“I get it,” Adelia said. “So even though the tableau and the play seem at first to be unrelated, if you know what to look for, they are very much related.”
Mitch and Edie were excited by the idea. “It will be fun to try to figure out the meaning of the tableaus during the play,” Edie said.
Hans stepped back. “That’s all I wanted to say. Even though I may not have believed in what was being taught when I saw the play back when I was a kid, if I had understood what those tableaus were meant to represent, I think the whole thing would have made a lot more sense to me. Instead, I left thinking it was all a mass of confusion.”
Mitch got to his feet and pulled Edie up. “Danke schön, Hans,” he said, extending his hand. “This will make a huge difference in our experience.” The others all joined in. Inga went up and kissed Hans on the cheek. “Thank you, son. Thank you for the tickets, and thank you for that.”
Emilee went up and kissed Hans softly on the lips. Then she whispered in his ear. “Will you never cease to amaze me?”
Hans laughed and gave her a gentle push toward the door. “Go! And may it be a wonderful experience for all of you.”
Chapter Notes
The tableaus were a puzzling thing to our LDS group who saw the Passion Play in the 1980s. Though we had English translations of the script and English descriptions of the various tableaus, there was no explanation of what appeared to be these odd insertions that interrupted the play. This explanation for the “living pictures” is adapted from the director’s notes in the press kit issued for the 2010 Passion Play. Now I wish I could go back again and see them in their context.
We were also told that one had to have been born in Oberammergau to participate in the performance in any way. That privilege has now been expanded to include people who have lived in the village for at least twenty years.
The next presentation (the forty-second) will be in 2020. It is expected that about 750,000 will attend. Ticket sales begin in January 2018. March 6, 2019 (Ash Wednesday), will be “Hair Decree” day.
It was also in that summer of 1984 that the group I was with did see “Jesus” bicycle past us on his way to the village. It was a bit jarring for a moment, but soon people were waving to him and calling out greetings and congratulations. Later, as we shopped in one of the large wood-carving shops, we learned that he was the owner. He ended up serving some of our group and was a most pleasant and kindly man.
July 14, 1922, 12:55 p.m.—Near the Passionsspiele Theater, Oberammergau, Bavaria
“Well,” Edie said as she slipped her arm through Emilee’s and moved in until they were touching shoulders. “What did you think?”
Emilee turned and smiled, though her eyes were a little misty. “You Americans have a word. I think it is, vow, no?”
Edie smiled and nodded. “We say it wow, and it always has an—” She searched for the word for a moment and then turned to the men who were right behind them. “Exclamation point?”
Jacob gave her the word in German.
“Ah, ja,” Emilee exclaimed. “So not ‘vow.’ ‘Wow!’”
Edie laughed. “Ja, ja! Wow!”
Inga and Paula were walking just ahead of the other two women. Now they slowed enough that the four of them were walking abreast. Inga smiled. “I would add, ‘Marvelous!’ ‘Incredible!’ ‘Wunderbar!’”
“All of the above,” Emilee exclaimed. “Being down so close to the stage made it seem like I was actually walking the streets of Jerusalem.”
Adelia, who was walking just behind them with the men, spoke up, with Jacob translating. “During the scene where Jesus makes His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, I almost shouted ‘Hosanna’ with the crowd. It was so real to me.”
Inga turned to her. “And I wanted to jump up on stage and grab a palm branch to wave. It was . . .” She searched for another adequate word. “ . . . amazing. To see Jesus on an actual donkey, and the throngs pressing in on Him. How wonderful it must have been to actually be there that day.”
Wolfie nodded. “There had to be two hundred people on stage for that scene. And did you see those shepherds off to the right side of stage? They actually had some live sheep with them.”
Mitch chimed in. “Hans told us that the stage was big enough to have live animals on it, but I had no idea it was so huge. I mean, that central building has to be four stories high. Which makes it feel like the actual streets of Jerusalem. It was magnificent.”
“I loved that scene when. . . .” Tears came suddenly to Adelia’s eyes and she had to stop. She swallowed quickly and started again. “When He blessed the children.”
“Don’t,” Emilee exclaimed, half laughing, half crying. “I thought of having my Alisa there. And Yolanda. Can you imagine having the Savior of the world take your children on His lap and bless them?”
They fell silent, contemplating that thought. Wolfie spoke again. “I loved it when Jesus scattered the money changers. As I saw those men cheating and robbing the poor, I found myself saying, ‘Why doesn’t someone do something about this?’ And then Jesus came with that whip and sent them running, and I wanted to leap to my feet and shout hoorah!”
Paula had turned and was staring at her husband. “And that surprised you? That story is in the Bible.”
Wolfie looked sheepish. “Yeah, well, you know me and the Bible. We’re only passing acquaintances.”
“You could change that,” Paula said softly.
He gave her a startled look, and then after a moment he nodded. “Maybe I will.”
“I loved the music,” Jacob said. “Especially when the chorus and orchestra were together. It was magnificent.”
Inga turned. “I loved that too, Jacob. Though this is my first time at the Passion Play, the music is familiar to all of us who live down here. They often play portions of it at concerts during the interim years.”
They were entering the main part of the village now, moving slowly because of the crowds. Mitch looked around. “Inga, we’re going to trust you to pick a place for us to eat. You know the village best.”
“And Mitch and I are paying for it,” Edie added. When Inga started to protest, Edie just smiled and said, “Now shush, Inga. It’s already decided.”
“And we’re buying groceries for Sunday’s dinner,” Jacob said. “That’s also decided.”
With a sigh, Inga surrendered. “You were supposed to be our guests.”
Emilee, who was still lost in her thoughts, heard none of that. “I don’t know if I want to attend the second half,” she said abruptly.
That brought them all to a halt. Inga was shocked. “But why not?”
Tears welled up. “I came here expecting to watch a wonderful stage drama,” Emilee said. “But suddenly it was all so real to me.”
“And that’s bad?” Paula asked.
Emilee wiped at her tears with the back of her hands. “Knowing what’s coming in the second half,” she whispered, “I’m not sure I can bear it.”
3:35 p.m.—Passionsspiele Theater
A few days after Hans had delighted her with the news that he was buying tickets for her, Paula, Wolfie, and his mother, Emilee had come to a decision. With her mother’s declining health, a two-year-old bursting with energy, a baby on the way, and a husband whom she saw less and less between his work and his party meetings, her attendance at the Lutheran church had virtually ceased. She occasionally went to the Mormon branch with Paula—and Inga when she was in town—but that happened less and less now too. And she missed it. And so she had made a resolution. Realizing that the play was very likely going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, she decided she would prepare for it accordingly. She decided to read all four of the gospels in the New Testament before the following summer.
What had followed had surprised her. At first, she read only on Sundays when Alisa was taking her nap and Hans was gone. Sometimes s
he and her mother and Heinz-Albert read together. Often she read alone. And a strange thing happened. She realized that this was doing for her what church attendance had done. It helped her push back the cares of the world. It became a time of spiritual renewal. And it felt so good to her that soon she was seizing every free moment she had to read.
She had set a goal to be finished with all four gospels before they went to the play the next summer. But she finished the last chapter of John on December first. So she had immediately started over again. Yolanda was born in mid-February, and that virtually stopped her reading for a while. But she managed to finish a second reading by early April. The third time, she read with a pencil and a notepad at her side. She read back and forth, comparing the different accounts of the same events, making notes to herself. She wrote out the questions she wanted to ask Paula and Inga about. She had finished that reading just two weeks earlier.
Now, as Emilee watched the very events she had come to know so intimately playing out on the great stage, she was filled with an overwhelming sense of wonder and joy. And to her great surprise, her worry that she could not bear to watch the betrayal, arrest, trial, and execution of the Savior had not materialized. She wept many tears, but she did not turn away. And often they became tears of joy, because seeing it performed as if it were really happening brought it home to her heart in a way that amazed her.
When Mary anointed the feet of Jesus with ointment, Emilee was there by her side, demonstrating her love for Him just as Mary was doing. She watched in horror as He was arrested, mocked, spat upon, and struck across the face during his trial. Yet she thrilled to realize that His quiet endurance was not just for the world. It was for her! And her spirit soared with joy.
During His scourging by the Roman soldiers, and then as they drove the nails into His hands and feet, Emilee gripped the arms of her seat so hard that her fingers went numb. But she did not turn her eyes away. She had to see it all. If He had not flinched from what the Father had asked of Him, how could she turn her face away?
And when she didn’t, she began to see things that she had not seen before. How calm and serene He was when everyone around Him was raging at Him or fleeing in frightened panic. How at the Last Supper, knowing that a horrible death was just hours away, He spoke not of that but of the mansions His Father had waiting for the faithful, of a peace beyond understanding, and of loving others as He had loved them.
Over and over, the pattern presented itself to Emilee’s mind. At Golgotha, when the Roman soldiers were nailing Him to the cross, He asked the Father to forgive them. While hanging in agony on the cross, Jesus’s thoughts were on His mother, and He asked John to take her into his home and care for her.
Even as Jesus hung on the cross, His chest lacerated from the scourging, blood running down His face from the crown of thorns, Emilee could not—would not!—look away. And as she watched in horror and wonder, into her mind came the words from Isaiah that her pastor in Pasewalk had read to his congregation every Easter Sunday in all of her growing-up years. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him. . . . But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.”
And when the women came to the tomb that first Easter morning and heard the angel say to them, “He is not here. He is risen,” Emilee bowed her head and wept as she had never wept before, and she feared that her heart would burst with joy.
9:05 p.m.—Eckhardt dairy farm
When the soft knock on the door sounded, Edie, who was lounging on her bed in her pajamas, looked up in surprise. “Yes? Come in.”
The door pushed open and Inga was standing there. “Oh, good. I was afraid you were in bed,” she said.
Sitting up quickly, Edie swung her feet off the bed. “Are the twins awake?”
“Nein, nein.” Inga laughed softly. “All of the children are asleep. They were so tired from today’s outing, they’re sleeping like babies.”
“I’m just reading,” Edie said. “Waiting for the men to get through talking.”
Inga smiled. “That will be a while. The men are still sitting around the fire, drinking beer and discussing the state of the world.” She blushed slightly. “Not Jacob and Mitch, of course. About the beer, I mean.”
Edie laughed. “And what about Opa Hans?”
“He went to bed over half an hour ago. As much as he loves to sit around and talk with his family, he doesn’t have the stamina any longer. By nine o’clock at the latest he’s in bed.”
Patting the bed, Edie said, “Then come sit with me for a while. Unless you’re going to bed.”
“Actually, I’m here at Emilee’s behest. Even though she knows it’s late, she was wondering if we girls would join her in the living room. She has something she wants to talk to us about.”
“Oh? Of course. I’d be delighted. Let me put on my robe.”
“Gut. I’ll go see if Adelia is still awake.”
“I think she is. She and I both like to wait up for our men.”
“As does Emilee. We’ll meet in the living room so there are chairs for all of us.”
9:08 p.m.
Adelia came in, still tying the sash on her robe around her waist. She came over and sat beside Edie on the couch. “Any idea what this is about?” she asked softly.
Edie shook her head. On the return home, Emilee had said almost nothing but seemed far away in her own thoughts. “Maybe she wants to talk about our experience today.”
“I hope so. I was sitting by Emilee this afternoon, and she was having some kind of an experience. She wept through much of the last part.”
“Well, she said that she was afraid she couldn’t bear watching it.”
“It wasn’t that. She wasn’t hiding her eyes. She seemed mesmerized by what was going on up onstage. And—”
Just then, Inga, Paula, and Emilee appeared in the hallway and came in and joined them. Inga had brought in two chairs from the kitchen and placed them so they faced the sofa and the overstuffed chair, putting the women in a small circle. Paula took the overstuffed chair; Inga and Emilee sat side by side on the kitchen chairs. Edie watched Emilee closely and was pleased to see there were no tears now. She was smiling, and there was something beautifully serene about her countenance.
As they got settled, Inga thanked them for coming and turned to Emilee. “Emilee has some things she wishes to ask us” was all she said.
“Danke,” Emilee murmured. “I thank you for being here. I. . . . This seems really strange to me—but wonderfully so—because I never had sisters growing up. I was the only girl. Then I married Hans and got four all at once.” She turned to Paula. “I know we all call you Tante Paula, but you’re much more like a big sister to me. As are Ilse, Heidi, and Anna.” She turned to Adelia and Edie. “And now both of you are as well.”
Edie and Adelia smiled and nodded but said nothing.
“I know it’s late and that we are all tired, but—”
“Except for the men,” Paula said dryly.
Emilee laughed softly. “Yes, except for them. Knowing Hans, he’ll be the last dog in the kennel. But to be honest, that’s why I wanted to talk to you now. It will be easier for me if the men aren’t here.” She hesitated and looked to Inga. “And while I love Ilse, Heidi, and Anna as my sisters too, I am glad they are not here either. Part of that is because they didn’t go with us today, and that’s partly what I wish to talk about. And part of it is because”—she smiled wryly—“they are not Mormon, and all of you are.”
Paula, Edie, and Adelia exchanged quick looks, completely intrigued now. Inga did not seem at all surprised.
Emilee went on. “I would love for us to talk about our experience today, and I hope there is time to do that. I am anxious to hear what you thought and how you felt. But before the men come back, I would like to share something with yo
u, and then I have some questions I want to ask you.”
As she sat back and started to collect her thoughts, Edie suddenly realized that Adelia had been leaning forward, straining to catch what Emilee was saying. Edie leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Would you like me to translate for you?”
“Oh, yes, please,” Adelia whispered back. “I want to understand everything she is saying.” So Edie scooted in a little closer and leaned in so their heads were together. Emilee noticed it and seemed pleased.
Emilee spoke softly, her voice rich with emotion but firm and clear. “You will remember my comment just before lunch, how I wasn’t sure I could bear watching the second half of the play. Well, to my surprise, it turned out very differently than I expected. It will be difficult for me to adequately describe what happened to me, but I would like to try, because it will help you better understand the questions I have for you.” She looked at Edie. “And I’ll try to remember to go slow enough that you can translate for Adelia.”
“Danke,” Adelia said.
Emilee took a deep breath and began. She talked slowly and thoughtfully for the next five or six minutes, pausing sometimes to let Edie catch up with her, pausing other times as she groped for words to express what she had experienced. When she was finished, her listeners were quietly weeping with her. She sat back. “It was a wonderful experience for me. I wish that I could more fully describe it to you.”
Inga reached over and took her hand but said nothing. But Emilee wasn’t done. “When Jesus looked up at the sky and cried, ‘It is finished,’” she said, speaking very softly now, “I suddenly had this powerful thought come over me. It was finished for Him—the agony, the sacrifice, the suffering. But it was not finished for me. And suddenly I wanted to throw my head back and shout to the sky, ‘It is just the beginning! For me, it is just the beginning.’”