Tomorrow the movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” will be released in theaters across America. No doubt, as so many Christians have pointed out, this is a crucial moment in our culture with the brutal suffering and death of Jesus being portrayed so powerfully for so many to see. Those who know and trust in Christ will, I suspect, be moved in a new way to ponder the extent of his love—to endure such horrible suffering for the benefit of the beloved (Romans 5:8). And many who don’t know and trust him will be prompted to ask what the point of it all was—a good question (see Mark 10:45). I pray for such positive results.
At the same time, I have some concerns and questions in connection with this production:
1. Will a film that so strongly emphasizes Jesus’ physical suffering end up understating the spiritual anguish faced by the Son of God as he bears the crushing weight of his Father’s wrath against sin? The blood and nails give only a faint hint of the magnitude of Christ’s greater passion.
2. I’m wondering what it will mean to isolate a 12-hour series of events in Jesus’ life from the rest of his experience. For instance, what kind of a picture of the biblical Christ will be given when his suffering is not vindicated by his victory over death through the resurrection. Of course, there is a time to focus on just a portion of the whole story, but do the potential gains outweigh the potential losses?
3. The movie focuses on an episode in Jesus’ life in which he says very little. This is in contrast to what we know of his active teaching ministry and many contacts and dialogues with eager followers and questioning opponents in the earlier parts of his life. What will it be like to watch a Jesus who is often silent without also seeing the Jesus who has so much to say?
4. The sequence of events in “The Passion” emphasizes the climax of Jesus’ clash with the temple authorities, and we will see their intense and mounting rage against the Christ. But what impact will this have on viewers when the movie doesn’t show so many of the biblical scenes in which this tension and conflict is rooted? Will moviegoers walk away with the sense that the Jewish leaders were enraged without reason? If so, could that inadvertently add energy to the sick and sinful impulses of anti-Semitism?
[[The following are further reflections on the movie, “The Passion of the Christ” (now that I’ve seen it), added to this posting on 3-29-04.]]
The flashbacks “work” in the sense that it doesn’t seem like a movie just about the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life.
The content of the flashbacks relate to Jesus’ childhood, home life, and especially his teaching of the disciples. Absent from the flashbacks are clashes with the temple authorities that would make more plausible the hostility of the high priest and other Jewish leaders toward Jesus. Also lacking from the movie was a basis for the apparent glee and devious satisfaction the Roman guards take in inflicting pain on a passive victim.
The fictional embellishments of the movie (e.g., Jesus falling from the bridge only to see despondent Judas, a crow pecking the face of one of the thieves who was being crucified, the two Marys wiping up the blood of Jesus after his scourging, etc.) don’t seem to detract from or undermine an otherwise generally accurate representation of Jesus’ passion based on the four Gospels. And so, although the uninformed viewer will not be in a position to differentiate between elements rooted in the Bible and those introduced for dramatic effect, that same viewer will, I believe, walk away from the movie with a good sense of the biblical story.
The suffering of Jesus was overwhelming to watch—it just went on and on. Eventually I wondered how they could do more to him without killing him. In the end it seemed there was not a square inch of Jesus’ exposed skin that was not mangled and bloody. Was his suffering prior to crucifixion actually this great? Perhaps one cannot say, but my sense is that artistic and literary portrayals of the passion prior to this one have often understated the suffering Jesus endured.
The intensity of the sustained suffering of Jesus also accentuated his lack of hostility in return. Jesus' refusal to return evil for evil is well known from the Gospels, of course, but it still stood out in a new way against the backdrop of such horrible suffering.
The resurrection was portrayed briefly (less than a minute), and yet it was most vividly acknowledged—there is no doubt in the viewer’s mind that the Jesus who had been beaten to a pulp was now alive and well at the end of the story as he stepped forth to leave the tomb, revealing the nail print in his hand. In this sense, then, the movie is not strictly about the passion.
I have to say “The Passion” is not the kind of movie I am inclined to see again—the experience of watching it was wrenching. But I am glad I saw it—it made me quiet (I saw it alone, which was good) and it made me think. “The Passion” is an important artistic work worth seeing, even though certain aspects of the film may be questioned.
