Posted on 02/25/2004 4:20:56 PM PST by Chi-townChief
I believe. That Jesus was a real man. That he also was really God.
That he was Jewish. That he lived in Israel with his family and his disciples.
That he willingly suffered horrendously and died awfully so that my sins -- and those of all humanity -- could be forgiven.
That he did so because he loves us. That his death brought grace to the world once, and for all. That by his stripes, we are healed.
That he rose again. That he's alive today. That he'll be back.
I also believe that the movie I saw Monday night about the last 12 hours of Jesus' life did little to affect what, how or why I believe.
And that might be hard for Mel Gibson to believe.
But it's the truth.
"The Passion of the Christ" is the most horrific film I've ever seen. I mean that literally and not as an artistic insult.
About 10 minutes into the 126-minute film, the worst depiction of torture I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing began as the character Jesus was led away by temple police from the Garden of Gethsemane under cloak of night.
The beating, scourging, disfiguring, flaying of flesh, and unforgivingly slow, unthinkably brutal execution of Jesus continues almost unmitigated until about three minutes before the final credits begin to crawl across the screen.
It's horrendous. It's sickening. It was at times physically impossible for me to watch.
I hid my eyes behind my hand, peeked at the screen through my fingers, covered my face with a scarf for a few minutes.
During one lengthy scene where his Roman tormentors unmercifully whip him with a cat-o'-nine-tails until there is hardly any flesh on his back then flip him over and have a go at the front of his twisted body, the sounds of bone crunching, blood squishing and skin being ripped apart were so intense, I found myself plugging my ears like a child.
Horrific.
But true, Gibson and his supporters say. And necessary, and calculated, they say.
"I wanted it to be shocking," Gibson told Diane Sawyer in a recent ABC interview. "I also wanted it to be extreme. I wanted it to push the viewer over the edge. And it does that."
Indeed, especially if that particular precipice leads to nausea and nightmares.
Heartfelt overkill
Gibson also said he wanted audiences to "see the enormity of that sacrifice . . . that someone could endure that and still come back with love and forgiveness, even through extreme pain and suffering and ridicule."
I believe that was his intention and that it was heartfelt.
However, with this particular member of the audience, it was overkill. It went too far, obscuring the story. That's the tricky thing with art, whether it's film, music, a painting or a dance. They all elicit responses from the audience. But the artist cannot control what the response will be.
Mine was revulsion. I felt as if I'd been visually assaulted. There was nothing spiritually inspiring about the brutality on film. It was just gross.
But a guy in the row behind me was visibly moved, in a good way, by the same elements of the film I found so troubling. From what he said, I think the film enlivened his faith, made him see anew the supernatural love that God has for him.
Gibson is a man whose personal aesthetics would seem (based solely on the films he's made in the past) to be much more comfortable with violent images than my own.
Maybe he needed to see the physical suffering of Christ to understand it. I prefer to use my imagination
After all, even though Gibson claims his depictions of Christ's passion in the film are based on what he says are strict, literal interpretations of Scripture, they are, despite all his reported research and scholarly support, at best simply a guess.
No one witnessed the crucifixion with a video camera in hand.
"The Passion of the Christ," which I believe is neither anti-Semitic nor gives the message -- explicitly or implicitly -- that the Jewish people collectively and for all time are responsible for killing God's son, is Gibson's idea of what the suffering and death of Christ looked like. It's simply his vision. He says that.
But it's a vision I didn't need to understand how much Jesus loves me, or how much he suffered on my behalf.
Back to The Book
After watching "The Passion," I reread those familiar accounts of Jesus' final hours in the Gospels of Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I am not a scholar, but from my readings, by and large, the film sticks to the text. There are dramatic embellishments, such as the woman who wipes Jesus' face on the Via Dolorosa. That's not in the Bible.
Neither is the one scene that made me cry, the single moment that made me stop and contemplate the sacrifice I believe Jesus made for all of us. As Jesus staggers through the streets of Jerusalem dragging his cross toward Golgotha, his mother, Mary, John his apostle and Mary Magdalene run through a warren of alleys trying to get ahead of the procession so Mary can get closer to her son.
When the three catch up to the procession, Mary hesitates as she has a flashback to Jesus as a little boy, running through the dusty gravel in their backyard. The child Jesus of her memory stumbles and falls, and she rushes toward him and picks him up.
It was instinct. It was human. It was real, even if it wasn't necessarily true based on Scripture.
That one tender moment reminded me of Christ's humanity in a way that stirred my soul far more than two hours of brutal gore and suffering ever could.
Yes, Jesus was God. But he was also a man. A man with a mother who loved him and friends and a career and doubts and fears who chose to die a horrible, painful, humiliating death in order to save the world that killed him.
But I didn't learn that from a movie.
It's what I believe.
I also believe that the movie I saw Monday night about the last 12 hours of Jesus' life did little to affect what, how or why I believe. And that might be hard for Mel Gibson to believe.
With this dig, she gives herself away. I have no doubt Gibson doesn't take credit for people's faith. He is not an egomaniac.
Don't go then. It isn't primarily about his gospel. It is about a bunch of power elites who persecuted a man and had him murdered because they didn't like what he said. It is about a spineless Governor who didn't have decency to release an obviously innocent man. If all you are going to do is to concentrate on the brutality, and forget why this man suffered as he did, then don't go. But if you do go, ask yourself if you could suffer the same for him. And BTW, Christians need to be asking themselves that question in light of the growing persecutions of Christians. As for me, I don't know if I'm strong to endure what Jesus went through.
The movie wasn't intended to make an impression on people such as yourself, Cathleen.
Actually, from what I have read over the last few months, it kind of was. Originally, the movie has no subtitles. Mel said that if you were familiar with the story, you wouldn't need them. It was only due to distributor demands that subtitles were added.
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