Flanfire

Got a call today from my pal Bruce. Said would we like to go see The Passion of the Christ with him and Laura Rose. After some negotiating with sigothers we organized the outing, and joined them at the Barton Creek Cinema on Walsh Tarleton (a theater that only those who already know where it is can find, yet which still gets fannies in the seats).

Before the film, we were eating popcorn and visiting with the hordes of Lake Travis Young Lifers who poured into the theater. Yes, there were empty seats on a Monday night at 6:45 pm - but more filled than empty. We watched the previews, and all of a sudden, without any of the hoopla that normally introduces feature films, there it was in front of us.

Icon - New Market - Gibson - and straight into the Garden at Gethsemane. The fog is eerie and forboding. Jesus is praying. Disciples are sleeping. Satan is lurking. Cuts quickly to scenes of Judas selling his soul for thirty pieces of silver. Then Judas leading the Sanhedrin Guard to the garden. The betrayal with a kiss and the rebuke. Peter's swordsmanship. Jesus' intervention and restoration of the guard's ear. Then, after some choice words to Peter, we see Jesus being led off to the Sanhedrin. Caiaphas and Annas are licking their lips, as their long-time adversary is now in their grasp. And that's just the first few minutes of a gripping drama that is interspersed with warmer memories and Jesus' own words of grace.

Saddest thing about the movie -- Learning that some American Jews, just like untold Muslims worldwide, are still picturing Christians as that bunch of adventurers who went looking for the Holy Grail and embarrassed the Lord with the Crusades. What's sad is how this bigoted worldview blinds them to the central message of Jesus' own life that he expressed in his own words countless times -- Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you (this goes at least as far back as Joseph in Egypt and maybe even to Lot in Sodom). Scenes of Roman soldiers bashing Jesus to smithereens reminds me of the LAPD in the Rodney King video -- but Jim Caviezel's Jesus bears no relationship to Rodney himself. King was fighting back like a man possessed (and indeed he may well have been), while Jesus offers no resistance, even rebukes those who try to stop the terror.

Besides, anyone who has read the Book of John knows (or ought to ) that "the Jews" was a term reserved for that group of Synagogue wanna-be's and their overlords who liked to lord it over the common people. Examples:

* John 2:18 -- Jesus goes to the temple and drives out the money changers, and His disciples remember that it was written, Zeal fro Your house has eaten Me up." THEN -- So "the Jews" answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?" Jesus answered and sadi, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." AGAIN "Then the Jews" said, It has taken 46 years to build this temple .....

Again, in John 5:16, we find, "For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him.... And in John 5:18, we find -- "For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."

This phrase - the Jews - is used over and over by John (at least by his translators) to mean just one thing - the leadrers of the synagogues who saw Jesus as both a threat to them and to their power over the people of Israel. By stating that "he who would be first among you would be the servant of all," Jesus directly countermanded their entire raison d'etre, which was to lord it over the people (as Jesus illustrated time and again). If Jesus had been born an American, "the Jews" here would likely have been replaced by "the power elites" or "the politically correct" or even some portions of "the religious right" -- any group of people whose power derives from threats, innuendo, and dividing the world into "us" and "them." Jesus belittled the Pharisee who had bragged that he was not like the woeful sinner, while exalting that sinner for not being too embarrassed to seek forgiveness and do works of repentance.

The ultimate haters of "The Passion" will be the poseurs - those whose lifestyles and words cannot stand in the light of truth. "What is truth?" was Pilate's most famous line - and Pilate in "The Passion" goes on to say that "truth" is HIS truth, and that any other "truth" is not so important. Just like the typical self-centered American (etc.) who has failed to understand that "dying to self" means simply trusting that God meant what He said about supplying all of our needs and also that we are thus freed to become servants, helping others reach their dreams (or rather God's will for their lives).

Laura spent much of the movie sobbing profusely. Others grimaced, while still others flinched. While some will focus on the beatings and scourgings that Jesus endured, I will remember this movie for the shortcuts into Jesus' early life - the incredible love he poured out on everyone he touched. Remember - Jesus had to die in order to show us how to die to ourselves, die to our anger and hatreds, die to our disappointments and shortcomings, and live, simply, to serve as Christ's ambassadors to wherever He sends us.