Six pizzas, a wig and Resurrection

Just before Easter break during my sophomore year in college I was asked by a group of passing acquaintances to be a part of their air band.

An air band is when you pretend to play guitar and sing but you are actually just lip syncing to a real band’s recording.

The only reason they asked me was because there was an upcoming competition and they needed a blonde female singer who looked something like Nancy Wilson from the band Heart. Grand prize was six pizzas!

In true sophomoric form, we named our band a crude and tasteless reference to passing gas that rhymes with “Heart.”

We would be performing the song “Barracuda.” We never actually practiced, we just ran through it once. Many of the other air bands had been practicing for weeks, so I knew we would be bad.

Preemptively, so as not to totally humiliate myself, I dressed so no one would recognize me. I wore my roommate’s bright purple sweater, (a color I would never wear), white pants, high heels, thickly applied heavy makeup, and a big blonde wig.

It was so effective that when I walked by my best friends on the way the auditorium, they didn’t recognize me. Whew!

On stage, we started “singing,” and were immediately booed because we were so obviously unrehearsed.

That is, until one of our lead “singers” (who looked just like the real lead singer Ann Wilson) got center stage and started lip syncing “bara, bara coooooda!” perfectly.

She was so convincing that even though they had been booing, the audience began to grudgingly applaud.

It was one of those contests where you win or lose by how loud the crowd cheers for your band.

Our “Ann Wilson” was so good that the crowd began to cheer loudly for us, and it looked like we wouldn’t be eliminated in the first round after all.

All of a sudden I wasn’t so worried about being anonymous. I felt like a real singer! Now I wanted to throw off the blonde wig, wipe off the makeup plastered on my face and say, “Hey guys, it’s me!” I envisioned I’d be giddy with popularity following our first-place win.

However, this illusion was short lived. We finished singing, the fickle audience booed us off the stage and we were eliminated. I slunk back to my dorm and changed before anyone noticed I was gone.

We are celebrating Easter this Sunday, and we will hear again the familiar words about the resurrection. Unlike my short-lived stardom, it is not an illusion, nor is it temporary. Can I prove it? Nope.

As a pastor I never try to “prove” the resurrection because it is not meant to be proved, but experienced.

As the Episcopal priest Jim Friedrich once noted, “The primary task of preachers and evangelists on Easter Sunday is not to recite or argue the evidence for the resurrection, but to help their communities become that evidence” (Christian Century April 21, 2019).

In my mind, the most convincing evidence is the transformation of the people who know Jesus and believe in him.

I never saw the risen Christ prepare breakfast by the seashore, but I have caught a glimpse of him in Bobbi and Bret who give rides to people who can’t drive, in Cynthia and Dee, and a host of others in the microcosm we call Food for Families, who give of themselves tirelessly without pay or recognition.

In a small act of edification whereby the gas station attendant makes eye contact instead of brushing me off. When a driver smilingly lets me go first instead of giving me the finger.

Volunteers at the animal shelter who advocate to place the hardest, most needy cases. In a single sentence when someone responds with love instead of returning hate.

I saw Christ several times last week, and it wasn’t even Easter.

My air band moment of fame was an illusion in so many ways. Easter is the real thing – and I keep seeing it.

About the author: Rev. Sharon Smith is pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Imlay City and writer who once lip-synced her way toward six free pizzas and now spends her time looking for signs of resurrection in everyday life.

Contact Sharon at dave@tri-citytimes.com