Sunday, April 13, 2014
The Pain of Lent
Today is Palm Sunday. Today I will prosecute Jesus in Texas. It will be an interesting cast. In addition to the regular players, James Nortey will be our judge, and Kent McKeever will play Jesus.
Over at his own blog, Kent recently wrote about the "heaviness" of his project, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit for the duration of Lent:
Lately, I have been feeling the heaviness of the burdens I am writing about. These issues are not easy to hear and discuss and feel. And it gets kind of overwhelming after a while. Trying to figure out ways to respond, how to change our ways, efforts in advocacy that will truly make a difference. Really, more than anything, just deep down I feel the wearisome sting of the lack of mercy and compassion in our world. But sometimes I feel unmerciful myself.
His feelings echo some of what I feel when I serve as the prosecutor of Jesus. It sets the prosecutor in me against the Christian in me, and the dissonance is tiring. Much of what I say, I truly believe-- that Jesus is dangerous to authority, that he wants to turn the world upside down-- and it is hard to present in such a challenging way. In fact, at some level I am preaching the gospel more truthfully when I prosecute Jesus than when I give a sermon, because I have license to speak all those truths that make us deeply uncomfortable.
But, it does feel unmerciful, too. And that is the part that is hardest.
Over at his own blog, Kent recently wrote about the "heaviness" of his project, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit for the duration of Lent:
Lately, I have been feeling the heaviness of the burdens I am writing about. These issues are not easy to hear and discuss and feel. And it gets kind of overwhelming after a while. Trying to figure out ways to respond, how to change our ways, efforts in advocacy that will truly make a difference. Really, more than anything, just deep down I feel the wearisome sting of the lack of mercy and compassion in our world. But sometimes I feel unmerciful myself.
His feelings echo some of what I feel when I serve as the prosecutor of Jesus. It sets the prosecutor in me against the Christian in me, and the dissonance is tiring. Much of what I say, I truly believe-- that Jesus is dangerous to authority, that he wants to turn the world upside down-- and it is hard to present in such a challenging way. In fact, at some level I am preaching the gospel more truthfully when I prosecute Jesus than when I give a sermon, because I have license to speak all those truths that make us deeply uncomfortable.
But, it does feel unmerciful, too. And that is the part that is hardest.
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Your struggle in this speaks both to your faith and to your desire to perform so as to communicate to others the nature of Christ and the faults of culture.
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