April 6, 2007
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The Passion of the Christ
“Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.” Whether you believe this statement or not, it has become a cliche in America today. The significance of the cross has been reduced to a mere piece of jewelry for most people, instead of the most torturous execution device the Romans could devise.
The Passion of the Christ is a docudrama, that depicts the emotional as well as physical suffering Jesus went through. As is always the case in movie adaptations of books, it is necessarily an exercise in omission. It would have been much longer than 2 hours had every event and bit of dialogue recorded in the gospels been included.
It doesn’t document all of the full agony of crucifixion, such as the medical aspects of slow gangrene in the extremities and death by suffocation, not blood loss (Jesus actually died of heart failure), which is more fully explained in books like The Case for Christ (written by a former atheist law journalist, examining the evidence for Christianity).
It’s interesting that Mel Gibson chose not to portray the shame of nakedness on the cross, possibly too much for the audience. And of course it would be difficult, if not impossible, to portray the spiritual suffering of bearing the sins of the world and the full wrath of God.
Nevertheless, no movie has depicted the significance of Jesus’ suffering so realistically. For atheists, this suffering is “foolishness”: needless rehearsal of the tragic, but insignificant end of a great teacher’s life. A recount of the Holocaust would be more relevant today. For Christians, “it is the power of God”: a powerful taste of the enormous sacrifice of Christ, which we as sinners should have suffered ourselves. It is a vicarious experience of the “stripes [by which we] were healed.”
Why is the cross a symbol of Christianity? As was referred to in the promotional blurbs for the movie, Christ came primarily to die, unlike founders of other religions, who taught a philosophy or way of living. The crucifixion and resurrection of the Christ are the very foundation of Christianity and therefore a legitimate subject for a movie.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” -Isaiah 53:5
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” -1 Peter 2:24
