Resurected Drunken Pirates: Reflections on Holy Week

This post shall be. . .monsterous.

Easter seems like it was forever ago, but in truth, it was only a little over a week ago.

This Easter season has been a very meaningful time for me, starting on Ash Wednesday all the way to this past week. This year, I had the privelege of portraying St. Thomas the Apostle in my church's Easter musical, I Will Follow Christ (Thankfully, not a singing role!).

The Easter Play is always a meaningful experience, obviously because of the ability it gives one to see the Gospel acted out in front of you, but also, for our church, because of the fact that is virtually the only time when all the church is gathered together and working towards a common goal, rather than split into seperate groups by age or gender. . . it is refreshing to be a church for once.

Everyone talks about community these days. . .from Rick Warren to Bono. . . but I must admit, I prefer communion to community. Because that's what we believe in, right? The Communion of Saints? This isn't just a bunch of people getting together and pretending to like each other. This ought to be people unified by the love of Christ. . . and the rest of the Trinity :)

In case y'all don't know this, I'm a fan of the old traditions of the Church . . . and of everything, really. The Easter play gave me a beautiful taste of what I sometimes miss at church . . . a certain weight that ritual and tradition give to human action. I know we sometimes treat the words "tradition" and "ritual" as nessecarily evil. . . but think about it. . . there's something about ceremony that we prefer to informality.

For example, why are weddings so special? If ceremony and ritual were really so horrid, everyone would get married in shorts and flip flops at a government office and then meet friends at MacDonald's afterwords.

Tradition and Ritual are good things. In their proper place, of course, but good nontheless. There is a beautiful weight and glory to ceremony, to doing things with infinite care, almost as if they mattered. . .

But I digress.

Speaking of weight and ceremony, it truly was a privelege to have a role in the Easter play. . . it is a weighty thing to portray a Saint.

I know protestants (which I suppose I must rank myself as, for the time being) are very wary of the idea of Saints, but I think it's a good idea to look to those who came before us, and to properly respect them. I feel like there is too much disrespect around today; especially towards the Apostles.

"The disciples were really stupid sometimes, they never understood what Jesus said"

"That Peter, he was always putting his foot in his mouth!"

"The twelve always had selfish motives that made Jesus mad"

I'll admit it. . .I'm tired of hearing this crap from pulpits. Yeah, the twelve were sometimes dense. . .can you say that if the living Word of God came and started speaking to you, you would understand everything he said? We have trouble understanding Jesus, and we've hav 2000+ years to figure it out. . .we've had great theologians spend their lives to help us understand this stuff. . .the disciples were the first to hear it. Yeah, the disciples were normal men. . . but they were not like us, any more than Kings are like us. . . I guess the only way of saying it is this : They were great men. They were heroes.

Honestly, the thing that makes me furious is when I hear pastors say "These were just stupid lower-class fishermen."

Ok, so just because people are poor and hardworking, you think they're stupid?

And you call me bourgeouis. . .

It's true that I believe that some men are greater than others, but I don't think this has anything to do with how much money they make or how much education they have, but rather, with how they live their lives. And the Twelve lived lives that we can only marvel at.

In the play, the disciple's were a bit of comic relief at times; mainly with our ridiculous dance we broke into after Jesus breaks up a scuffle between St. John and St. Andrew over who will be the greatest in the Heaven. For the funny scenes, we were told by the director to be a little more jolly and enthusiastic, but very masculine and rough.

"Drunken pirates. That's what you are"

Interesting. I'll admit, I got a kick out of shouting AAAARRR! when I was supposed to shout out Hosanna during practice. But perhaps meaningful: when we changed into shining white robes for the scenes in Heaven(except Judas, who for some reason seemed to be missing. . .), I joked that we were now "resurected drunken pirates". St. Simon said that sounded like a band name. But perhaps that's what Saints are: sinners like the rest of us, but raised to higher places, not by their own efforts, but by the grace of God.

But I digress again. On to my role:

St. Thomas is an interesting figure. I played him as the young, silly disciple (mainly because I was the only disciple under 23), and was given the liberty to change a few of my lines to reflect this.

It was an experience to play St. Thomas. . .mainly a pleasant one, but going for makeup everyday was not my favorite thing in the world, and my fake, painted on beard was. . . interesting. Still, it was an incredible experience, and there was such an amazing sense of communion and brotherhood among the disciples (the cast). . .I really miss those few weeks.

Because of my role, I read up on St. Thomas a bit (Did you know he is the patron Saint of Architects, and that spread Christianity to India, becoming the farthesst traveling disciple?).
There are only three times he is specifically mentioned in the Gospels (asides from when he is listed with all the others).

The first time, Jesus returns to Galilee to visit the tomb of his dead friend Lazarus. We've heard this story before, but if we actually read it rather than skipping ahead for the truly powerful story of Lazarus ressurection, we see another story almost as powerful. Jesus had left Galilee under threat of death, and he and the twelve faced death if he returned. Jesus decides to return and the disciples face a decision: possibly for the first time they face the reality of dying for Jesus. Is this really worth dying for?

"Let us go and die with him."

This was the answer given by St. Thomas; this is the unequalled boldness we hear from the one we are used to calling "the doubter".

The second time we hear about St. Thomas is at the Last Supper, when Christ says that he is going to depart. St. Thomas asks "How will we follow if we don't know where you are going?" If nothing else, we are given the picture of a disciple who is obsessed about following Jesus, so that he is ready to die and concerned with the need for precise directions. And just perhaps, obsessed about making sure it is Jesus he is following. . .not something else.

Which leads to the source of St. Thomas' infamy: The doubting episode. This I will. . .gloss over. Mainly because I want to go to sleep. Meaghan Henderson, if you made it this far, I'm very proud of you. Now, about the doubting: Yes, silly of St. Thomas. But truly, there are worse things than wanting to make sure Jesus is really alive and not dead. Maybe a lack of faith; but Jesus reproaches him gently, almost as if teasing him. Afterwords, what can he say?

"My Lord and my God!"

The Catholic Encyclopdia says that this is one of the boldest statements of faith in the New Testament. I think we should learn from St. Thomas' victories and his failure, to follow Christ passionately, and just perhaps, to have a little more faith.

There's a little more I have to share about Easter, but with this, I shall take my leave for now.

Go Under the Mercy.

-Jonathan Adriel Diaz