A Freeper Review of The Passion of Christ

Vanity | 2/21/04 | John Fields

[jonboy]

I'm not sure where to start. I'm a fellow Freeper who also happens to be minister. I was invited today to see a screening of the Passion of the Christ at our local theater. I have been fascinated, and you might even be able to say obsessed with this movie ever since I heard about it a few months ago and first saw the trailer (I cried every time I saw it).

Given that I have watched and listened to several interviews and read several news stories about this movie I was as prepared as I thought I could be to watch it. I HAVE NEVER BEEN THROUGH ANYTHING LIKE THIS MOVIE! I sobbed, I throbbed, my Kleenex became a fairly useless mess that occupied the hand not tightly gripping the seat. IT WAS HARD TO WATCH. The cruelty was overwhelming, but approximated what we have a glimpse from in scripture. The violence and horror of what was done to Him nearly overwhelming, but not gratuitous as some have claimed.

As to the charges of anti-semitism, I can understand how a Jew who does not believe that Jesus is their Messiah would be frightened by this film. However, it was NOT anti-semitic. I could just as easily be moved to be against Italians for what the Romans did as I could be against the Jews. If one were inspired to hate the perpetrators if this event, they would be anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-Arab, anti-Japanese, and anti-__________ (fill in your own blanks). I was filled with the grim overwhelming knowledge of my own guilt as much as anything else. As I watched Him writhing in pain, the ribs virtually exposed from the beating that He had taken, as I watched His shoulder ripped out of socket as they stretched his hand to make it to the pre-drilled nail hole, as I watched the blood flowing and the breath ripped from His body from the pain, one thing entered into my mind above all else. I PUT HIM THERE! He could have come down, He could have called in excess of ten-thousand angels. He could have stopped that horrible mockery and evil in its tracks by coming down off of that cross, healing His own wounds, and then saying go to it boys as He releases the angels to take care of business. BUT HE DIDN'T. I am in awe.

I admit that I has moments when I felt like ripping the Jewish and Roman perpetrators apart. How dare they laugh in the face of such agony! How dare they spit on Him! How dare they stand in pompous, arrogant, self-righteous judgment of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (how dare MYSELF go on sinning after what He did for me)! But as the High Priest is walking away from making fun and mocking. He hears Jesus softly say, taking up precious breath, "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." The High Priest pauses in uncomfortable silence, then walks on. Later, after Jesus has died and the earthquake has damaged the temple and they are very aware that they have done something terribly wrong the High Priest is seen crying out and holding his face in grief and horror.

This movie was about love and forgiveness and about our sin and what God and His Son did together about that sin. It is about the horrible things that men do to their fellow men which can still be forgiven if they will but repent. Some of the Jews were depraved and some were compassionate. Some of the Romans were depraved, and some of them were inclined towards compassion. Anti-Jewish? NO WAY! Besides, the early church was exlusively Jewish. The movie is not about Mel Gibson having some kind of point to prove to anyone, let alone the Jews. It was Mel's passion, a labor of love. Will it profit Him? Unbelievably! Did he do it for the money, not a chance.

Were there any liberties taken with the scripture? Maybe a few. Poetic/artistic license was taken to a degree. There were some scenes with Judas that were extra Biblical, but imaginable. Surprisingly, he was shown as a somewhat sympathetic character, which is something I've felt to a degree for him. I doubt that he was a completely depraved man, he just wanted to speed things along so that Jesus would have to rise to the throne and have to take His true place. When he realized he had been horribly mis-lead he admitted guilt but then went out and killed himself. There was a scene in which the unrepentant thief had his eyes pecked out by a crow. I thought that didn't gel well with the theme of forgiveness and should have been left out. It seemed to represent Divine retribution since the thief had just been blaspheming Jesus. But the cross wasn't about retribution, that will come later at Judgment, it was about mercy.

As to this movie being appropriate for children? That's a hard call. I think it would be best if conscientous parents screened it for themselves first. It is hard enough for mature adults to stomach. However, there is something to be said for exposing young tender hearts to the truth of what He did. Maybe knowing what He did at a younger age would lead to more mature Christians later. Again, it's an individual call.

Is this movie Catholic? Yes and no. Those who see the relationship between Jesus and Mary who are Catholic will likely see Mary as divine. Those of us who believe that Mary was a mere woman who was blessed enough to have been chosen to be the mother of the Christ will see the relationship between a mother and her Son. THIS MOVIE IS FOR ALL!!! I can wholeheartedly recommend this movie to others for personal devotion or to touch the hearts of those who are lost. I believe very much that it will be a culturally defining movie and that it will break most IF NOT ALL of the box office records both nationally and world-wide. The Lord will not be silenced. I truly feel He has spoken through this movie. Maybe its His way of saying WAKE UP before He comes again. If it is, this Christian is awake (wiping away tears).

[Ohioan from Florida]

Yes!

[BigSkyFreeper]

It's just like when my dad calls on the phone and says "Son, I can't seem to get this newfangled thing to work on my computer, can you come over and help me?" and I say "sure, I'll be right over". Just like the Trinity, what the Father is unable to accomplish, the Son can, and what the Son may not be able to accomplish, the Holy Ghost or the Father might be able to accomplish. Doesn't mean one is superior or inferior over the other. They all work in symphony with one another.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

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'MEL GIBSON - America's new JOHN WAYNE under attack'


http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=604

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[savedbygrace]

Once again, you misunderstand. Jesus gave that to us as a pattern. I pray to God, the Father, in the name of Jesus.

[NobleEagle2004]

To All who are both nervous and apprehensive (including myself) The Least we can all do is Grin & Bear it,and show our faith and go see it.

[Leonine]

Mary was "assumed" to be worthy of direct entry into heaven, not needing a hand up, so to speak. You may consult your U.S. catechism, but it is ambiguous. Better would be to consult the Vatican website. The St. Joseph's Missal is also useful.

[Paradox]

Thanks for the review, the movie sounds almost impossibly powerful. I hope to see it ASAP, and will try to give a review from an athiest point of view, if that is possible. I consider myself something of an agnostic-deist (no flames please, I have nothing but respect for devout Christians, and Jews, and am an all around pretty decent guy), but I was raised a "light" Catholic, so I am sure this is going to stir up some feelings for me.

[savedbygrace]

Timothy and the other believers were still alive on the earth. That's a crucial distinction. You're praying to those who have died. Yes, they are alive forever in heaven, but they died, and they are not God.

[beckett]

Let the review stand, please. The Mary remark is not anti-Catholic, he gave both sides. Maybe we should start another thread.

With all due respect, he did not give both sides. He stated that Catholics think of Mary as "divine." The divinity is now and always has been reserved for the Trinity in Catholicism, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Mary is not divine for Catholics. When Catholics pray to her they are praying to an intercessor between Jesus Christ and the prayerful, not to a divinity. There are some extreme Marians who have lobbied the current Pope to name her "co-redemptrix," but the Magisterium so far has rebuffed them, and I do not believe they will ever succeed in assigning her that status. But even if they did succeed, she still would not become "divine." It's simply an error to say otherwise.

[savedbygrace]

But once again you avoided answering the question. What's your scriptural reference for praying to saints, those who have died in Christ?

If you're just going to talk around this and not answer, it will be easy to conclude you have none.

[Ohioan from Florida]

Every time we sin, we spit, we mock, we lash.

It's weird, isn't it? When I think about it, I feel awful, and then I forget, and sin again! I'm thankful that St. Paul understood how I feel. See Romans 7:15 "What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate." and Romans 7:19 "For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want." and Romans 7:24-25 "Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin."

[savedbygrace]

BTW, I already have tickets for the Wednesday afternoon and Saturday afternoon showings. I'm looking forward to this film.

[Leonine]

I'm going to see the movie. If the suffering is in my visual memory, then maybe I can sin just a little bit less. Thank you for those sympathetic words from Paul's cathedral of an Epistle.

[Cicero]

Well, very briefly, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception states that Mary was conceived without sin, as you say. It was quite an early belief in the Church.

It is not beyond God's ability to do something like that. He gave Abraham and Sarah a son when they were much to old for childbearing or even sexual relations. Eve, too, was originally created sinless, and then fell.

For the other, I don't think you mean the Annunciation (the Archangel Gabriel's appearance to Mary when she consented to bear Jesus) but the Assumption. The Assumption was declared a dogma quite recently (Vatican I), but it was also a very early belief in the Church. I remember reading in the annals of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany in the early middle ages that one of the monks visited the Holy Land and was told about it there. As further evidence, there are no accounts of places where Mary's tomb might be, but there are accounts of Jesus's tomb and the tombs of many early Christians. That absence isn't proof but it's an interesting indication.

At any rate, the Assumption declares that Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven. The same things seems to be said in Genesis about Enoch, and there is a long tradition to that effect. Again, it doesn't say that Mary is divine. Only that God made a special exception in her case and raised her before the General Resurrection at the end of days.

[Libloather]

...it's going to be a profoundly disturbing portrayal of the brutality that Jesus suffered. I think one of the worst things that could happen to this film would be for Christians to unthinkingly flock to it simply to "show their support" and then wind up fleeing the theater and criticizing the film as being "too violent."

A beating prior to crucifixion can only be exceptionally nasty. Today's sterile environment of death penalty needles can't even come close...

[Leonine]

Good post, but remember that Abraham did have a child by Keturah in his mid-80s. His name was Ishmael.

[CyberAnt]

It was a plan. Satan didn't know what the plan was .. only God knew. If Satan had known the plan, he would never have crucified Jesus, and we could not have been restored to God.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

As a FReeper I find that a great compliment which I am happy to return!

[Cicero]

I see that as an opportunity for education and discussion, not for pulling the thread. And by education I mean telling Protestants what Catholics believe, rather than what they have been told Catholics believe. It's not probably going to change their own beliefs, but it's still a small step in bringing people a little closer together.