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Mel’s Way of the Cross
By Dwight Longenecker
Last summer I had a phone call inviting me to London to see Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of Christ. The London showing was one of several select previews around the world laid on by the consortium in charge of distributing the film.
Already a group of Catholic scholars in the USA had criticised the movie for being anti-Semitic. By chance I happened later in the summer to attend an evening lecture delivered by one of the American Catholic priests who had levelled the criticism. During his lecture on Christian-Jewish relations he took time to blame Gibson’s film again for being anti-Semitic. After the lecture I asked the priest if he had seen the film. He admitted that he had only ‘read the script.’ ‘Was that the script that was stolen from Mel Gibson’s Icon Studios?’ I asked. He sniffed that the script had been ‘leaked.’
I questioned his judgement, pointing out that most of the Jewish characters in the film are sympathetic to Jesus Christ—his mother, his disciples, St Veronica, Simon of Cyrene, the people in the crowd on the Via Dolorosa and a good number of the Sanhedrin themselves. There were indeed a few Jews who conspired to kill Jesus, but that was historically true. Did he want us to change the facts? The most brutal murderers of Our Lord were not Jews, but the Roman soldiers.
Although the priest hadn’t seen the film he wouldn’t take my point. It led me to wonder if fears of anti-Semitism were his real reason for objecting to the film. I suspect that the liberal Catholic intelligentsia would have panned Winnie the Pooh if it were made by Mel Gibson.
Part of the reason for the worldwide private previews was that rumour had it that certain power brokers in Hollywood had already decided that the film would never reached cinemas worldwide. The plan was to generate a ‘buzz’ about the film; to get people talking and anticipating the release of the movie. As we gathered in the small cinema the sense of excitement was palpable. However the film turned out, we sensed that we were sharing in the launch of what could be a global media phenomenon.
Not only were we going to view a powerful portrayal of Jesus Christ’s last hours, but we were dipping our toes in the world of high media politics, ecclesiastical and ecumenical intrigue, high level inter-faith questions and the glamour of Hollywood. That Mr Gibson might be there in person made it all the more exciting.
The film begins in the Garden of Gethsemane, takes us through Jesus’ trial, flogging and crucifixion. Gibson said afterward that they researched Roman methods of crucifixion in great detail. The film is explicitly brutal, but he said if anything, they downplayed the horror. It ends with a tasteful and mysterious representation of the resurrection. As many other viewers have reported, at the end we sat in silence. A few sniffs around the darkened auditorium indicated that, like me, other people were reduced to tears. My own emotions were not simply those of seeing the brutal torture and death of Jesus Christ; but somehow (without ever stating it clearly) Gibson had managed to make me feel that the suffering and death of this mysterious man was for me. I was weeping not only for the Christ, but for myself and for my selfishness and sin. We were told afterwards that this was Gibson’s intention. Furthermore, in the close up of Christ being nailed to the cross, the hands that pick up the mallet and spike are Gibson’s own hands.
Has any filmmaker who has attempted a life of Christ every dared to be so visceral and personal? This sentiment that Christ died for me lies at the heart of Gibson’s film. However, the sentiment is also a doctrine. The New Testament hammers home the truth: ‘Christ died for the ungodly’ and ‘While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ In this age of sanitised, politically correct religion we forget the core truth of the gospel is the gut-wrenching truth that Jesus Christ suffered and died for our sins. This is not a new religion, but what the evangelicals call ‘the old, old story’ of a sinful human race that needs not just to try harder, but needs redemption.
Gibson’s film has been criticised for alienating Jews and for putting the general public off a ‘suffering obsessed’ form of Christianity. It may alienate some. The cross has always been a stumbling block. But a fascinating consequence of Gibson’s film is the way it has actually united people. Conservative Jews have spoken out to say they are not offended by the film, and that they would expect Christians to focus on the central tenet of their faith.
Most interestingly, the film has united Christians from across the denominational spectrum in a way that no ecumenical movement ever could. In the USA Southern Baptists, Pentecostals and Presbyterians are joining with Catholics to make block bookings of their local cinemas in order to assure sufficient seats are available. Christians from every denomination are hailing the film as the ‘best opportunity for evangelisation since the actual events 2000 years ago.’ The Daily Telegraph reported this phenomenon saying that because of the block bookings Gibson’s film promises to be the first blockbuster of 2004.
At the same time the film continues to be nit-picked apart by Catholic and Protestant ‘scholars’. This reaction to the film reveals the true fault lines within Christianity.
The divisions in Christianity are not no longer between Protestant and Catholic or between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. The old denominational boundaries are increasingly irrelevant. Instead the divisions are between those (of whatever persuasion) who believe in the reality of sin and the need for redemption, and those who downplay sin and believe the gospel of self-help and ‘making the world a better place.’
The alliance is between those who believe in a supernaturally revealed religion and those who believe religion is a human construct that should adapt itself to cultural norms. The division is between those who believe in the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation and the bodily resurrection and those who believe these are merely beautiful religious metaphors.
As we enter the season of Lent and look forward to celebrating yet again the world-shaking events in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, we should go to see Gibson’s film. We should also make a point of taking a friend and recommending it to others. We should ask ourselves just what that death meant and what it accomplished. Could it be that by taking millions with him on the way of the cross Gibson will be bringing them to their saviour? Could it be that millions of souls will have the same experience I had, and which Mel Gibson wants us to have—that somehow beyond all logic, we will realise that this God-man died for me? His blood was shed for my sins? His death was my life? He was wounded for my transgressions and by his stripes I am healed?
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