Luke 1-9, 17-24

Up until the recent demise of all extracurriculars at Notre Dame due to the lovely pandemic the world is struggling with currently, I would spend all my evenings in the basement of DPAC rehearsing for the FTT’s upcoming production of Jesus Christ Superstar, which is a musical version of the last three days of Jesus’ life. I was cast to play one of the priests and guards, so basically the whole show I was trying to capture and brutalize the character of Jesus. Being an actor who does not prepare and a nonreligious student, I had never properly read the passion before. What stuck out to me was the differences in how the Bible and the show portray Jesus’ reaction to his arrest and consequential demise. You see that there is a grand difference between accepting defeat and not challenging fate. In our production, Jesus was far more questioning of God’s path for him, to the point where on the cross he is crying out to God asking why he must pay this ultimate price, until he finally accepts the defeat, in a far more human way. Yet when you read chapter 23 of Luke, Jesus almost floats through the violent actions committed against him, floggings, betrayals, mobs rioting for his crucifiction until he finally passes on after the ninth hour on the cross at their hands. I use the word float because he stays truly above his opposers such as the high priest, Pilate, and Herod, who mistreat him viciously. He stays a forgiving soul, one without doubts, who trusts his God’s path, all the way to his final words of ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit’.