The Extraordinary Passion

March 14, 2004 | Salina

This post was written by guest author, Salina.

Forget for a few minutes about the anti-Semite accusations, arguments about religion. Forget about who is to blame and what could have been avoided if only this, if only that. This is about one man and the last twelve hours of his life. You may either believe he was just a carpenter, or the son of God, your Savior. Or maybe you have no conviction about Jesus Christ at all.

The Passion of the Christ is probably the most powerful movie I have ever seen, and hopefully it will be for you as well. I can only hope it will be. Perhaps you go into the theater excited and curious, much like I was, eager to watch the last hours of Jesus’ life unravel on screen. Opening night, the biggest auditorium was packed to the max. In the theater were priests, Christian youth groups, random college students, entire families. And regardless of age, ethnicity, and religion, we all had one thing in common that night: to watch what happened to Jesus the day he died and all the events leading up to that point. The authentic Aramaic and Latin spoken and the unknown actors so sincere in their conveyance of these Biblical characters made it difficult to believe that this wasn’t actually happening right then before my eyes. I watched when Jesus was arrested, whipped to shreds, spit on, laughed at, humiliated, beaten, nailed to the cross, crucified. I watched with disbelieving eyes. The rawness of the suffering, the pain was all too excruciating. Needless to say, I cried the whole time but I know it was necessary to watch. It enhanced my personal faith and beliefs as well as my understanding of the sequence of events during those fateful twelve hours of Jesus’ life, death.

There are possibly no words to describe, review, or critique this movie. At least I am not one to judge a film so devastatingly powerful. Upon leaving the theater, I am sure I was not the only one who felt completely submersed in emotions never felt before: blend of absolute bitterness, outrage, despair. How something so awful, so indescribably horrifying, could happen to a man who committed no crime. So many times he came close to being released, so many times he was found innocent by Pontius Pilate and just a whipping was to be his punishment. How did it go so far? How did Jesus manage to be beaten, whipped, and crucified while a murderer was set free? That in itself was something I could not personally comprehend.

However, the movie does have a happy ending, one I think I forgot the entire time. I was so absorbed in the horror of the movie, I almost didn’t recall that this was just twelve hours. After he died, there would be eternity of salvation, for those who believe in that.

I could go into the specifics of the actors, the accuracy of the storyline, even the miracles that happened while filming the movie. But we all can read about that online, and most of you probably already have. I want to pose some questions for discussion, maybe regarding your own thoughts about the movie and how it affected you. Were you turned off by the violence, or was it necessary to make the movie as accurate as possible? What were you beliefs going into the movie and coming out? Was the movie what you thought it was going to be? What are your opinions regarding Mel Gibson and his own beliefs while directing this movie? I’d love to hear your responses.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment. You may also want to subscribe to updates so you don't miss anything in the future.

guests, movies, reviews, Salina