Commentary: ‘Passion’ drives home gritty reality of Christ’s sacrifice

It is not often that you see Christian ministers encouraging their parishioners to buy tickets to an R-rated movie, but that is exactly what is happening. Of course, I am referring to Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ," perhaps the most hotly-debated-before-release film in the history of cinema.

I saw the movie in the boardroom of Gibson’s Icon Productions last November with a handful of rock musicians and artists. For a group who makes their living with microphones and electric guitars, they were stone silent at the end of the film. We all were. This is definitely not a date movie; it is a think flick. It is not meant to be a documentary; it is a piece of art. You need a cup of herbal tea and a handful of those aromotherapy candles to chill out and process afterward.

As we know, the Bible is filled with R-rated material - betrayal, greed, lust, murder, sex and excruciating violence. At bare minimum, "The Passion" reminds viewers that Christianity was born out of blood, pain and tears - a far more gritty reality than a Thomas Kinkade painting or a Precious Moments nativity scene. This is no small lesson to a culture whose crosses are studded with diamonds instead of splinters.

This is the Sunday school flannel board lesson for a generation that grew up on violent video games, skipped church and stood in line to watch Quentin "Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Vol. 1" - a gratuitously bloody movie with no redemptive purpose. "The Passion" has an unmistakable gothic and art-house feel, with touches of the ghoulish and grotesque.

Is there too much gore and violence in "The Passion"? Probably. It made me turn my head. I just kept whispering, "Dear Jesus," to myself throughout many of the scenes. It is the most brutally violent and simultaneously holy thing I have seen.

This is not the kind of movie that you merely watch; it is one you experience. Think back to when you first saw the movie "Roots" on TV, seeing a white man whip a black man’s back. It wreaks havoc on your gut. All of the high school history lessons about the Civil War changed in a dimension of your comprehension, moving from your head to your heart.

It is painful to watch as Jesus stumbles through the Via Dolorosa, the path of pain, on his way to Golgotha, as his beloved mother watches helplessly from the sidelines, flashing back in her memory to a time when she could still cradle her son in her arms.

As our group talked with Gibson after watching the movie, it was very clear that he was most vexed about the charges of anti-Semitism leveled against the movie. He spoke of venting his frustrations on his spiritual counselor, who simply would remind him that Jesus turned the other cheek.

"I am good eight out of 10 days," he joked, referring to the cheek turning.

Ironically, Maia Morgenstern, who plays Mary, is the Jewish daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Furthermore, the only appearance that Gibson makes in the movie is when his hands are seen driving the nails into Jesus on the cross, simultaneously driving home the point of his own culpability in the death of Christ.

"I have always believed in God," Gibson told us after the film. "From age 15 to 35, I was a hell raiser. In many ways, I still am," he said, jokingly. He then went on to tell us that he had "come to a difficult point in my life, and meditating on Christ’s sufferings, on his passion, got me through it."

Christ’s passion became his obsession and ultimately a healing balm.

"I’m not a preacher, and I’m not a pastor. But I really feel my career was leading me to make this," Gibson has said. "The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film, and I was just directing traffic. I hope the film has the power to evangelize."

That should not be a problem. I have been a Christian for 20 years and after seeing "The Passion," I wanted to sign up all over again.

*Beard is the editor of Good News magazine and creator of Thunderstruck.org.