Christ Church Rockville Lenten Devotion

Tuesday ~ March 11, 2014

Prepare ye the way of the Lord...

Two tunes battle for a place in my head whenever I see or hear those words. They couldn't be more different. One tune is a recitative, formal and baroque, sung by a clarion tenor in Handel's Messiah.

But then, enter Stage Right Brain: the sound of a shofar; and then a lone unaccompanied voice from the back of an auditorium:

Preeeeee....pare ye....the way....of the Lord...

A chorus of high schoolers bursts in, exuberant and sloppy, galloping up the aisles shouting the Godspell rockin'-out version, an old memory from my high school days.

I wasn't in the show; I'd auditioned but failed to get a part. But it was discovered that one song stipulated that it be “Sung by the pit band,” and I was recruited to join the band so that the other members wouldn't have to sing. To make it legit, they had me play whatever incidental slide-whistle swoops, wood-block bonks, and triangle-dings were required.

My older brother played Jesus, the lead role. I wanted to be proud of him, but I'll admit my jealousy would get in the way. How could it not? My brother was cast as the son of God, while I was cast...in the pit. As the rehearsals went by, my vantage point of several steps down seemed appropriate; I would watch this chummy little troupe belting and bonding up on stage while I sulked at their feet, playing skritch, skritch, skritch on my bizarre percussion gadgets, waiting for my one song, which was not even a solo, but a duet.

The duet was called “On the Willows” and was sung during the Last Supper scene. It was actually a fairly poignant moment; the cast silently bids Jesus farewell, embracing him while the band sings and plays this quiet ballad.

Reaching this scene after a long dress rehearsal, one of the girls in the cast suddenly burst out sobbing as she was saying goodbye to Jesus. Suddenly, every single person onstage was weeping, stumbling from hug to hug, raw immediate teenage emotion spilling all over the stage, as the director shouted “KEEP GOING!” from the back of the auditorium.

They did; crying for the rest of the rehearsal, through the whole crucifixion scene, right to the end, the triumphant PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD drowning in their tears and tight throats as they carried my brother up the aisle.

My jealousy had long left the auditorium.

The director threw out her notes to the cast that night, and simply said, “If you want to cry during the performances, go ahead.”

I could have stayed jealous. The show was still all about my brother—maybe even more so now, with the idea of him dying being so visibly unbearable—but now I felt proud of him. Really, I had always been proud of him. Was this really my goofy brother, the nerdy oddball, playing Jesus Christ, with all these high school girls crying and hugging him? Yes, it was, and he was feeling the part down to his bones. Because he was crying, too, his voice breaking every time he sang “Oh, God, I'm dying...”

The fact that it all started, and from then on, always started, during my song didn't even resonate with me in any conscious way, but I stopped feeling insignificant that night. I didn't mind that I wasn't up on stage hugging everyone. From then on, I understood what it meant to be part of something that was so big you couldn't get your arms around it, something that instead put arms around you, and gathered you up with everyone there, be they next to you in the music stand's glow, or in the brilliance of the spotlight, or in the furthest seat back, shouting “KEEP GOING!” in the dark.

Today I pray that if I don't always see my purpose, I may always sense it, with God's help.

— Susan Lin