans feeding Christians to the lions.
The seriousness of our sin problem gets downplayed when Jesus’ suffering is seen as entertainment. We dishonor Christ when we laugh or cause other people to laugh about His standing in our place to be punished for our sin and to defeat sin. I am appalled that such a dishonoring of the suffering of Jesus Christ took place in church. I understand when such things happen elsewhere, though I do not like it. But in church? It should never happen.
The suffering of Jesus Christ is no laughing matter. It is not a comedy, people.
Lord, forgive us for making light of your suffering and death. Forgive us for laughing when we should have been crying. Help us to see with better eyes the seriousness of our sin and the greatness of your sacrifice on our behalf. In your precious Name we pray, Amen.
The drama was about the trial of Jesus and was taken as much as possible from the words of Scripture in the four Gospels. One of the ladies in the church had been working on it for a few years putting together the different pieces from the different Gospel accounts to create a harmonized version that told the story of Jesus’ arrest and trial in a simple way.
Given that we are a small church, this was an ambitious undertaking. The hope was that we would use this play as an outreach to the friends and family members of the people of our church. When I looked around, I noticed that the church was fairly full and about one-third of those people were visitors. So I thought it was reasonably successful in being in an outreach.
The idea was to keep the play simple and yet the storyline faithful to the Gospel accounts. In reading the script ahead of time and watching the practices, I thought they had done a fairly good job in keeping to that goal. It wasn’t the Jesus Film or The Passion of The Christ, but for our church and our location it was pretty good.
Yet during the play something unusual happened. After Jesus is arrested and brought to the house of Caiaphas to be tried before the chief priests and rulers, He is beaten by the guards who blindfold Him and tell Him to prophesy who hit Him. It is the first of several beatings in the play that ultimately culminate in Jesus’ scourging as commanded by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.
In the play last night every time Jesus was struck people would chuckle. It started early as a little tittering here and there, but by the end people were laughing great big belly laughs every time the actor playing Jesus was hit. When it was just a little tittering I thought that was weird, but by the end I was appalled. It was as if the people weren’t seeing the story played out on stage.
Now I admit no one on that stage was going for an Oscar or a Tony award. It may be that the people were amused by the scene of a very popular elder in the church being struck by another well-liked elder. But when the action was taken off stage but with sound effects continuing to demonstrate the brutality of the beating given to Jesus, the laughing got louder. When the two actors playing Jesus and the Roman soldier came back on stage and the one playing Jesus was covered in stage blood with torn clothes and bloody purple robe on his shoulders, the audience lost it laughing so hard.
How horribly tragic.
Even my almost ten-year-old came up to me right after the play and said, “Dad, that wasn’t a drama. It was a comedy!” What a thing to have left as an impression upon a kid who knows better. The story of Jesus’ trial and suffering became a comedy of laughter for many people. This should have caused us the greatest shock and sadness as we realized what was happening on stage.
The most horrific event in human history should not be seen as a comedy. It is not a laughing matter that Jesus suffered and died in our place. We shouldn’t laugh at His beating or give people a reason to laugh about it as if it were some great form of entertainment like the Romans feeding Christians to the lions.
The seriousness of our sin problem gets downplayed when Jesus’ suffering is seen as entertainment. We dishonor Christ when we laugh or cause other people to laugh about His standing in our place to be punished for our sin and to defeat sin. I am appalled that such a dishonoring of the suffering of Jesus Christ took place in church. I understand when such things happen elsewhere, though I do not like it. But in church? It should never happen.
The suffering of Jesus Christ is no laughing matter. It is not a comedy, people.
Lord, forgive us for making light of your suffering and death. Forgive us for laughing when we should have been crying. Help us to see with better eyes the seriousness of our sin and the greatness of your sacrifice on our behalf. In your precious Name we pray, Amen.
Prayer for Monday of Holy Week
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but He first suffered pain, and entered not into glory before He was crucified; Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through the same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Behold, The King Comes
"Behold, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden"
Matthew 21:5
"Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!"
Matthew 21:9
Palm Sunday Prayer
ALMIGHTY and eternal God, You Who of Your tender love towards the human race sent Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to make our human nature and flesh His own, and to suffer death upon the Cross, that all peoples should follow the example of His great humility; in Your mercy grant that we may both follow the example of His patience, and also be made partakers of His resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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