AP INTERVIEW: Passion Play called more balanced – Yahoo! News

Jul 022010

Story about the gradual refresh of the Oberammergau Passion Play. Several years ago, my parents went with a group from our church on a trip to Europe, including Germany, where they saw the passion play performed. Anyway, this all seemed reasonably OK to me ( the Jews didn’t create the need for Jesus’ death, they were just the ones that were used (along with Judas) to implement it) until this point:

“Jesus understands himself completely as a Jew. He was never baptized, he never had a First Communion, but he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at 12 and died as a Jew on the cross,” Stueckl told the AP at an interview in May. “Increasing awareness of this is very important to me.”

Uhh…. WRONG! Jesus *WAS* baptized. In fact, that was a major identifying factor in the beginning of His earthly ministry leading up to His death, burial and ressurection.

Matthew 3:13-17 (ESV)

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him;17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

And then this:

However, this year’s production is a far cry from past performances, when Jews were shown with horns and the Jewish crowd affirmed that Jesus’ “blood be upon us and upon our children.”

Oh, you mean THIS?

Matthew 27:24-26 (ESV)

24 So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” 25 And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” 26 Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.

I understand the whole “Jews with horns” thing is flat out unscriptural and well, just weird, but the crowd affirmation is straight out of scripture. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.

Again, the need to be “tolerant” of other people, and not over-inflammatory is a good thing. It really is. But like anything else, it can be taken too far. And in this case, it has been once again. When you start ignoring scripture and actual history in the name of tolerance, you have a problem.

And our dear brothers and sisters in Oberammergau appear to have a problem. I pray they work it out. The Oberammaergau Passion Play is a beautiful thing, I would hate for it to lose it’s integrity.

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