Posted on 03/09/2004 10:17:36 AM PST by aculeus
I'm fairly certain that the seeds of Mel Gibson's extraordinary work The Passion of the Christ were sown long before Islamic fundamentalists delivered their abominable message to America and the entire Judeo-Christian civilization. A devout Catholic for much of his life, Gibson has openly admitted that until he returned to his faith, his life was in a shambles. He'd contemplated "jumping out the window." With all the fame and money anyone could want sitting at the top of the entertainment industry, this extraordinarily brave Australian artist felt obliged to risk it all for his Lord.
Gibson was asked on a network interview show, "What if the film fails? You've personally invested $25 million in it." Without much of a pause, the director replied, "I can go to work for $18 an hour."
The New York Times recently predicted the end of Gibson's career. Five days and over $100 million in box office receipts later, that bible of Liberal America and the famous curmudgeon Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes, dismissing a film he never saw, were proven wrong. When asked if he'd seen the film, Rooney replied, "I'm not gonna pay $9 just for a few laughs." He should have seen it, if only to avoid his own embarrassment. The only people laughing in The Passion of the Christ are the villains.
Whether you believe in fate or not, I personally know the importance of a creative urge which begins long before its necessity reveals itself. The protests against the film are further evidence of how deep-seated the Liberal establishment's fear of Christianity truly is. But the genie is out of the bottle and the anti-Christian types can do nothing to stuff it back in again. I envision Gibson's testimony to be pirated into countries that will try to keep it out.
Osama bin Laden's assault on the Twin Towers was also a declaration of spiritual war. With his hijacked planes, he was basically saying that we English-speaking peoples don't believe in anything except money and our own greed for power. In other words, we wouldn't know true religious fervor any more than we would know how to speak Arabic.
The Islamists hadn't counted on the courage and selflessness of Gibson's faith. Nor do they know the depth to which a worldwide spiritual armada will gather to confront bin Laden and his minions and defend our 2,000-year-old message.
Marxism is still less than 150 years old, but until quite recently it was winning the popularity contest with the liberal leadership class and media opinion-makers. The Marxist machine demonized Christian faith with increasing success.
President George W. Bush has so far failed to capture bin Laden. Gibson, however, has struck more forcefully at the heart of al-Qaida's spiritual armory than the American ground troops who drove Saddam Hussein into a rathole.
The stakes are now even higher than those of World War II. A simple inventory of the world's arsenal will tell you that.
Could there be a non-violent response to our enemy's ultimate goal? There is now. The fallout from this metaphysical bomb will be endless.
Gibson, while writing his script, must have sensed the secular implications it would hold for its audience. Much of his film is straight from the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I'm grateful that Gibson added Luke's sole testament about the Good Thief.
The few elaborations Gibson added must have been inspired by his increasing awareness of what is to come. The experts might correct me, but I really don't think that Christ crushed the head of a snake in the Garden of Gethsemane. He refused the Devil's temptations in the Wilderness, but at Gethsemane he was utterly alone, without man or beast to comfort or torture Him, as He sweated blood over His coming fate.
Do I object to that act of killing by the God of love and forgiveness? The Catholic Church declared unequivocally that there is such a thing as a "just war."
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage Where the grapes of wrath are stored. — Battle Hymn of the Republic
There's no way to call either the American Civil War or World War II "unjust." Yet now much of the world is protesting the imprisonment of a known, genocidal psychopath, Saddam Hussein. Even Christian leaders are joining the campaign. Archbishop Desmond Tutu asked Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush to apologize for the invasion of Iraq. I wonder if the Archbishop would have asked Abraham Lincoln to apologize for invading the South at a cost of 600,000 lives, a large chunk of the American population in 1865, to free the black slaves.
To that extent, perhaps Gibson is a contemporary prophet. Seemingly unafraid of anything, the director took the implications of human history and added an Old Testament warning: Yahweh is not known to be all-forgiving. The Devil in the New Testament is a voice, not a body, a hissing in Christ's ear. Gibson envisions Lucifer as an icy-eyed hermaphrodite.
A friend who viewed the movie with me, leaned over and asked me why, after the long trek toward Calvary, with all the scourging before and along the way, there was no blood on the cross. The cross is the entire human race and all its sins. Because of Christ's forgiveness, the blood of Jesus is no longer staining us if we accept His boundless offer to absolve us of all our sins.
Once the nails are driven into Christ's hands and feet, we see the blood flowing again. Not long after that, the Lord forgives the very men who hammered the nails into his flesh.
When asked why his portrayal of Christ's torture was so brutal, Gibson replied, "To show the enormity of His sacrifice."
In 33 A.D., the world's population was hardly what it is now. Today, six billion souls live on planet Earth. Obviously the weight of that cross and the depth of Christ's vocation have increased exponentially. I take no fault in Gibson's pointing this out. Those numbers, coupled with the breathtaking insensitivity and indifference to Christ's message that even the free world has shown, justify the film's shock value, to my mind.
I have a few devout Catholic friends. I told them, because of their lifelong faith, they are not obliged to relive the Crucifixion. They endure it in their hearts every time they look at a crucifix. Our Lord to them is now a family member and watching Him die again would be like living through the execution of our father or son.
Gibson is here to simply remind us of the only hope the human race has: the love and forgiveness of our Lord, the Christ.
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning actor who has appeared in the landmark television series Law and Order, the mini-series Holocaust, and the recent mini-series Taken. In 2002 he won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries.
Bears repeating.
Thanks for this great post, aculeus.
Yes, I feel it too, A-G -- down deep in my bones. We humans are reaching a crisis point; things are coming to a head. One senses the "threshing floor" looms just ahead. We must take our stand and pray God for strength.
He was an alcoholic, and was virtually a bum. Pictures of him were almost unrecognizable as the man in The Holocaust and Law and Order.
I was aware that he had made a recovery recently but di not know the details.
It is apparent from this essay wherein lay the source of his rebirth.
Praise God.
Yes, Praise God!
In the words of the great hymn, "I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see."
Thank you for this information, happygrl.
MOST glad to know that this man made it Home.
Marxism is still less than 150 years old, but until quite recently it was winning the popularity contest with the liberal leadership class and media opinion-makers. The Marxist machine demonized Christian faith with increasing success.
President George W. Bush has so far failed to capture bin Laden. Gibson, however, has struck more forcefully at the heart of al-Qaida's spiritual armory than the American ground troops who drove Saddam Hussein into a rathole.
The stakes are now even higher than those of World War II. A simple inventory of the world's arsenal will tell you that.Could there be a non-violent response to our enemy's ultimate goal? There is now. The fallout from this metaphysical bomb will be endless. ~ Michael Moriarty
It is odd that Moriarty has linked the movie, and 9/11. I have too, I'm not sure why. There are gears turning, this is our moment to stand or not stand, and I sense, feel, like we are in one of those hinge moments that determine the course of everything to follow. I feel like we are face forward into the storm, but God is with us, if we will only stand. ~ 16 posted on 03/09/2004 10:52:21 AM PST by marron
[Could Gibson's "the Passion" cause backslidden believers to turn back to Christ? Yes, I believe so. Could it cause a whole lot of people to start checking out their local churches? Yes, I can certainly see that happening. It is a very powerful film, and I believe God desires to use it greatly.
But here is the crux of the problem. The churches simply cannot carry the 'weight' of this movie. By and large, they represent a different "Jesus" altogether from the one that we see torn and battered in the gospel accounts. A church that has bent over backwards to make its services a "Seeker-friendly" mix of warm homilies and entertaining slickness, has nothing to say to those seeking the true Jesus of the Bible.
On September 11, 2001, people flooded into the churches seeking a faith that could bear the 'weight' of the momentous events unfolding around them. And they found we had erected a plastic imitation - a shallow, lightweight "Jesus" - complete with ambient 'muzak' and mindless appeals for money. A comfortable Western counterfeit of the real thing. They did not stay for long. And why should things be any different this time?
Every day we hear reports of big churches buying up large blocks of tickets and urging their people to use this film as an "outreach opportunity". I believe it is an 'inreach opportunity'. -A chance for us to look into the face of Christ and find that our shallow pretense of Christianity bears no relation to the real thing whatsoever.
As I said, today's Western church simply cannot bear the 'weight' of this movie. It stops our mouths, just as it stops theirs. Our "Jesus" comes out looking like a cheap used-car salesman - for that is what we have made him. We invented him to perfectly fit our 'Laodicean' lifestyle. And so we sit in our lovely buildings with our lovely music and our lovely smiles, wondering why the world cannot get as excited as we do by this plastic Jesus of ours. Meantime, all the earth sighs and groans for the real thing.
Tell me, church, don't you think it is possible that God intends this movie to challenge us,just as it challenges the unbelievers? Will we be deaf to the voice of God, or will we allow him to begin to dismantle this plastic edifice that we have built - this prison of our own making that prevents us from representing the real Jesus as He really is?
Surely the time has come for another 'Great Reformation' in the church. May this movie be just one of many "shakings" that is sent to remove the blinders from our eyes.
God bless you all. -Andrew Strom. "THE PASSION - A Challenge to the CHURCH" ]
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