The Passion of The Christ
My church saw The Passion of the Christ today. I had some misgivings about going to see this movie. I had an idea of how brutal a lot of the scenes were going to be and I don't know how well I was going to be able to take it. As with everybody else who saw the movie, I had the comfort of watching "from the outside". I got mad at the people in the movie. Not "at" the Jews as a lot of the movie's detractors, but at all the blind people, the idiots in the movie. I was screaming in my mind's voice, "Don't you know what you are doing?!!!" "STOP IT!"
As with any story I've read, I've already created the movie in my mind. Each "movie" gets more intense as I learn more of every facet of the story. Each time I read that part of the Bible, I've created a movie. Later on, I read a text on what a person goes through when crucified and so my movie changes. Then I read a book on the history of the roman empire and the movie is changed again. Through the years the movie I ended up with a movie that was harsh, brutal and dark. Every real movie I've seen of the crucifixion of Christ was very clean. Mel Gibson's version came very close to the one I had in my mind, in terms of brutality. It scared me.
Afterwards a bunch of us had a meeting to discuss the movie. One of the questions was "What scene stood out the most to you?" There were a number of answers, for some the most brutal parts stood out more and for others the subtleties stood out. The part of the movie that stood out for me was when the pharisee was taunting Jesus. Jesus started praying for the pharisee and one of the thieves called down from his cross and told the pharisee that Jesus was praying FOR HIM! I needed that bit of irony.
There was a lot of things about the movie that I am still trying to process, so I will continue this for tomorrow.

Song of the Day: "The Reason Why We Sing" by Kirk Franklin