I'm not a Christian, if that is what you mean. I still don't understand why you would want to watch torture. I understand looking at pictures of my grandparents while they were living, but surely not while they were dying or being tortured.
Yes, that's what I meant. Hopefully I can explain it clearly. You look at pictures of your grandparets while they were alive because it helps you remember them and you generally feel better (though you may feel pangs of loss) after looking at them, yes? Ok, and of course they are pictures of them while they were alive (not tortured and dying).
It works along the same lines, but see, the difference is, when those of us who believe that Christ died for our sins, that He took every evil, every hurt, every sin of mankind upon Himself; that He made His suffering the payment for our salvation, when we look upon what He went through it can reinforce and humble us as to just what He endured out of sheer, perfect, yet undeserved love.
Of course we remember the Scriptures concerning the Sermon on the Mount, and the raising of Jairus' daughter, the miracles of loaves and fishes, etc. but those things all pale in comparison to the fact that after all that, after all the teaching, after He showed us how to live through His Word, He went that extra step and made Himself the sacrifice to, in God's eyes, right every wrong we had committed so that not only would we know how to live, but so we could actually go and live. He lived his Word when He said, "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." He offers Himself for us. Freely, willingly, selflessly.
Without Christ's Passion, without His undying love even unto the humiliation and pain He suffered, there is no hope. None.
Why watch a movie about a glorious battle in history where the good guys die to do what is right? To watch them suffer and die but get the job done? It crushes us to see them dying, but it lifts our spirits to see ordniary men called to do extraordinary things. Even as we watch them die, our hearts are lifted up.
Now how much more for the believer to see a depiction of the Lord Himself paying the price for us? We don't deserve this perfect love, but He gives it anyway.
It is the very idea that the Most High God would bring Himself so low as to become one of us and submit to the horrors He did submit to that give us reason to hope. Our minds can paint a picture of it, but nothing earthly is as vivid as seeing it depicted before your eyes.
In a nutshell, that is what it means to me. If it makes no sense, I understand, but that's how it is for me.
That's been a 'stumbling block and foolishness' right from the beginning and not totally subject to rational explanation, according to St. Paul:
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
24 but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
That is because you dont believe that he had to go through that pain and suffering for the atonement of our sins, and as God on Earth-it is the foundation of our faith as we believe he is our Messiah, and you, not a Christian, with no malice, are still waiting or dont believe at all
Why the church would after vatican II try to sanitize the Passion and rewrite the Holy words of St Jerome to appease those who dare call Catholics Anti semitic because those that took part and handed our Lord over for crucifixion dont like their place in history is sad and a desecration to his name and God on Earth.