Walking with God

     As I thought about what I wanted to write in this blog post, it occurred to me that I don't enjoy reading the Old Testament as much as I want to. I say 'want' and not 'should' because I've noticed something I never thought of before that I like and it may have been because of our discussion on the function of the York Mystery Plays. I always thought the Old Testament was important because of one thing, that being the Covenant(s) God made with His creation. And just like we discussed regarding seeing and understanding Christ and the Virgin in the Old Testament in different instances, the covenants are all similar to each other and all hint to what is coming in the New Testament, that being Christ. God made numerous covenants with different people and I always wondered why He did so. Why couldn't he just make one and tell the next person "keep it going." Whether it's with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses or David, God wanted one specific thing from each of them: He sees them as more than just His creation. They all held a special relationship with Him. And then I thought about each of their relationships and laughed because some of them literally walked with God. Abraham held a conversation with God and walked around with Him like they were best friends and it was the most normal thing ever to talk with your maker. And even though he is probably walking with Christ, I think it's different from the New Testament. None of the people in the Old Testament had the prophecies to tell them that there is this one person that will come and save them. They were the hints!

     So I say I want to enjoy the Old Testament because we always say that God was/is more approachable and kind in the New Testament but He is never changing and the covenants are proof of this. He has always been kind and going out of His way to deal with the mistakes His creation made. And then Christ came and he was the fulfillment of all the previous covenants. He was the final one and "made all things new" (Revelation 21:5). But this happy revelation (no pun intended) turned for me because I realized something else. God spoke more with His people in the Old Testament than He did in the New. He made things, in a way, more obvious for all the prophets and judges, and for a while when Christ was on earth, but after Christ, there was a shift. And I'm jealous that people got to talk with God face to face, and on one occasion, physically fight Him to gain a blessing. It seems to me that God was more approachable before He was incarnated, and was telling us we needed to try and listen to Him this time around after He died. He even told St. John “he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 2:29). Obviously this isn’t a bad thing but it just means we need to try harder to listen and talk to him, which is annoying.

     And that’s where the plays come in. How else would we attempt to understand what God is telling us? It’s by reenacting and becoming a part of the same stories we’ve grown so attached to. There is a difference between reading and reciting something, and actively taking part in it. The more senses you involve, the more connected you feel with it. And the beautiful thing about this is that each one experiences the stories in a different way. I could get something out of reading Genesis that someone else might not see but they’ve learned a lesson that maybe escaped me. With each reenactment of the plays, you get a new perspective even though it’s the same stories we could probably recite now from how many times we read them and listened to them in Sunday School. I once played David in a short play on David and Goliath (yes it’s because I’m short) and I was so focused on how strong David probably felt that it never occurred to me until one of my Sunday School children pointed it out that Goliath was beyond intimidating. He was an actual giant and that didn’t scare David away but gave him hope. I would have never associated hope with this part of David’s life because I’m so busy paying attention to the bravery behind him.

     The plays did more than just provide a few laughs and giggles from the audience and the performers. The plays made it easier for us to put ourselves in the stories of the Old Testament just as Professor Brown said. Because we can associate characters with people we know, we can see a whole different perspective of the character just because this one person is playing him. Through the plays, we the regular people can talk and listen to God because he wasn’t just telling his prophets to be brave and become leaders and forgive others who harmed them. He is also telling us all of these things. These plays are probably one of the few ways in which we can take and hold a deeper meaning of the scriptures. We are part of these stories and we are part of the history and this history is coming alive every time we play our role.  The fact that both testaments are full of drama and an overall theme just makes it one of the best fanfictions ever written in the world because then we have J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis making it so much better and more magical.

MT