Violence and Salvation (The Passion of the Christ)

This column's Ash Wednesday posting coincides with the release of Mel Gibson's new movie about Jesus' final twelve hours. The film is opening with an avalanche of prior publicity, controversy, and expectation. Happily, the column is not likely to suffer the same fate. Almost certainly, though, we will be hearing more about the film, the reactions to it, and the theology that informs it throughout this Lenten season. And so, this column and the next two will be devoted to exploring at least a few of the faith-issues that Gibson's work raises so forcefully.

As we have come to understand it from the four Gospels, the Passion Narrative is about a lot of different things all at once: conspiracy, misunderstanding, wrath --- human and divine ---, betrayal, abandonment, power --- human, divine, and satanic ---, humiliation, and undeserved suffering, all in the context of proclaiming the history of human salvation's consummation at the cross of Jesus Christ. I cannot imagine that anyone would ever get all of it, either at once or over a lifetime, or that anyone who does manage to get even a small part of it could absorb a fraction of what God has put into it. I know that this Holy Week will mark the 26^th year that I have been leading Bible studies on Jesus' Passion, and when I am through with this next one I will be just as far from fully understanding his suffering as I was when I started all those years ago. But I also know I will be even more grateful for what it testifies to about our salvation, which is probably all that any of us should ever ask from the story anyway.

About Mel Gibson's particular (and, as we shall see, peculiar) rendering of the Passion of Christ, two major controversies have been flourishing for quite some time. One, about the film's alleged anti-Semitism, probably will go away soon. At least, it should. Anti-Semitism, in the modern sense of the term, refers to a prejudicial attitude toward Jews just for being Jews. Hitler held it, but the Gospel writers did not. Those whom the latter scorned were some of the Jewish people's own leaders, notably Caiaphas, for not being good enough Jews. All of the Gospel writers knew good Jews in abundance, many of whom were Jewish Christians to boot.

A corollary issue with this one is Gibson's depiction of Pontius Pilate in a relatively positive light, in contrast with his characterization of the High Priest. Well, on this matter Gibson is indeed guilty as charged. But so are the Gospels: Pilate comes across in all four a little better than he does in other historical documents of the period. But never to the point that anyone could ever exonerate him of his complicity in Jesus' death. He only thought he could wash his hands of the whole affair. Imagine living out the rest of eternity known primarily for the fact that the Savior of the world "suffered under" you.

But the second major controversy that Mel Gibson has stirred up is not likely to go away at all. It has to do with the graphic nature of the way that his film depicts the violence done to Jesus in the hours leading up to and including his crucifixion. The scenes are so graphic that they yield a bitter irony. What one writer once referred to as "The Greatest Story Ever Told" has earned an R rating from the motion picture industry. An evangelical minister promoting the film declared that he will be taking his eleven-year-old with him to see it. I sincerely hope that the good Reverend will reconsider his plan.

But how far should we go as Christians to meditate upon and to tell other people, especially our children, about the details of our Lord's physical suffering? (The details at stake here are primarily about the beating and the flogging; Jesus'suffering on the cross itself was mercifully brief, at least compared to that of most crucified prisoners.) A good rule of thumb for dealing with this question, one that Mel Gibson has not used well, is to go as far as the Scriptures suggest that we go, but no further.

Our four Gospels tell us a lot of different things, and not just one thing, about the pain that our Lord endured for our sake. Just what some of these things are will be the subject of the next column. To anticipate the conclusion a little: learning more about them will make the question with which the previous paragraph began even more pressing and even less easily resolved.