The Passion of the Christ

I recently watched Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ’. True to it’s advertising it was very brutal… But it brought many things to mind. The first thing I thought was that people haven’t changed at all since that time. There are still politicians that make decisions not out of conscience but out of pressure from the populous. There are still cruel people who take pleasure in inflicting pain on others. And there are still hypocritical religious leaders that are more concerned with their positions among men than they are with the things of God.

For God the Son to step out of eternity and into the form of a human being is still mind boggling to me. For God to love me so much that He was willing to suffer indescribable pain on every level…I take that very personally. Knowing that He could have wiped humanity off the face of the earth at any moment during His humiliation at our hands serves to make His sacrifice even more incredible. These are thoughts that many of my fellow Christians share.

The thing that stuck me the most was that Christ made it possible for me to go straight to the thrown of God. Christ is my High Priest and my Intercessor. I don’t need to belong to a church to go to God. Even among many Christian churches that is a fact that is barely addressed. It is even underplayed. To focus on that fact would be to undermine the authority of the church. Too many religious leaders couldn’t have that! Remember that the ones who wanted Christ dead were the religious leaders. The people loved Him. The leaders of the synagogues feared Him. They still do.

The thing that was missing from the movie was the message of the Christ. Almost all Christians agree on the person of the Christ…that may even serve as a loose definition for a Christian. His message is in dispute among the various sects however. And of the number that actually believe He meant what He said…the number that really try to live by it is infinitesimally small. He loves us…scripture tells us that if we love Him we’ll keep His commandments. Instead too many Christians would rather argue with each other about what is necessary… It’s a shame.

I can just imagine a national football team spending millions on a new coach because they ‘believed in him’…then not doing what he told them to do on the field. We agree on the coach. How many of us trust Him enough to actually ‘DO’ what He commands on the field? The world could be a much better place if we’d stop our in-fighting and simply live what we understand. Now that would spread the gospel!