Posted on 02/25/2004 12:47:33 PM PST by Maigret
Gibson was right to shout
By ROD DREHER / The Dallas Morning News
It opens in Gethsemane, with Jesus Christ praying in palpable agony. You shudder. You've said this Sorrowful Mystery on your rosary beads countless times, but here, in The Passion of the Christ, it is as if you're encountering it for the first time.
Soon there is Jesus before the Sanhedrin, overseen by Caiaphas, the chief temple priest. Jesus calls himself Messiah. It strikes you that from the point of view of a Jew like Caiaphas, Jesus is a blasphemer.
You think: Had I been a pious first-century Jew, would I have seen things differently? No, probably not.
Roman soldiers mock and scourge him, tearing Jesus to ribbons with barbed whips. He will not be broken. You think about the effete, middle-class Jesus preached from pulpits today, and you want to weep as the soldiers strip away this false image. Behold, a man! This isn't the domesticated Jesus many of us know from our churches. This is a man worth dying for and, therefore, worth living for.
But you think: Had I been a Roman soldier ordered to beat an anonymous prisoner, would I have resisted? No, probably not.
Jesus stands before Pilate, who doesn't want to crucify the prisoner but is afraid for his career if he doesn't do what the crowd wants. You think: If I were a bureaucrat who wanted to preserve my status, would I have shown mercy to a stranger? No, probably not.
Nearly everybody, Jew and Roman, had his reasons. They all are too human. That's why as Jesus, beaten to a bloody pulp, makes his way to the hill atop which he will die, you begin to understand in your bones the Christian belief that all mankind killed Jesus.
There, dragging his cross and his mangled flesh to Golgotha, goes every slave who suffered a master's lash.
There goes every Christian who perished in Josef Stalin's gulags, every Jew hounded to death on the streets of Nazi Germany.
There goes baby Tyreona Mabry, her broken body found in Dallas last week, allegedly the victim of her parents. Neighbors didn't answer the baby girl's cries.
Neighbors like you and me. We crucify Jesus every day. This relentless film forces us to confront what that means.
With Jesus in his death throes, you wonder: Was it necessary for Mel Gibson to have shown all this gore? "To the hard of hearing you shout," said Flannery O'Connor. Mr. Gibson shouts. In this barbaric world, he's right to.
There is Mary cradling the body of her son in her arms at the foot of the cross, and she's looking directly at you. You can't turn away. Her gaze says, "Look what you did to him. Look what he did for you."
And then, in that awesome moment, with the fear of the Lord upon you, the final lines of Rainer Rilke's poem about the power of art to transform cross your mind: "For here there is no place/that does not see you. You must change your life."
I don't know how non-Christians will see this film. As nothing more, perhaps, than the tale of a deluded sap who got caught up in ecclesial and colonial politics. But for those of us who call Jesus the Son of God, who believe he chose his fate for our sakes, The Passion of the Christ is the greatest love story ever told, and it will radically deepen our conversion. By his wounds we are healed.
"Who do you say that I am?" Jesus asked. There is no middle ground. But, then, he told us there wouldn't be.
Rod Dreher is an editorial writer and occasional columnist for The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is rdreher@dallasnews.com.
If so, its no surprise that he doesn't anymore.
Excellent piece.
" It opens in Gethsemane, with Jesus Christ praying in palpable agony. "
My Dad's homage to Heinrich Hoffmann's "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane"
Great review. Thank you for posting it. The gift of salvation has been offered.
Bump!
My thanks to you and your Dad for the site, this picture hung in both our grandparent's living rooms and hangs in our home now too.
Yes, it really is. Especially coming from The Dallas Morning Spews,
a big advocate for Gays and Lesbians ...
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