Experiencing ‘The Passion of the Christ’

You do not watch Mel Gibson’s new movie, “The Passion of the Christ.”  You do not munch popcorn or sip a Coke while the events unfold blithely before you. You are not a passive observer intruding into someone else’s story.

Almost as soon as the theater darkens and images begin appearing on the screen, you are drawn into the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus. You sense the disciples’ confusion when the guards come to the Garden of Gethsemane. You feel the hatred and contempt for Jesus demonstrated by the religious leaders. You are shocked and surprised by what you see even though you know the general line of the story.

At times, you close your eyes, unable to witness the scenes on the screen.  At other times you wince in your seat. Sometimes you gasp or groan.

Attending a showing of “The Passion of the Christ” is an experience. It is dramatic. It is intense. It is brutal. It is like being there, like witnessing the passion firsthand. The experience saps your physical energy and disturbs your spiritual understandings.

The visual depiction of what Christ went through transforms the film into a vehicle of worship. Jesus was beaten for us. Jesus was crucified for us. We are the ones who went astray, but “the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

The depiction of Christ’s suffering produces understanding that words cannot. Even studying what a cat-o’-nine-tails was like and the impact it had on a body does not prepare one to see the metal ends of the whip rip away hunks of flesh from Jesus’ side.

In one of the poignant scenes of the film, Jesus falls under the weight of the cross. His mother Mary pushes through the crowd to comfort Him. Jesus looks into her eyes and says, “I make all things new.” How can a Christian heart not cry out, “Thank you, Lord?” It is by His stripes that we are healed. He paid the price for our sin. We do not have to die, because Jesus died in our place. How can a Christian not be shaken by the reality that all Jesus endured, He endured that we might be saved?

It is unlikely the movie will teach an active Christian many new facts about the final hours of our Lord’s life. But the film creates a new appreciation of some basic Christian teachings. For example, while Jesus hung on the cross, the movie used a flashback to the upper room and the last supper.
His body and His blood

After seeing the film, one will never be able to hear Jesus’ words that the bread is His body and the cup His blood in the same way. The film brings new understanding to that teaching.

Experiencing “The Passion of the Christ” is an extremely personal event. We viewed the film with a Christian group. When it ended one man on the row where I sat stood and applauded. The young man sitting to my right bowed his head and cried. A nearby couple embraced and prayed together. Outside the theater, some talked about the movie. Others did not want to talk. The experience left them without words.

What the experience of a lost person viewing this film will be, I do not know. My prayer is that the movie will cause those who have never accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior to rethink that decision. Perhaps some will ask Jesus into their hearts before they exit the theater. Perhaps the movie will cause some to ask questions of Christian friends who will be able to tell them why the passion of Jesus occurred. Perhaps some will make their way to various churches in the next few Sundays with a new openness to the claims of Christ on their lives.

One thing is sure. The movie “The Passion of the Christ” has create more public conversation about Jesus than any other event in recent memory. The conversation started about whether the film was anti-Semitic. It is not. But the conversation has gone far beyond that. Now it is not uncommon to read or see on television comments by public personalities about their personal faith or their relationship to Jesus.

Two years ago, who could have imagined so many opportunities in the public media to bear witness to faith in Jesus Christ?

Churches are taking advantage of this opportunity in many ways — door hangers promoting the film, billboards asking people to come to church to “hear the rest of the story” and Bible studies developed around the movie. What is vital is that the pulpits of Alabama and beyond be clear in their message. We have an unusual opportunity to say to a listening public that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16–18).