[JusPasenThru]

Gee, I thought the part with the soldier lying on the beach calling for his mother while his guts spilled out of his belly onto the sand was kinda gross. Didn't you think so?

[Capriole]

Yes, I thought it was gross--and heartrending. But The Passion is different qualitatively. In the first place, SPR is not just unremitting agony for 2 hours; there are interludes of horror, yes, but it's not almost nonstop, as it is in The Passion. Second, you know that soldier is not your personal Savior, who loved you before you were born and is enduring death so that you won't have to suffer and die. That is, the soldier was willing to risk death, but doubtless would have avoided it if he could; The Passion makes you aware that the Lord could have walked away at any time, and deliberately chose to endure all this for us. We are each of us personally responsible, through our sins, for what He bore. That makes all the agony harder to witness.