WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had the awesome privilege and pleasure to participate in a praise night skit w/ the rest of the CRH serving body. The skit we did has to be one of the most intense skits I’ve seen at a CFC praise night. I think it rivals Lester being shot on stage. If you didn’t get to see it, it’s really unfortunate b/c I doubt the DVD of it would come out that great and if it did, it wouldn’t capture the feeling of the skit. I’ll describe it to you and hopefully give you an idea of what’s going. (If you’ve seen the skit, you can skip the next paragraph)
Foellinger is completely dark and there’s a bunch of people scattered around the stage. The 300 sound track begins and a WHY? is heard and a flashlight illuminates a face center stage and goes out. WHY? Same light goes on and off. “WHY is this happening?” Light on and off. Then a series of why questions – Why did he kill himself, why is my brother in Iraq, why did she get into that car accident, why did my mom die of cancer? As the question is said, a light is shown on stage of someone asking the question, then the light goes off. The questioner “bounces” around stage as different lights go on and off. Then Sunny Kang starts a monologue illuminated by all the flashlights on stage, asking God why his family’s going through all this hardship. He’s trying to be the good older brother but nothings going right. He’s trying really hard but it just gets worse. What’s going on here God. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING – all the lights go out. Then more questions get asked and the pace gets faster and faster with lights going on and off. It becomes a crowd of noise getting louder and louder with more and more lights going on and off. A video is played on stage of violence, natural disasters, and all the things wrong w/ this world. The questions turn into “WHY!”‘s with everyone’s light on culminating in a universal WHY! – then darkness. Queue Requiem For a Dream soundtrack. The music builds up and up – and Jesus comes on stage. As he walks to the front of the stage, we all crowd around him. Then he turns around and the stage lights up red. We part into two halves accusing him with our questions demanding an answer. He listens to us then walks to the back of the stage where a chair is waiting to the verse Isaiah 53:5. He stands on the chair as we scream WHY! again and again. He is crucified on an imaginary cross, he yells WHY louder than all of ours at the end. We drop to the ground, the questions stop, and the stage goes black and silent. “My God! Why have you forsaken me?” is heard in the darkness. The song Still starts up, lights come on, and Jesus comes off the cross and raises us up. When we’re all raised we ask “Why did you suffer for me? Why did you die for me? Why did you love me so much?” And it ends with John 16:33 “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
I don’t think it was until after the skit that the message really hit me. Yeah – Jesus is the answer to all our difficulties. Yeah – all the suffering in this world points to our need for a savior. I know all the theological answers but they don’t satisfy the heart. A couple major things stuck out to me as we sang and I reflected on what we had spent a week practicing and performed.
- Jesus understands our pain – “My God! Why have you forsaken me?” It was his own unanswered question to God. Why was Christ forsaken? So that we could be saved.
- The more important issue is that God loves us. We get so wrapped up in our problems and questions that we forget the most important issue is that God loves us and has saved us for all eternity. It’s about “Keeping the Main thing the main thing”
- He gives us strength to overcome. All these were personal questions that we have. As I thought and reflected about the brothers and sisters I serve with, I’ve gotten to know them over the past few years and I know their pain and struggles. I’ve been with them through deaths, wars, and family struggles. I’ve seen the pain, heard the cries of anguish and frustration. I’ve wrestled on my knees in prayer for them. We can overcome because He overcame.
I’m so thankful to be a part of this serving body. I’ve been a part of it for four years. We’ve had our difficulties, our struggles together and as an area but these are the guys I will go to war with, that I do go to war with, and will continue to until this War is done and the Kingdom is established.