Spiritual Intimacy

My boyfriend is a thousand miles away and throughout the movie I wanted him beside me, holding my hand and sharing the experience.  That hand holding I missed terribly; the emotionally draining saga unfolds, leaving one stunned and dazed upon completion.  Leaving the theater, those sharing the experience move silent in thought, seemingly in a zombie state of shock, appreciation and wonder.  Sharing the emotion with someone in close intimacy provides an outlet for the multitude of feelings, impressions and messages the movie presents.

As a Lutheran, I do believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and my girlfriend who went with me qualifies as agnostic.  She viewed the movie from a clinical standpoint, cross-referencing it with the Gospels and her verdict states the movie stayed faithful to these.   She was emotionally moved by the story and we were both quite happy Regal Cinemas provided tissues.  Myself, I went through ten.

The photography captures the emotion and sets mesmerizing scenes: beautiful, intense and at times quite disturbing.  Though in Aramaic and Latin, one doesn't notice reading the subtitles.  Unlike Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where I found myself struggling to watch the action and read the dialogue, the dialogue remains simple and familiar without retracting from the scene.  The violence grabs you in the gut and unfolds foreign of gratuity, Jesus' torn and shattered flesh as much a character as those played by men. Throughout the film my mind marveled at Jesus' ability to first survive the beatings and hatred leveled upon him, and still continue in dignity. The performances, photography and story are all Oscar® worthy and this film quickly rises to my own top ten list of all time.

Prior to viewing, I re-read the Gospel of Matthew and highly recommend anyone seeing the movie do the same.  It helped significantly in identifying the characters and understanding the premises of the movie. 

The Passion stays tight with the Gospels and Muslims and Christians will find this film inspirational as both faiths consider Jesus a prophet with his teachings, at the time quite radical: Love your enemy and love your neighbor, forgiveness and charity.  Both faiths hold reverence for the disciples and Mary as well.  This respect of Jesus is central to Christianity as he is the Messiah promised to the children of Israel.  Though Islam does not recognize Him as the Messiah, His teachings are central to many aspects of the Muslim faith and His life sacred and revered by its teachings.

Watching the movie, the differences between Judaism and Christianity became quite clear and I found myself struggling with this.  The belief systems of the two faiths run perpendicular more often than intersect.  This movie accurately portrays the event that ultimately tore down the temple of shared faith in three days through the resurrection, spawning a new religion and two completely different directions.  The Passion magnifies the point in faith where Christians and Jews part, those accepting the new covenant, that no longer does God choose his people define Christianity. He who accepts Christ becomes chosen and gains access to the kingdom of heaven and on His command shed the traditions, covenants and practices of Judaism for the new covenants of Christianity.  Those who believe Jesus to be a blasphemer, heretic and spawn of the devil continued on as Jews. For Christians He is the Messiah.  For Jews, he is a heretic.  This is an elementary difference and fact for both faiths.  The movie shows well the teachings of Christ formulating the disengagement of the two faiths and how radical and threatening these were to those within power, especially the Sanhedrin.

Much has been said of the portrayal of the persecution of Christ in the media; going into the movie, my curiosity sparked, needing clarification of hype from fact.  I found the hype and accusations of blame unjust. The Sanhedrin remind me of the Catholic Church's Inquisition structure during the Middle Ages with its own soldiers and rules enforced on those of the faith and its targeted persecution of those straying from the rigidity.  For Jews living at the time of Christ, the power this elite group held over their day-to-day lives must have been terrifying.  Not only did they have the Romans to worry about, they had their own spiritual leaders to contend with.  My point of reference didn't focus on the faith of those calling for Jesus' crucifixion; their actions conformed to the realities perceived by them within the rules of their faith, community and social structure at the time.  Watching The Passion's portrayal of the Sanhedrin and calling for the crucifixion, this is what I saw. 

Men consumed and corrupted by power, using that power to eliminate any threats through manipulation of government and the masses.  Jesus threatened their power and control over the masses.  His message threatened to make them obsolete. The joining in of the crowd follows simple crowd psychology.  This happens today.  It happened then.  Power, greed and fear produce the same results in modern days as then for those of revolutionary thought.  For me, I didn't see any difference between the actions of the Sanhedrin or those of the Spanish Inquisition.  I saw no difference between the actions of the Sanhedrin and the targeting of Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, President Kennedy or even Malcolm X.  Did the Jews kill Jesus?  As a people, no they did not.  Did some men who happened to be Jewish force the killing of Jesus?  Yes, and these men who lived two thousand years ago eventually had to answer to God for their sins and we can all be grateful their judgment day is not ours.  The bill to society has been paid for their arrogance. Fear, power, greed and corruption killed Jesus; these are fallibilities of men, not faith. The faith or race of those instituting it has no bearing on the action.