March, 2004 Newsletter

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“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Matt 16:21, NIV)

I went to see The Passion of the Christ last Saturday in the early afternoon. The theatre was nearly full—only the few front rows were unoccupied. In my dictionary, passion is defined as “suffering” first and then as “emotion… as opposed to reason.” So, I expected to see “suffering” and “emotion” in the movie. I was not disappointed. The movie was graphic. It contained some violent scenes of scourging by sadistic Roman guards torturing Jesus with canes, cudgels and whips studded with metal and sharp objects. The audience was deadly silent throughout the movie, but I did hear subdued but noticeable sounds of sobbing in between the violent scenes.

The Passion presented a Gospel segment from the last 12-hours of Jesus leading to His crucifixion. It may be the best presentation of Jesus to date in cinematography. Contrary to critical comments made by some, I did not detect any anti-Semitic messages in the movie. The main focus of the movie is on the Passion of Jesus and not on the unruly Jewish mob. In fact, the movie left out a critical line uttered by the Jewish leaders in the Bible—Matthew 27:25: “Let His blood be on us and on our children!” -- that could have been misinterpreted as an anti-Semitic slant.

The Passion is brutally violent, but I was able to catch my breath during its timely weaving of the scattered flashbacks to earlier periods of Christ's life. The intent of Mel Gibson, the producer and the director of the movie, was to shock the viewers [He said to an interviewer, Diane Sawyer, “I wanted it to be shocking, I wanted it to be extreme, and I wanted to push the viewer over the edge!”] It is unfortunate but this type of violent presentation of the Passion of the Christ is needed to catch the attention of people, who dwell in shock-a-minute culture. The Passion is a must-see movie for every Christian and non-Christians. But, parents should be cautious when taking children 10~11 or under to this movie.

I felt a danger from the movie's focusing so much on the physical aspects of Christ's suffering at the expense of focusing on the main intent of His suffering which was to save you and me. He died for our sins. Jesus willingly took the Father's holy wrath upon Himself. I believe that His emotional and spiritual burden taxed Him much more than his severe physical suffering. But, the movie has done its job in communicating visibly the written word of the Bible. Now, it is up to us Christians to communicate verbally and build a bridge from where the movie ended to the beginning of the good news of Jesus, who desires to save the world. The real challenge of The Passion of the Christ is for us to use it so that there will be significant spiritual decisions made for Christ. I highly recommend this movie, so we can use it to reach out to people about how much Jesus truly does love them.

— Pastor Jim Sakurai

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