An uproarious and well-lubricated party! At one point, when Jesus was, wine glass in hand, exuberantly participating in an ad hoc line dance, my son leaned over to me and said, “dad, Jesus didn’t dance did he?” The scene looked more or less what I imagine a first-century Jewish wedding would have looked like-lots of eating and drinking and singing and dancing.

One of the earlier scenes in the play was the wedding feast at Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle-the turning of water into wine (John 2:1-12). But the writers and directors did a great job of mixing lengthy sections of discourse with the central events of Jesus’ story.

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are much more action-packed narratives than John’s, which is characterized by lengthy portions of dialogue and teaching. On one level, this is not the most obvious of choices. This year’s production was based specifically on the gospel of John. And I’m very glad that I did, because the play did a magnificent job of humanizing Jesus and capturing what it might have been like to experience the events of his life narrated by the gospels.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect-I had heard good things about the production, but to be honest the main reason I went was because I received a “pastor’s discount” in the mail. Last weekend, our family headed up to Drumheller, AB to attend The Canadian Badlands Passion Play, a dramatic portrayal of the story of Jesus in a natural amphitheatre in the central Alberta Badlands.

Jesus danced in the bible