It’s Good Friday and the day has been marked with a 90% decrease in traffic and pedestrians in the city. Everybody is off work (except security guards) and all the shops are shut for the religious holiday.
To remember Jesus’ crucifixion I read the account in Matthew and then I returned to the huge church in Asuncion, the Iglesia Centro Familiar de Adoracion, as they were holding a special event to remember this central moment in human history. Only a few buses were running the major routes but I was able to get one there on time after the owner of the ride I was meant to be going with dropped out late.
Maybe a few hundred people less than I saw on Sunday came to the event. What the event was was a large-scale musical-drama about a modern Paraguayan girl being shown hell and then heaven by Jesus. And oh…..my….goodness, it was totally EPIC! It had a cast and crew of something like 220 people, musicians, actors, singers, and dancers. The huge platform had a hell constructed on the left, and a heaven on the right, built right onto the 30ft, multi-tiered choir stands. Between the two were 2 sets of 3 huge projection screens (one collection set high up, the other 3 from the ground up) placed end to end which showed moving backgrounds and Bible verses at appropriate times.
The story was that the girl is having some difficulties at home, and after turning to the Bible, Jesus turns up and the adventure begins. And this was the Paraguayan-style Jesus (no beard, just stubble, and totally mighty, like Steve Reeves) which was more accurate to the Jewish carpenter truth than the milky-skinned North Western version where Jesus doesn’t look much Jewish.
The girl is shown hell, and I was actually scared and longing for hell to go away. Hell had 6 huge screens of fire, and assorted demons jumping around torturing people the girl had known, people who had good points from a human perspective, and sometimes great achievements, such as the famous pop singer, and then others like a drunkard, a youth who disobeyed his mom and beat her, a drunkard, a sexually immoral youth, and others checking off the people in Revelation 22 whom Jesus says "outside [of heaven] are the dogs, those who practice the magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood."
The girl asks Jesus why each person is there, and Jesus explains the simple truth that they rejected Him, and we see their lives through flashback, and although each now calls out to Jesus for help now that they see Him and as they are being tortured by demons, but He tells them it is too late.
Now, for those who know their Bibles, Hell isn’t a place where demons are in control and torturing people, rather Hell is a place of torture to Satan and the demons, a lake of fire that humans who reject Jesus are also flung into leaving no hierarchy or people in control there, just all “weeping and gnashing teeth” as Jesus puts it, but the torture of just humans was the liberty taken in making it a narrative for the play, and it was very effective. It was a really terrifying image, and the screams of the actors and actresses sounded so hideous.
After much heartbreak in seeing the eternally lost, the people she knew and admired, she saw the crucifixion where scenes from ‘The Passion of the Christ’ flashed over the big screens of Jesus being scourged and beaten for us, carrying His cross and then being nailed to it in excruciating pain. The teen girl is then shown heaven and the music and the dancing really kicked into a high gear with about 40 dancers and kids waving huge flags, and the angels singing out shaking the whole stadium out, giving a glimpse of the joy of heaven. The final song was ‘Days of Elijah’ with the words changed to fit the story, and it had everybody on their feet clapping. It was such a fabulous performance, the best Christian production I have ever seen! God is great! Thank You Jesus for taking my punishment on the Cross. Thank You Father for sending Your Son to take it.
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