I Like This!

This will either tickle your fancy, blow your mind,or should encourage you:

If you've ever been around a stage production at any level of schooling or a simple church play, you are always told the final dress rehearsal should be like the real thing. As if there were a real audience out there watching. Case in point: you may never know who might just show up to watch!

Three years ago I was asked to participate in my church's Easter play titled
The Easter Song. Most of our church's holiday productions are so elaborate and have a Broadway-esque feel to them that they require numerous actors, actresses, and singers. I believe this one had over 50 men,women, and children involved. The stage settings and lighting take days to prepare, the costumes are first rate just as on Broadway, and the makeup, wigs, and fake beards appear realistic. In this play I played a Disciple and with my costume, including the fake beard, some of my co-workers that attended one night couldn't figure out which one was me. Now if I was playing Jesus and they couldn't point me out than we'd have a problem!

During this particular final dress rehearsal a local newspaper reporter had his curiosity get the best of him when he saw all the cars in the parking lot on a mid week night and wondering what was going on. He entered, sat in the back and watched us do our final rehearsal, but to him it appeared to be the real thing. So real that at the end of the production he was on his knees in tears.

For my first time in a production setting at this church, I even kind of found myself in awe and felt the impact of the play's powerful message: That Christ loved me with a cross. And this was just rehearsal!!

As for the reporter, he obviously showed up at the right time and it just proves that God can reach anyone at anytime, even during rehearsal.

Now fast forward 3 years to today, well actually this past weekend, when our church decided to put on the same production again. And that same reporter who had met Jesus at what seemed as an inopportune moment, now found himself in the stage production playing the role of King Herod.

When one unexpected guest meets The Unexpected Guest something special happens.

If you are involved in any kind of Easter production this coming weekend, do your best even if it's just a rehearsal. You may just never know who might show up!