In Footsteps of Christ : La Colonia: Thousands fill the streets to witness the community’s annual Passion Play, dramatizing the trial, torture and crucifixion of Jesus.

High noon on Good Friday in Oxnard’s La Colonia barrio and the multitudes were growing restless.

The Romans were bound in their breastplates, armed with plastic spears and leather whips. Barabbas, the thief, had just had his hair teased into wild knots, and he too was awaiting the start of the traditional Passion Play.

It was time to start the show but there was just one problem: The 30-year-old amateur actor playing the lead role of Jesus Christ was still in makeup.

Fortunately, there was little to do. With his shoulder-length brown hair and full beard, Saul Aguilar already resembled the popular image of Christ.

“A friend invited me to participate because he said I looked like Jesus Christ,” said Aguilar, who played the role for the second consecutive year. “I’m a little nervous but I’m ready.”

Thousands of people jammed the streets of La Colonia for the annual pageant dramatizing the trial, torture and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The event keeps alive a tradition started 22 years ago in Oxnard and played out in towns across Mexico.

Vendors sold ice cream bars and pork rinds and cucumbers spiced with red chile. Some in attendance aimed video cameras at the outdoor pageant, which featured more than 100 amateur actors. The crowd booed and hissed on cue as the Romans condemned Christ to death.

Then they surged through the streets--passed the $1 store and the Bank of A. Levy and the Mexican bakery--following Aguilar as he shouldered a wooden cross on a six-block march to a grassy knoll behind Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church.

“This play helps us remember our culture,” said Father Jose Luis Ortega, second in command at the church. “And it reminds us of the injustices in our own community and gives us strength to fight for what’s right.”

Oxnard Councilman Andres Herrera, a La Colonia native, watched the start of the show from a weed-choked lot across the street from Christ the King Church on Cooper Road. He said he played a Roman soldier in the first production years ago.

“No matter how much we tried,” he said, “we could never change the outcome.”

As the actors proceeded down Cooper Road, the large crowd followed. Ushers used two large ropes to steer the onlookers away from the actors and onto the broken and narrow sidewalks that line La Colonia.

The crowd cut through alleys and stood atop fences and brick walls to get a better look at the pageant.

Actors playing the two thieves, who would be crucified with Jesus, were “whipped” and “beaten” by soldiers while being dragged down the road.

Aguilar--bloody and staggering and wearing a crown of thorns--managed a steady pace but fell several times, per the Bible story. A group of weeping women, squirting lemon juice in their eyes to bring tears, trailed the procession.

“Do you know why they did this stuff?” Oxnard resident Gina Acosta asked her 11-year-old nephew Richard. “He was the Messiah and they wanted to kill him.”

Aguilar fell for the final time as he rounded the corner at Juanita Street and Colonia Road, directly in front of the Catholic church.

“The struggle of Jesus Christ has profound significance to what is happening in our community,” said Ortega, who used a loudspeaker to keep a running commentary that drew parallels between the plight of Jesus and modern-day social ills.

When the procession reached the grassy hill that doubles as a playground for Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic School, Helene Keddington and Karen Van Winkle decided to see what their neighbors were up to.

Keddington and Van Winkle, sales representatives for a new housing complex, viewed the spectacle from the second-story bedroom of a model home next to the church property.

“I was outside and I saw three men on crosses and I thought I better check it out,” Keddington explained. “I’ve never seen this before. What a neat way to start the Easter holiday.”

At the Crucifixion, Aguilar was placed on the cross and taunted by the soldiers.

A small boy pressed his face into a chain-link fence and asked his father: “Why are they doing this?” Overcome with emotion, his father held the boy in his arms but didn’t answer.