Beginning at noon today, Household of Faith Family Worship Church will transform its New Orleans East parking lot into Golgotha, which is located outside the city walls of Jerusalem.
A crowd dressed in loose-fitting tunics and Roman soldiers on horseback will scream: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” As a bloody, battered and beaten Jesus is taunted, he will drag a wooden cross. Jesus’ mother Mary will wail as he is struck with whips, nailed to a cross, hoisted between two thieves and crucified.
Since 2004, “The Passion Live,” a Good Friday re-enactment of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, has looked so realistic that traffic has slowed to a crawl on I-10 East. The hourlong presentation includes liturgical dancing, singing and messages about Christ’s last sayings.
“In his native tongue,” a woman says during last year’s re-enactment, “Jesus cries out ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ In that moment, in his human body, all Jesus could feel was pain. The pain from the whips and the bruises. The pain from being betrayed. The pain from feeling forgotten.”
According to the Rev. Antonine M. Barriere, when spectators can see how Jesus “suffered …how they beat him, lifted him on the cross – (they) realize it was a precious sacrifice.”
Barriere has pastored Household of Faith since its inception in October 1995. The church has two locations: 9300 I-10 Service Road in New Orleans East and 2074 Paxton St. in Harvey on the Westbank.
“Household of Faith has reminded the New Orleans community that Good Friday is not just reserved for fish fries,” a WGNO report states. “The re-enactment has been a tradition … that displays the power of Jesus’ passion.”
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