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Commentaries
on The Passion of the Christ
The
Passion of the Christ
126 minutes
Commentary by Dr. Lee
Ramsey Christian
or not, anyone who decides to see this movie should by
now be properly forewarned. Mel Gibson's The Passion
of Christ is relentlessly violent, violent, violent.
Sadism reigns in the form of jeering, whiplashing Roman
soldiers who so brutalize the body of Jesus prior to
his arrival at Golgotha as to make the crucifixion secondary.
As one medical expert commented after seeing the film, “Jesus
would have already been dead before they hung him on
the cross.” The movie is an excruciating, up-close
presentation of the relentless torture of the innocent
Jew, Jesus, who, as the lyrics from another persecuted
group of people in history moan, “never says a
mumblin' word.”
Millions
of viewers are flocking to this Hollywood rendering of
the death of Jesus. They testify that the suffering of
Jesus on the screen has made their own faith more real,
somehow more believable and authentic. Some are saying
that the movie will “change their lives forever,” when
they just saw the movie day before yesterday. Whatever
else the film has or has not accomplished, it has caused
a tidal wave of public attention and response, much of
it from sincere followers of Jesus who claim that the
movie helps them see more deeply into the meaning of
Jesus' death for themselves and the rest of the world.
On
the other hand, many other faithful Christians who have
been steeped in the stories of the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ are scratching their heads. What's the
point? Many who every year during the Christian season
of Lent meditate upon the last hours of Jesus life don't
want to see this movie. They say “no thanks” to
Mel Gibson's gory interpretation of the passion of Jesus.
They keep their $7.50 in their pockets and wait for the
public roar to cease. Some say they already know that
the crucifixion of the God-man Jesus was a bloody horror,
exposing the depth of human sin. It's in “The Book.” Others
suspect that Gibson's particularly vicious rendering
of the suffering of Jesus and those who respond to it
are mistaking passing feelings of dread and disgust – like
those generated in the darkened cinema -- for authentic
religious affections of awe and contrition like those
sometimes experienced in Christian worship. Jesus himself
states, “Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord,'
will enter the kingdom of heaven”(Matthew 7:21).
What's
going on here? Questions can be tossed in both directions.
Do they secretly like the violence, all those who laud
this gruesome re-telling of the death of Jesus? Is their
faith really built upon a vacuum of feeling waiting to
be filled by mega-doses of vicarious pain? On the other
hand, are those who prefer to stay away from the movie
just too callous or lukewarm to really admit the depth
of Jesus' suffering? Do they fear seeing and feeling
just how cruel humans can be to the one who came to inaugurate
the reign of peace? Perhaps Mel Gibson's The Passion
of the Christ is really one more stick of dynamite
tossed into the North American culture wars.
Something
is missing as far as I can tell. That something is the
very thing that is absent from this latest cinematic
rendering of the suffering and death of Jesus – life. That's right -- life. Somewhere along the line those
who take the time to truly read Christian scripture,
to immerse themselves in the gospel story as recounted
distinctly and for varying theological purposes by Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, learn that death and life
go together. There is an horrific death, to be sure,
in the story of Jesus and his followers. But that death
is preceded by a radically new way of life that Jesus
called the Kingdom way – a way of compassion for
the broken, hospitality for the outsider, blessedness
for the poor. The sounds of Jesus' suffering are so loud
and long in this movie that they completely drown out
the equally important invitation to new life that runs
straight through the Christian story.
This
movie expends so much energy portraying the wounds and
innocent suffering of Jesus that the real climax of the
Christian story –- the resurrection of Christ--all
but evaporates from the screen. The movie drives so inexorably
toward convincing us of the brutality of Jesus' death
that nothing is left over when the resurrection comes.
A deflated burial cloth, a new face, free from bloody
bruises, a step out into the light. This is a gross distortion
of the Christian faith. As significant as the suffering
of Jesus is, Christians place final hope not in his death
but upon his resurrection. Suffering yields to liberation.
Death becomes the doorway to joyful new life. The fullness
of life in Christ is symbolized by a cork-popping banquet,
a feast at God's welcome table, not a bloody crown of
thorns. To be honest, the movie is like an extended nineteenth
century revival sermon that is long on judgment and short
on grace. Gibson seems infinitely fascinated by the many
faces of the suffering of Jesus' but barely attracted
to the newness that God creates in the resurrection of
Christ. The problem is not that Gibson goes to such great
lengths to represent Jesus's death. It's that he makes
such little effort to represent the significance of Jesus'
life before and after death.
Faith
today, as always, for those who wish to know and follow
Jesus Christ will not be fulfilled by sitting in a darkened
cinema and staring in horror at the bloody visage of
a Hollywood Jesus (despite many misguided assertions
of “historical accuracy”). Faith will be
fulfilled when those who take seriously the resurrection
of Christ decide to leave death and suffering behind
and enter into the “joy of God's Kingdom,” where
the poor are blessed, the hungry are filled, and the
prisoner is set free.
Copyright ©2004 Dr. Lee Ramsey
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