You Are The Christ

Good morning and happy Easter to everyone!


As I looked ahead to this most special holiday I was filled with an overwhelming sadness.  Walking through an empty church sanctuary to prepare for another filming of a sermon spoken to an empty and quiet room,  sitting behind the scenes watching as a pastor speaks to a flat monitor that only comes to life with the comments from the people he has led and loved for so many years.  It’s hard sitting there and watching, knowing that they miss that human connection with their flock and knowing that there’s nothing you can do for them except to be as supportive as you can.  But, either way it just doesn’t drum up the same kind of energy as hearing excited voices entering the building, watching as people shake hands and embrace, laughing over a cup of coffee before they enter the sanctuary for the service and worshipping with them as they raise their voices in praise to the God they love.


I think for me, as for many of us, this situation has brought about a feeling of nostalgia, so many things we feel we are missing out on, so many things we have taken for granted.  This past week I was texting with my friend Sheila and she began talking about the Easter drama that we had done many years ago called You Are The Christ.  Sheila made the comment that she had been reading through the Easter story in Matthew and had been reminded again of how much the drama used scripture within the script.  And though I had added to the script and made slight changes to the music over the years, the original script with that solid foundation of scripture is definitely accredited to Deborah Craig-Clair, she is an amazing author.  I believe we did the production in our church for 10 years and it took approximately 150 people both on stage and off to make it happen.  I will forever be grateful to every person that worked alongside to make this happen!


After we were done texting I got up from my office chair and walked over to my bookshelf where I knew I kept a copy of one of the final performances of this wonderful production.  It was too old to play on my computer at work and I had no idea if there was any way I could take the files off of this old DVD, but I was sure going to try.  I tucked it away in my purse and took it home.  Thankfully I have a really old desktop that I’m still using at home and so I was able to open it and it even allowed me to copy the files to a USB drive, yes it is a very old machine.  It took a bit of finagling but I managed to find an online program that would translate the TS files into an MP4 that I could share.  I was feeling pretty happy!


I sat in my kitchen and watched it that evening and as the familiar faces came onto the screen  I was reminded of such amazing memories, so many great friendships and such an incredible honor to work with extremely talented people!  And then I got to the end of the drama and when they began to sing that final song, It Is Finished, well I had no words, only tears rolling.  It was such a powerful moment during a live performance, but the music and words were just as alive and real on the screen as back then.  If I remember right that was our largest weekend ever, nearly 1500 people came to watch this production.  What an amazing testimony for God’s story!

I don’t have much to offer you this Easter season, I know this has been a hard and trying time for everyone.  But, my prayer is that by sharing this you can be touched by a little piece of the real story that we celebrate today and even if all you want to do is take a peek to see if you can find yourself on film or maybe see a familiar face, that’s ok too.  I hope it brings back a spark of happy nostalgia for you.  And those small children that were in the cast back then?  Well, they are all grown up now.  And sadly there are even some from the cast that have passed on through the years, including my favorite set designer Wes.  But, either way, this is a part of WMBC that I was privileged to be a part of and am so proud to claim it as part of our history.  I hope you enjoy this tiny blast from the past.


Thank you Sheila for the push to remember!


So, anyway, here without further ado is the link to that 2004 performance.