Magnification of Good

Our family is participating in the Easter Pageant this year.  We tried out in October and were selected to participate.  We told our kids they could participate or hang out with their really cool grandparents for a month.  Grumbling and complaining, the teenagers agreed.  The grumbling continued until the first practice and there hasn't been a complaint since.  The Pageant has power.  I can testify of that.   My children have all different rolls from carrying baby lambs, to surrounding Jesus as he heals, to holding the water that Pilate washes his hands in.  They all have several parts and scenes and there is power in each scene.  

James and the two littles and I are in a scene called Jesus and the Children.  In the scene, Christ heals two children as the other children sing, "He is my Savior, my Redeemer, my friend".  It is beautiful and powerful and full of love.  The first night we practiced this scene, I felt the Spirit so strongly that I cried.  

When the practice was over, I took the littles home and James stayed to practice the Mob Scene.  We hadn't given it much thought - everything had been so amazing so far.  

When he came home that night, he was very sad.  He expressed how horrible it had been to be caught up in that scene.  Looking around at the men, who were clearly Pageant veterans and had been in the scene before, he felt frozen.  He said he couldn't do anything but watch and feel terrible.  He was supposed to revile the Savior and demand his crucifixion but he couldn't.  He said that it really drove home the love he has for his Savior.  They kept them after and gave them a debriefing (like treating someone for post traumatic stress I would imagine).  And comforted them.  They gave them specific instructions to leave that on stage and to move on when they exit the scene.  That was hard.  Emotions are real.  Even when you are acting.  Even when you are just watching.  

With repetition, the scene has become less painful for James and he has been able to move past the shock of it.

The last scene I want to mention, though I could write a post about every single one, is the scene when Mary Magdalene runs to the tomb and sings He is Risen.  It is beautiful.  I watch and listen and the words fill my soul.  I loved it the first time I heard her sing it and felt overcome with emotion.  I assumed that, just like the mob scene had lost some of it's impact on James, this scene would loose some of it's impact on me as I listen to it over and over and over.  But it hasn't.   Every time I hear it, it has more power over me.  It reaches farther into my soul and magnifies itself.

So maybe that is how good and evil are...  Evil, if repeated over and over, looses it's sting.  It looses it's horror.  Our Spirit becomes numb to it.

But good, if we continually consume it, magnifies in us until we can hardly contain it.