11 May 2014 by Crescentia Morais –
We woke up one morning in March and found out that an aeroplane full of people had gone missing. Two months later, we still can’t say conclusively where that plane is or what exactly led to its disappearance. Meanwhile, local happenings continue to agitate, in the same disturbing tone that was set on the second day of this new year. Is it zero hour for Malaysia?
Many of us watching Full Gospel Assembly’s Easter 2014 production entitled Zero Hour, about one man’s collision with his mortality, would surely have seen in the play a metaphor of Malaysia at her unhappy crossroads today, especially as the performances came in the same week as the horrific motor accident that robbed Malaysia of one of her loudest voices of reason, Mr Karpal Singh.
For the team who staged the four performances that were held during the Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday services in FGA KL, the message was “very clear,” said June Lew, Zero Hour’s director.
In 2013, Lew and her team were given the responsibility of producing and staging an Easter play for 2014. The terrifying real-life accident her husband had been involved in not too long before was still fresh in Lew’s mind, and she drew on this for the main storyline of the Easter play, deciding, after time spent in prayer, that the message of a wake-up call was what the church needed to hear at this moment in Malaysia’s history. The cast and crew concurred with her after they, too, pondered on the theme and took it to the Lord in prayer.
Lew said that hearing the team confirm that the message was the right one for FGA gave her “goosebumps.” She added, “In the last five weeks, the messages have all coincided with the message of our production.” Certainly, the audience can confirm that the message brought by Zero Hour was indeed a timely one not just for FGA but for the entire Church of Christ in Malaysia, indeed, for Malaysia, herself.
Zero Hour tells the story of middle-aged Mike, whose busy, urban lifestyle is suddenly overtaken by crisis. Although a Christian who loves the Lord, Mike finds to his horror and dismay that he has not planted well after all. The fruits of his poor investment in family life and his unwise decision to resort to bribery to grow his business now bring him to the shocking realisation that he is, as his son accuses him to his face, a hypocrite. Mike’s pretend Christianity veils the corruption within that condoning unrighteousness has produced, a corruption that is signalled by his addiction to pornography. Things seem irreversibly hopeless to Mike when he realises that his son has succumbed to the same spirit of lust that has him in bondage.
Then, abruptly, his life, still a colossal mess, crashes to a halt. Mike suffers a very bad car accident.
In the dusky uncertainty between life and death before the cord is severed forever, Mike gets his second chance, though. Cut off from family, work and the world as he lies helpless in his hospital bed, Mike meets the Risen Lord. The Lord’s gentle ministrations, without accusation or condemnation, give Mike the courage to see where he had compromised and when he had strayed.
The play ends in that place of reconciliation as Mike returns to his first love, the Lord Jesus Christ, finding forgiveness and salvation in his zero hour.
Zero Hour combines live stage acting and pre-recorded clips, which adequately portray the intensity and pace required in some scenes such as the crash and hospital scenes. There is also impressive use of lighting to suggest mood and to portray the stages of movement in Mike’s journey from guilt to realisation and remorse to surrender and acceptance of forgiveness. The production was enriched by involvement of experts connected with the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC).
Zero Hour, despite its stark yet timely reminder to Christians to stay true to their calling to be children of light, is a story of hope and reconciliation that reveals the “Father heart of God,” as Lew put it. “It’s a rich 30 minutes of experiencing the love of God, His grace…God in His rich mercy reaches out to us,” she added.
Although Christians must not abuse the grace of God on their lives, they may depend on His mercy and compassion to find them in their hour of need, as Zero Hour shows. The choice of whether or not to respond to that mercy in repentance, however, is a personal one. For Mike, the madness finally ends, and he chooses to surrender in repentance.
Trevor Nunis, who played Mike, recalled that the biggest impact the play had on him was Mike’s journey back to the Lord. He explained, “It is not just the expressions and emotions but also how and why God touched me to reach out to the audience,” adding that without that encounter with God, he would “never have been able to break down as Michael faces Jesus. He enabled me to do it not just once but four times during all our presentations.”
Like Nunis, Lew and Kathryn Lye, head of FGA’s Performing Arts Ministry, talked of the experience of bringing the play to stage in terms of a journey. Lew explained that the play allowed the cast to build meaningful relationships with one another and with God. They prayed together regularly, entrusting themselves to the Lord for Him to transform them and use them to bring His message to the church.
“We saw a huge transformation in the cast as we progressed,” Lew shared. “We became more willing to lend an ear to one another, and to pray for one another.
“The experience has been very beautiful. We have grown as actors and as children of God,” Lew attested.
The Bible tells us how the story of mankind will end on earth: every knee shall bow to the Lord Jesus and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. While we certainly seem to be hurtling closer to that ending, the ride there for Malaysia at this point is pretty bumpy indeed.
But even as we wonder what new challenge tomorrow’s news will herald, even as we wonder how we will respond in our moment of reckoning, as a church and as a nation, we can be certain that one thing has to remain constant if we are to reach our destiny in Christ. That key is summarised by Nunis’ evaluation of the impact this Easter play has had on his life: “Zero Hour has made me realise that we must be totally trusting in the Lord.”
As simple as singing kids’ church songs, the key to delivering Malaysia from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light is what it has always been: Trust and obey; read your Bible, pray every day.
It’s zero hour for Malaysia: do we stick to our saccharine Christian traditions as we have for too long, or do we finally start behaving like the Bride of Christ?
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