Taking part in the Passion Play was significant for all of us. We give thanks especially for the dedication and sheer hard work of those who wrote it, directed it, sewed the costumes, rehearsed and acted in it, set the stages, managed the sound, and so much more. Please continue to pray for all those who saw it, and whose hearts may be moved to want to learn more.
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THINK ABOUT:
You can read the story of the challenge, trial, death and resurrection of Jesus in its simplest form in St Mark's Gospel. It's worth reading the whole of St Mark's account of Jesus's life and ministry: it's quite short. You can find Bible references for the scenes of the Play alongside the 2010 Picture Gallery.
For a non-biblical account, try C. H. Dodd's The Founder of Christianity, available online.
THINK ABOUT:
It's almost 2000 years since the events that our Play re-created.
These events are something that the followers of Jesus have re-enacted, every single year since they happened. Every Good Friday, every Easter, they have been shared by people who heard them from their grandparents, and who will tell them to their grandchildren.
Our faith is not something we learn from a book. It is a living memory, year on year on year, unbroken between us and the first converts – whose friends were there when it happened, and knew.
THINK ABOUT:
Christianity is unique among the major faiths in this: the defining event of our faith is not a time of triumph but a time of apparent disaster.
We believe in a God who came to be a human being, and who experienced the worst rejection that human beings could inflict. Yes, we believe that he could not be held by death: but there is no undeniable proof, except in a personal meeting with the risen Jesus.
Jesus's life model is not one of domination, or triumphalism. It is a model of service: "Do this, to remind yourselves of me".
THINK ABOUT:
The strongest power the world knows is the one which appears to be weakest: Love. "Beloved, let us love. For Love is God".
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