We may be barely past Hanukkah, but my congregation is already gearing up for Purim.

The tale of Esther, Haman and an early attempt to wipe out the Jewish people has gained favor in post-Holocaust Jewish and Messianic culture. An excellent film, One Night With the King, has even been crafted from the tale within the last couple-three years.

At my congregation, we put on a musical play and nearly everyone gets involved in some way; it serves as a community outreach event and has always gone over well, often being attended by messianic and non-messianic, Jewish and gentile audiences alike, all under one roof. The actual performances are nights of magic and joy and community.

If only the times leading up to them were as serene.

Each year the musical is performed, it gets a bit more extravagant, a bit more of a time commitment, to the point where nerves get frayed and folks - as we’re all so apt to do - are not at their best. The last time our community banded together to put it on, it drained everyone so much, that last year we skipped doing it.

This year, the play’s on again and, earlier than ever, we’re seeing the anticipation and tension rise alongside each other. Whether it’s fretting over the costuming of Vashti, or the number of gold bracelets Esther ought to wear, or even on details of choreography, no production as elaborate as this can be pulled together without some community conflict.

The thing is, we always pray throughout the process. And we always survive. Perhaps our congregation was born, to borrow from Esther’s father, for such times as these?

Sometimes I think a Royal Caribbean cruise would be preferable to some tasks. As a person who holds a master’s in English, with a lot of job experience in both writing and editing, one would think that a bit of cosmetic editing / ghost writing would be a breeze of an assignment, right?

Not always.

I was recently asked to edit a pair of sermons into a single message, eliminating duplicate information and references and making it a bit sharper. I was thrilled to get the assignment. It has, however, become quite intimidating to tackle.

The sermons, written specifically for oral delivery, must now be transformed into something that reads well, and there are more differences to such a transformation than one might expect. I’m wrestling with the text more than I expected and while the test is not unpleasant, it is intimidating, given the spiritual element of the messages.

Of course, I’m closing in on completing the task and it’s been quite instructive; but it has taken quite a bit more time than I first anticipated, and demanded far more of me than just my grammatical skills alone.