March 31, 2004

• Passion in Context

  
  

  Last week, in three different homes three different conversations took place.  Some of the people had seen The Passion of Christ, some of them hadn't, all of them wanted to know if I had seen it and whether I intended to write about it.  At the time, I told them, yes, I've seen it, no, I have no intention of writing on the topic.  Well, apparently I lied. 

  
  

  It's been about 3 and a half weeks since I spent my morning in the theatre watching the film.  I didn't want to go.  I have read the scholarly accounts of the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, I've taught classes in which the significance of the Passion was a focus, and I've refused every opportunity to view any film that depicted the last week of Jesus' ministry on earth.  I had my first glimpse into the horror of the torture death Jesus endured when I was a child about 9 years old.  I still remember the words of the minister speaking in the church as he described the pain and suffering.  Over and over this man repeated, "And he did it for you, because of your sin, all because of you..."  I was terrified.  All the theological implications of that message overwhelmed me, I saw nothing beautiful in the blood of Jesus.  I knew that there was nothing in me that was worth anyone going through that, and I rejected any vicarious association with the death of Jesus as though my refusal to take part might somehow lessen that agony which seemed to have continued through 2000 years of history.   Why would I want to see it?  It's the kind of thing that people develop post traumatic stress from seeing and I've never been good at reminding myself that it's just special effects.

  
  

  So why did I go that morning to view Mel Gibson's film?  In part I was shamed into it.  Not intentionally.  The person who most influenced my decision to go would never have tried to shame me into anything.  But when my friend spoke of going, something in the conversation made me realize that I respected that decision and I felt that my own avoidance was spiritual cowardice.  In the second part, I have a neighbor who's husband is a construction worker, laid off since November.  I saw her out at the mailbox one day and stopped to see how things were going.  She puts on a good face, but I knew things were tight.  And she mentioned at least three times that she wanted to see the film but had resigned herself to waiting for the video release.  So I called and made sure there was a showing early enough that I could see it and get back in time to pick up the kids from school, invited my neighbor, and went. 

  
  

  It's hard to underestimate the significance of the Passion story in Christianity.  There are other religions that include a God who dies and is reborn in some way or another usually a cyclical event associated with harvest and planting.  There is no other story like the Passion of Jesus which is set in real time, in a real place, with historical markers that testify to the accuracy of the accounts we have.  No, we don't have exhaustive knowledge of just what happened that week (and for those of you who are hip to theological debates, you know that we can't even be certain what day of the week the crucifixion took place.  I personally think it was a Thursday, but that's an essay for another day.)  We do have an impressive body of evidence considering that Jesus was an obscure itinerant preacher from the backwoods of nowhere in a dusty little province that even the Romans were getting tired of dealing with.

  
  

  And deal with it they did, over and over and over through the first century.  From one corner to another various Messianic figures rose to challenge Roman rule.  More than once during Passover week when the population of Jerusalem would swell to over a million people as Jews came in to celebrate Passover, something would spark in the crowd and riots broke out in the city.  We know the names of some of these other Messiahs, we know their fates as recorded by first century historians.  What set Jesus apart from all these others?  Why did his death take on such significance?

  
  

  My biggest gripe with the film isn't that it's so violent, which it is.  If you haven't yet seen it but intend to, I'd advise you not to eat anything first, and take tissue.  Even knowing before I went what I cold expect to see on the screen, it was the most traumatizing film I've ever seen.  It's a violent story.  But my complaint is that the Passion story is taken out of context.  By showing us only those few hours - probably less than 18 hours from the time the film opens until the events have culminated in a dead body being taken down for burial - we have no frame of reference, no way to form any understanding of why we should care for this man's death any more or less than the death of the thousands of other people who were crucified under Roman rule. 

  
  

  The teachings of Jesus are largely absent and those which are shown give no clue as to what made this man so dangerous.  Flashback scenes include a snippet of the Sermon on the Mount, a wholly imagined scene of Jesus working as a carpenter, and the scene with the adulterous woman.  (And I've remembered what it was about that scene that was wrong.  Even though we have a tradition that the adulterous woman was Mary of Magdala, that's not the Biblical or historical record.  But Gibson went with tradition rather than history and showed Mary about to be stoned until the intervention of Jesus.)

  
  

  The film plays up the statement of Jesus that he would detroy the temple as the reason for his trial before the hastily assembled and incomplete Sanhedrin.  At least one modern theologian (E P Sanders) also argues that it was Jesus' criticism of the Temple Cult that led to his death.  There are significant problems with this view in that Jesus was hardly the most vocal or popular critic of the Temple priests.  Indeed the entire Essene order was formed in protest of the Temple leadership, they made quite a ceremony of refusing to participate in Temple worship and attracted hundreds if not thousands of adherents.  (It was the Essene community at Qumran which preserved the scrolls that we now know as the Dead Sea Scrolls.  We have learned quite a bit from studying these original documents of first century dissent.)     

  
  

  By focusing just on the torture and death of Jesus, the film magnifies those events and suggests that Jesus' suffering was more and worse than that of other people.  In some ways it is an accurate picture.  It was against Roman law to both scourge and crucify so we can be certain that Jesus was tortured as few would have been.  But the point of the story I believe, is not that he suffered more than a man, but that he suffered as a man.  The Apostle John opens his gospel by saying that in Jesus, God put on human flesh, pitched his tent among us, and lived.  If you can fully comprehend the significance of that, you have better insight than I possess. 

  
  

  I've talked about how it was that the Passion account pushed me away from Christianity, and yet, I've admitted here that I am a Christian.  The thing that drew me in, wasn't the blood of Jesus, it was the faith of the disciples.  I'm enough of a sceptic to realize that the resurrection is beyond my ability to believe, except for what happened to the disciples of Jesus.  Something happened in Jerusalem after they took that body down and buried it.  Something happened that was so significant that men and women were transformed from timid frightened fugitives in fear for their lives (that was a reasonable fear, Josephus tells us that Roman policy was to wipe out everyone associated with these Messiahs and at times hundreds and thousands of excecutions took place in order to quell a potential revolt) transformed into bold preachers and workers of miracles who would stand toe to toe with the same men who orchestrated the trial and execution of Jesus and dare them to bring it on. 

  
  

  It isn't Jesus' death that convinces me, it's what happened after.  With every other one of the Messiahs of the first century, it was trial, death, and then nothing.  Only in the case of Jesus did the aftermath exceed the prelude and grow and grow and grow.  Something happened in Jerusalem that was so significant that seven years later, a newly converted Jew who came to be known as Paul would begin to travel throughout Asia Minor finding in place congregations formed around the teachings of Jesus.  It has been popular over the past hundred and fifty years or so to say that without Paul there would be no Christianity today.  More recent scholars laugh at this notion.  Of course, Paul was important, he influenced and articulated the theology of the growing church, but the church was there before he came along, and it simultaneously grew up in a lot of places that Paul never visited. 

  
  

  No, to me the Passion of Christ is an important hinge of Christian theology, but in order for it to be historically or personally significant it must be placed in context and Mel Gibson's film doesn't do that. 

  
  

  I have another follow-up blog to this one that I'll post tomorrow.  Gibson used the Shroud of Turin as his pattern for depicting the wounds of Christ.  Its a fascinating artifact and tomorrow I'll discuss it. 

  
  

  **Several weeks ago I saw the blog that Ophelia Bedilia wrote regarding the Passion from an atheist point of view.  She gave me permission to link that blog and I'd recommend it highly to anyone.  She makes excellent points about the impact of this film. 

  • 10:30 am
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