Swompdonkey

I've seen the movie that everyone is talking about. First, allow me to admit my bias. I'm a semi-practicing Roman Catholic (I go to church fairly regularly, but I neglect my faith sometimes for months at a time). I've read alot about this movie -too much - and I just don't understand people who see it as a hateful film. To all those who are appalled by the violence of Gibson's vision, you'll get no argument from me. it is violent, VERY violent. So violent, in fact, that I had to grit my teeth as I watched parents enter the cinema with young children. Surely, this is not an appropriate movie to teach kids about the life of Christ. But to those who see this as a "hateful" or "anti-semitic" film, did you watch the same film I did?

Some ask how can people, particularly devout christians unaccustomed to scenes of violence in film, watch this horrific (some have characterized it as "pornographic") depiction of Christ's final hours? I've asked myself: "what if you were an ordinary citizen of some inconsequential province of the Roman Empire, a stranger present when they whipped the Nazarene carpenter's flesh, and drove him through the streets of Jerusalem with the wooden frame upon which they would hang him? Would you have watched? Would you have subjected yourself to the spectacle?... If so, what would you have felt?" The movie presents the unflinching point of view of a simple onlooker, as Mel Gibson would have it, forced to watch, riveted, while the blood rain down like tears as Jesus bears away mankind's sins to the mount of skulls. A simple peasant in some despised imperial backwater, would I have watched when the legionaries of Tiberius drove the spikes through his mortified flesh and raised him high? It was a violent age, and I suppose I might have raged at the cruelty I beheld, and cursed the pagan romans for butchers, but honestly, I know I would have watched... much the way we watch the aftermath of a horrific roadside accident nowadays, transfixed by a spectacle of carnage.

A pilgrim in the city at Passover, I might not have know much about this Gallilean cult-leader who was visiting the city, but I would have at least heard rumours, claims, accusations... This man healed the sick. This man drove out the moneylenders. This man defied the authorities. This man claims he is the Messiah. I would probably have read the mocking script hung above the crown of thorns with a mixture of distaste and curiosity.

Regardless of what I believed, I might have wept to look upon him, as I watched the jeering crowds, thinking perhaps that no one had ever suffered so much for so ungrateful a people. I might feel disgust at some of the locals, who mocked him for claiming kinship over them, as their religious leaders had told them. I might have felt anger, I might have felt hatred for the people who had caused this to be done.

But then, if I had heard of his teachings, and spoken to his followers, I might come to see that in his own heart, he believed that he had not suffered because of them, but for them, because that was his destiny. In that context, the jews and romans were agents of fate. And, more importantly, Jesus had not died for them alone, but for all. He suffered and died, after all, for the remission of all sins. He said "I am the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world". When he expired on the cross, it was so that scripture might be fulfilled, and that he might rise again.

Regardless of your creed, whether or not you believe in the Resurrection, we can agree that this teacher, who called upon us to love one another, was willing to suffer unbearable torment and die for his message. His was a lesson of love for mankind, and forgiveness. The kingdom of heaven is within our grasp. We only need to love one another and forgive each other's sins. That is the message I take from this film, and I feel better for having seen it.