Several years ago, one of my nieces spent her summer playing the role of Mary Magdalene in the Black Hills Passion Play in Spearfish, South Dakota. The outdoor amphitheater included a setting where the audience could watch as Jesus climbed, bloodied and beaten, to the hill where His cross was placed—and where He would soon die.
As guests of one of the cast members, my mom and I were invited by my niece to serve as walk-ons one evening when we were visiting the area. It was a thrill beyond description to don the attire of biblical times, to walk across the front of the crowd, shouting, “Hosanna,” with the cast members and walk-ons as we depicted Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and to have the joy of pointing onlookers to the amazing love behind every day, every moment, every action that makes up what we often call “Holy Week.”
Due to the secretive nature behind how the cast and crew “nailed” Jesus to the cross and raised His cross to its upright position while He “hung” there, walk-ons were rarely (very rarely) allowed to make the trek up the hill. However, my niece somehow managed to get permission for me to follow as one of the crowd members who headed up to Calvary’s hill to watch the scene unfold.
I wept. Profusely. And I wasn’t acting.
It was moving.
No, it was life-changing.
The man who played the role of Jesus was a magnificent actor, and the anguish he so masterfully portrayed in that scene was powerful enough to have stayed strong in my mind to this very day.
Today, as I read Isaiah 53…again, I mentally relived this scene from so many summers ago. As I did, the reality of what the sinless Son of God did, because of love, caused the tears once again to flow freely.
However, tears mean little if there is no resulting change. The change I spent the rest of my God-and-I-Time pleading for (and still seek the Lord for even much later in the day) was that I would continue to follow Him to Calvary.
No, I cannot walk that path up the hill in the now-closed Passion Play in South Dakota. Nor do I refer to that as I lay this request before my God.
Instead, what I long to do is to follow Him, close enough to see afresh what He, in love, did for me—for you.
And in so doing, I can be moved, encouraged, strengthened to follow His teaching and to follow His perfect example…wherever it leads me.
Why? Because He is no longer dead! He rose, victorious over death, and offers to all His free gift of salvation from the penalty of our sins. Following Jesus to Calvary is not where this post ends…
He is risen indeed!
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