Gilding the Lily

The Passion
Southeast Christian Church-Louisville, KY
March 26, 2009



I was asked to go, the ticket paid for, so I went. I like the pageantry of Easter as much as the next person-my idea of a perfect Easter is being blissed on the couch, stuffed to the gills with chocolate bunny ears watching Jesus movies one after another.

Southeast is Louisville's megachurch (I've been in smaller stadiums and I'm Catholic-you know we like a big space) and they spare no expense with their production. Horse, camel, 2 burros, sheep and a trained dove (how'd they DO that?) all present and accounted for. Not to mention the moving sidewalk, put to clever use as Jesus & the apostles spread the word, and the cast of (literally) hundreds. A multimedia and multisensory production, it seems like the producers haven't met a special effect they didn't like or weren't willing to put to use for their purpose.

Which was sort of my beef with it. (Besides the song, oh yeah did I mention it's a musical? that had the line "Death where is thy sting" from the gospel of....Shakespeare?) It was hard to genuinely feel much being constantly beaten over the head, hard to listen to the true meaning of the season with so many bells and whistles. The previous Friday I went to the Stations of the Cross at my church. It was me, the nun running it, her nun friend, a lady with a walker and the entire 5th grade class with their kindergarten buddies. It was modest, not a special effect in sight, but I think I got more out of that about the Passion, and its sacrifice, than out of all the pageantry the megachurch threw at me.