August 10: 2010: The Passion Of The Christ Revisited

The disciples did not know which one of them would betray Jesus (Matthew 26:21-22). That is amazing, because it shows how well Judas blended in. If he had been the only disciple who couldn't heal or cast out demons, if he had always let someone else do the preaching, if he had disappeared during prayer meetings, or if he had got caught sneaking off to brothels, then when Jesus said, "One of you will betray me" the rest would have said, "Of course! We all know who that has to be." And Peter no doubt would have drawn his knife and tackled Judas and begged Jesus' permission to slit his throat.

Judas must have seemed like one of them, saying and doing most of the right things most of the time. There was only one warning sign that we know of. In John 12:6 we read that he used to steal from the money bag, and that he feigned a love for the poor so that he could skim contributions intended for them (Like many TV preachers today!). But I suspect most of the disciples didn't even know Judas was embezzling. Maybe only John saw him lift coins from the common purse (Matthew, Mark and Luke don't report it), and, being a young follower of Jesus - probably only in his teens or early 20s - John decided not to say anything at the time.

Judas came to mind as I contemplated the recent revelation of Mel Gibson. I mean "revelation" literally: the public revealing of the character of this devil in human form. The news concerning Gibson in the last few years - and especially the last few weeks - has shown us that it was an antichrist whose film about Jesus' crucifixion took over the ministry of many of our churches in the spring of 2004. We didn't know Gibson then. We do now.

The facts are these: Mel Gibson is a greedy, self-indulgent, foul-mouthed drunk. He is a fornicator and an adulterer. He is racist and anti-Semitic. He is a man of threats and violence who spews hatred in all directions. Have you listened to the tapes of his foul tirades against the whore for whom he dumped his wife? No? Good. Don't. They might educate, but they cannot edify your soul. When a child of hell gives voice to rage, the children of light should stop up their ears.

I think now it is possible to see The Passion Of The Christ in its true light. Gibson never loved Jesus Christ. He loved violence, and for him the holiest moment in history was simply an excuse to exhibit the torture porn for which he is celebrated. The other films Gibson directed, Braveheart and Apocalypto, are similarly riddled with bloody excess. Concerning Braveheart, one reviewer wrote, "The action sequences are gory and the final scene is not for the squeamish as Gibson directed the camera to hold for a rapturous moment of disembowelment." As for Apocalypto, a reviewer asked, "Does Gibson need to repeatedly show us lopped-off heads bouncing like coconuts down the towering stairs of a pyramid to prove that pre-Columbian Mayan society was a savage place?"

Charles Krauthammer made a good point about The Passion Of The Christ when he wrote in March of 2004, "Three of the Gospels have but a one-line reference to Jesus' scourging. The fourth has no reference at all. In Gibson's movie this becomes 10 minutes of the most unremitting sadism in the history of film. Why 10? Why not five? Why not two? Why not zero, as in Luke? Gibson chose 10."

Gibson chose 10 because he got a pathological thrill out of the graphic depiction of torture. Now it is true that Jesus suffered terribly, and it is also true that that suffering is meaningful to us Christians. "By his stripes we are healed." But does that mean we must have his cinematic blood splattered in our faces? Because it is likewise meaningful that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. So, to appreciate his humanity, do we need to watch explicit cinematic close-ups of him going to the bathroom? The virgin birth is important too: should we watch a filmed dramatization of baby Jesus' crowning head breaking Mary's hymen as she gives him birth?

My tone is angry - I know. I am angry. I get ticked off when wolves dupe lambs. Back in 2004 my congregation went to see The Passion, and I did not go with them. That got me a rebuke from one of my parishioners. I half-apologetically wrote a Pastor's Page explaining my objections to Hollywood treatments of Jesus, but I wish now in retrospect I had stated my case much more strongly, and advised my congregation not to go.

The Church universal is not wholly to blame for being so badly snookered by Gibson the Psychopath. Sometimes it is just very hard to tell who is for real. Again, Judas fooled everyone but Christ. In Acts 16, it apparently even took Paul several days before he realized that the girl who followed him around telling everybody that he was a God's servant proclaiming salvation was actually just a demon-possessed subversive.

Still, I would like to see a lot more spiritual discernment in the Church in North America. We demonstrate a disturbing knack for getting swayed by celebrity, spectacle, entertainment and extravaganza. We've proven ourselves capable of throwing spiritual caution (and spiritual reasoning) to the winds for the sake of a compelling flick.

Some time ago I was in a church men's group meeting that featured clips from another Gibson vehicle, The Patriot. These clips showed battlefield decapitations, bullets to the head, hatchets to the neck, knives to the chest - again and again and again and again, leaving a huge and gruesome body count. Even children participated in the violence onscreen. I left the church in sadness, wondering, "With the stunning lack of spiritual discernment here, am I in the right place?"