Bach’s Matthäuspassion takes almost 5 hours to perform in full, and the passion plays at Bozen in Tyrol were known to last for 7 days. Wall Street’s attention span is a bit more meagre, however, and from 12-3pm the Episcopalian Trinity Church delivered a passion play via Twitter in no more than 140-character ‘tweets’. Dramatis personae involved were such figures as “Pontius_Pilate,” “ServingGirl,” “Mary_Mother_Of” and “_JesusChrist”. Presumably “Jesus Christ” (with a space and no underscore) was already registered, although “Mary_Mother_Of” has me mystified. “Mother_Of” whom?!
“_Peter_Of” updated his status as “is waiting in the courtyard of the High Priest Caiaphas. I ran scared when the officers came but I need to see how this ends”, while Pontius_Pilate tweeted “Bad feeling about this. The prisoner won’t talk. The priests accuse him of blasphemy and sedition, and he just stands there, waiting”. If you really feel bad about it, Pontius old boy, maybe you should put your iPhone down for a minute and do something about it!
Parishioners simply had to follow the account “twspassionplay” and enable direct messages, and it seems to have been popular among the more tech-savvy. LeAnn Thomas, all the way across country in Bakersfield CA commented “Thank you 4 the follow & 4 this beautiful version of the passion scriptures” (apparently “twspassionplay” made people feel wanted by following their own Twitter accounts in return). Matt Reeve, a youth pastor from Minnesota said “This is a fantastic way of sharing Christ in a updated way. Love it”.
Apud AP ‘New York church tweeting the Passion of Christ‘
