f l o o d

The Passion

i just watched "The Passion of the Christ," and i don't know what to say here. part of me wants to anyalyze and describe it as a film, but that's impossible. as a cinematic work, it stands on its own. it's solid. but of course it's not just a film. i cried. sobbed, is more like it. as i left the theatre i could barely contain myself. when i got to my car the tears returned.

instead of trying to put my thoughts into words, i'm gonna direct you to jon's blog entry about "The Passion." he describes perfectly my own experience in watching the movie, from the critic's responses to how personal an it all was.

When people say that there's too much blood that it distracts from the message, or that we don't really see enough of Jesus' ministry to be affected by his death, or so on and so on, they're missing the point entirely. The movie isn't about Jesus, it's not about Gibson or his "mission"-like undertaking, or the controversy and politics; it's not about the blood, the realism; it's not even about evangelistic opportunities or lives being changed. As I watched the movie, it wasn't about any of those things.

It was about me.

I cried. I cried hard. But it wasn't only because of the suffering depicted onscreen; I started sobbing long before the trial took place. It was because Peter disowned Christ, and the moment I saw Jesus look up at him while being beaten, I saw that he was looking straight at me. When the adulteress woman reached out to his feet and he lifted her up from the ground, it was me. When he carried that cross up the hill as the soldiers spit on him, whipped him, mocked him, it was all about me. And even when they had driven the stakes into his hands, he was able to look at the very ones who had crucified him and say, "Father, forgive them," I saw that it was all about me. In the garden, as he prayed for the Father to somehow spare him the excruciating torment of the hours to come, and realizing that the Father would be forced to turn his ear, it was because of me. When he cried out "Why have you forsaken me?" it was me.

i hope you dont mind me stealing a whole chunk of your writing jon, but i have no better words to describe how i felt watching the movie.

yes, the jewish pharisees and roman soldiers were depicted as evil perhaps to an unnecessary extent. yes, it was graphically violent and brutal. but it was real. as an avid filmwatcher it is easy for me to think "oh, it's just a movie, it's not real." but there has never been anything more real in all of history. we read about the beating and the whipping and the nails in the Bible, but it's only words on a page. even as vivid as the human imagination is, we can't understand what Christ went through for us. but to see it...that is the power of this medium.

i may be watching the movie again on saturday with a bunch of people from church, but i wanted to see it by myself before that. for some reason i feel that watching it with a large group of christians would somehow diminish my ability to view the film from a personal standpoint. i'm not even sure now if i want to see it again on saturday. not because i don't want to go with other people, but i feel almost as if i watch it again so soon it'll somehow lose some of it's impact the second time around. but i know thats just silly. the relevance and depth of this story have nothing to do with the film itself.

Father forgive us, for we know not what we do.

Posted by bwu at February 26, 2004 05:38 PM