It’s been a long time comin’…thirty-three years, in fact.
So you’ve convinced your very forward-thinking worship leader not to stage yet another production of the fifty-five-year-old musical Jesus Christ Superstar for this year’s Holy Week festivities. As penance for this blasphemy, he (and it is a he) invites you to plan a service that will somehow be more appealing to The Youth than seventies rock opera. A tall order.
But you’ve been here before, and you know who to call.
And she can come to the phone right now, because if she has died, she has also risen.
Palm Sunday
ivy (evermore)
“Welcome to New York” would’ve been perfect, but you already used it for the angel chorus at Christmas last year. Instead, you go subtle. This folksy number begins with a quick recap of Jesus’s ministry—”your touch brought forth an incandescent glow”—before establishing Judea’s general political malaise: “I just sit here and wait, grieving for the living.” When Jesus rides in on the donkey, the people welcome their deliverer, singing that their “pain fits in the palm”—get it?—“of your freezing hand.” Enter costumed kids carrying wads of ivy.
Maundy Thursday
22 (Red)
Okay, so the vibe is more friendship bracelets than foot-washing, but this dance-floor banger does have a sacramental meal (“breakfast at midnight”), some ominous foreshadowing (“we forget about the deadlines”), and a resounding theology of communion (“everything will be alright if you keep me next to you”). Plus, who’s to say the Upper Room wasn’t Jerusalem’s hottest club? (Three blocks west of the Eye of the Needle, much chiller crowd.)
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived (The Tortured Poets Department)
Jesus singing to Judas after the kiss, obviously. “Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?” Got it in one. “Were you writing a book?” Depends on your approach to the gnostic Gospel of Judas. “Were you a sleeper cell spy?” In a way. “In fifty years will all this be declassified?” I mean it depends on the dating of the gospels, but yes. “I would’ve died for your sins”—hold that thought, Jesus.
(No comment on the “Jehovah’s Witness suit.”)
Good Friday
Speak Now (Speak Now)
A big public ceremony. An ancient and beloved tradition. An imposing figure, vested with state power, asking the big question. Jesus or Barabbas? “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” A moment of tense silence, and then someone does speak now: Pilate’s wife, urging him “don’t say yes, run away now! You need to hear me out!” (Other ancient authorities add, “You’re not the type of boy who should be torturin’ the wrong churl,” in which “churl” is an archaic word for “peasant.”)
The organ starts to play a song that sounds like a death march.
Haunted (Speak Now)
POV: Judas. Time: Friday morning, after Jesus’s sentencing. Mood: regret. He remembers his friendship with Jesus; how long had they walked that “fragile line”? “Something’s gone terribly wrong—you’re all I wanted.” The atmosphere darkens further as Judas wanders into a field. “Can’t go back, I’m haunted.” (Seriously, listen to the whole song—the parallels are, um, stark. But if it’s too dark for you, Taylor’s oeuvre is chock-full of good Judas songs: “I Did Something Bad,” “Treacherous,” “Don’t Blame Me”…)
Death By a Thousand Cuts (Lover)
[Further comment redacted to minimize sacrilege.]Stage note: At the moment of Jesus’s death, you may be able to simulate the earthquake by harnessing the seismic power of Taylor Swift fans.
Holy Saturday
Forever and Always (Fearless)
Okay, so maybe Jesus is a little more than “halfway out the door.” And maybe he didn’t really say he’d be around forever—more like “you will not always have me with you”—but how were the disciples supposed to understand cryptic speech like that? Discrepancies aside, this song captures the stunned confusion of disappointed hopes: “Where is this going? Thought I knew for a minute, but I don’t anymore.” The pastor steps up for brief meditation: “We live, as you all know, between the already and the not yet, the forever and the always, the rain when you’re here and the rain when you’re gone…”
Easter Sunday
Long Live (Speak Now)
The sun rises. We see Mary Magdalene and the other Mary walking toward us, looking strangely happy. They’re chattering breathlessly: “I said remember this moment!”
Then—bang! The chorus hits, and Jesus tears through a piece of fabric painted to look like a stone. “Long live the walls we crashed through!” He takes off his baseball cap (“Nazareth U”) and hands it to a very confused looking angel, who hands him a crown in exchange. The Marys run to get the disciples, and they arrive on stage looking triumphant, if a bit disheveled: a band of thieves in ripped-up jeans who get to rule the world. An inflatable dragon flies in, confetti falls, the stage manager (call sign: Mustardseed) moves the mountain backdrop back and forth. It’s the time of everyone’s life. You even tell the organist she can play along.
marjorie (evermore)
This is for the liberal Protestants in your congregation—those enlightened academic types who found the preceding song a little too [*whispers judgily*] charismatic. The ones who are happy to proclaim that “what died didn’t stay dead” but who’d prefer a more metaphorical resurrection: “You’re alive, you’re alive in my head.” The ones who like their pop music best with just a little bit of opera in the background. You know, normal stuff.
no body, no crime (evermore)
A reading from the Kansas City Shorter Catechism, Section II (“Atonement”): There was no crime; there was no body. There was no body; there is no crime.
Amen.
Photo by Wikimedia Commons user Michael Hicks (CC BY 2.0)
Josh Parks graduated from Calvin in 2018 with majors in English and music, and he is currently a PhD student in religious studies at the University of Virginia. When not writing, he can be found learning the alto recorder, watching obscure Disney movies, and making excruciating puns.
