CLAYBORN, MO — The mechanical apparatus that has rolled away the foam-and-chicken-wire stone at First Methodist’s annual Easter Resurrection Pageant since the second Reagan administration began emitting a sound described by witnesses as “an electrical scream” during Tuesday’s dress rehearsal, prompting an emergency deacons’ meeting and the first serious theological argument the church has had since the folding chair question of 2003.
The mechanism — a 1978 Lazy Susan removed from the Halverson family Christmas dinner table after a divorce, modified with a garage-door opener and a length of nylon rope — had functioned without complaint for thirty-eight Easters, a run church historian Vera Lindquist called “longer than most marriages, and all of mine.”
“It’s been struggling since 2019,” said Deacon Earl Pemberton, who has personally maintained the device since inheriting it from his late father-in-law, who built it in a garage that has since been condemned. “But this is different. This is the kind of sound a thing makes right before it stops being a thing.”
Pageant director Marlene Guthrie confirmed that a backup plan exists, in the sense that two seventh-grade boys have been asked to push the stone manually while wearing brown bedsheets, which she described as “scripturally defensible if you don’t think about it too hard.”
The mechanical crisis arrives on top of an already trying production season. The actor originally cast as Jesus accepted a forklift position in Lincoln on Monday, the backup pulled out citing concerns about the sandals, and the third candidate — Larry Doerr’s nephew, visiting from Topeka — agreed to the role only after being assured he would not have to grow a beard before Sunday and could keep his glasses on.
Mrs. Peterson, who has attended every First Methodist Easter pageant since 1971 and rates them on a private spreadsheet she will not share, called the mechanical issues “regrettable but not unprecedented,” citing the 1994 production in which the stone rolled the wrong direction and pinned a wise man — a detail she conceded was from the Christmas pageant, but stood by on principle.
First Baptist, located across the street and operating a competing 9 A.M. service, declined to comment on the situation, though Pastor Doug Reesman was reportedly seen smiling in the IGA parking lot Tuesday afternoon in a manner several parishioners described as un-Christian.
As of Wednesday evening, the mechanism had been disassembled on a tarp in the fellowship hall, where Deacon Pemberton was sorting screws into a coffee can while quietly mouthing what observers believed to be either a prayer, a list of swears, or both in alternation.
The pageant is scheduled for 10 A.M. Sunday. Mrs. Peterson plans to arrive at 9:15.