(a Steve Orr scripture reflection)
I had been elevated ... by the only person with the power and authority to do that.
Were you ever in a play? Onstage, I mean? For some people, that’s a fun experience. Others find it terrifying. For some, it’s the thrill of a lifetime. The few times I was onstage were cringe worthy experiences; forgotten lines being the main problem.
My happy place was backstage.
The audience can see and hear much of the production. But the backstage part is usually never noticed at all. For weeks on end, the stage crews build everything that will appear onstage: the walls, doorways, buildings, platforms, etc. Others dedicate their time and talents to costuming, lighting, sound, marketing, ticket sales ... on and on.
In my theatre days, we didn’t have the phrase, “It takes a village.” But that’s what it takes.
It was there, in my part of the theatre, that one of the most important moments of my life would occur. We had finally come to Dress Rehearsal, the night before Opening Night, the night before the public would actually appear to serve as the final arbiters of all our work. As Stage Manager, it was my job to ensure we were ready.
I surveyed the people under my charge. They were all diligently performing their tasks: from lighting and sound preparation, to the last-minute checks of a large house that had to move about the stage on concealed wheels, to those ensuring the actors were at the spots where they entered onstage.
That’s when the Director came and asked the question I was expecting: “Are you ready?” He had asked that question before, and I had always answered honestly, even if the answer was that we were not 100% ready. Complete honesty was the only way that relationship could work. That night, though, I could say, with great satisfaction, “Yes. We are ready.”
He looked me in the eye, saw that I was certain, and then spoke the words that would mean so much to my young life (and all the years to follow). “Good. Then, the show is yours.”
He had never said anything like that, before.
In my head, I was thinking something like, “How can it be my show? This is his show!” But no. The Director was going to be sitting in the audience for the performance; as, in fact, were all the other directors, designers, teachers ... all those who had worked so hard to hone this into art. None of them would be on the stage for the performance. None of them would be backstage. Whatever we delivered to the audience from this point, it was entirely up to us.
From that point, I was in charge.
Though I hadn’t been consciously aware of it, I was one of those pieces being honed over the preceding weeks and months. He had been preparing me for this, the moment when I would be fully in charge of whatever we brought to that audience.
No one had ever said anything even remotely like that to me in my entire life.
No one had ever placed me in charge of anything. The impact was ... transformative. And even though there were many ups and downs over the next few nights—and, indeed, over the rest of my life—that moment, and all it meant, has remained with me. It has been a reservoir of confidence to draw on in good times and in bad.
I had been elevated ... by the only person with the power and authority to do so: The Director.
I recalled that moment when reading this week’s Hebrews selection where the writer is explaining something very important about Jesus. God, the only person with the power and authority to do so, elevated Jesus to be “the heir of all things,” to inherit a name above any angel, to be the one who “sustains all things by His powerful word,” to sit down “at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
And how did that come to be? Jesus obeyed.
He obeyed God in all He did in His three decades, here. He willingly became the “pioneer” of our salvation through suffering and death. Because of his unfailing obedience, Jesus now speaks for God.
It’s His show.
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