It seems that the movie “The Passion of the Christ” is on everyone’s minds these days. You cannot pick up a newspaper or magazine or watch a television newscast without reading or hearing about it. I had the opportunity to see the film Tuesday, Feb. 24. I wanted to share some personal observations and reflections with you. From my perspective, the film was historically accurate in its presentation of the passion or suffering of Jesus. Why is this important? I believe all us have a mental picture of a loving God, who sent His loving Son to the cross in our place. While this is true according to the Scriptures, do we really understand what Jesus truly endured on our behalf? Yes, I do believe that we try to know and understand how Jesus suffered and died for us, but do we really understand? Do we really understand the heaviness of our sin on the back of Jesus? Do we really understand the jeering and the taunting of the crowds, the scourging with whips and pieces of rock and metal? Do we understand the nails being pounded into the hands and feet of God in human form? Do we understand being spat upon and having your “friends” deny that they ever knew you? Do we understand the mental and physical pain and agony that He endured for our sake? Do we literally understand that “He was pierced and crushed for us?” One commentator writes, “At every step of the way, Satan is at Jesus’ side – imploring Him to give up, reasoning with Him to give up, and seducing Him to surrender. For the first time, one gets a heart-stopping idea of the sense of madness that must have enveloped Jesus – a sense of evil that was at His very elbow. The physical punishment is relentless – but it is the sense of psychological torture that is most overwhelming. He should have quit. He should have opened His mouth. He should have called 10,000 angels. No one would have blamed Him. What we deserve is obvious. But He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that. He didn’t do that. He doesn’t do that. It was not and is not His character. He was obedient, all the way to the cross – and you feel the real meaning of that phrase in a place the human heart usually does not dare to go. You understand that we are called to the same level of obedience. With Jesus’ humanity so irresistibly on display, you understand that we have no excuse. There is no place to hide.” The truth is this: Is it just a “movie?” In a way, yes. But it goes far beyond that, in a fashion I’ve never felt in any forum. We may think we know, but we know nothing. We’ve gone 2,000 years used to the idea of a pleasant story, and a sanitized Christ. We expect the ending because we have heard it so many times. God forgive us. This film tears away all of that. It is as close as any of us will ever get to knowing, until we fully know. Paul understood. “Be urgent in and out of season.” Luke wrote that Jesus reveals Himself in the breaking of the bread. Exactly. “The Passion” shows the bread being broken. Christ have mercy on us as we seek to understand in a new and fresh way the love God has for us in this season of Lent. Lord, help us understand.
