The Passion

The Passion is a magnificent, terrible film, one of the finest I have ever seen. I found it immensely moving: I have been taught about the Crucifixion all my life, knew of the scourging, the insults, the blows, but I must confess that I have never felt the reality of it all before as I did watching this film. I am afraid that in my comfortable middle-class environment the Cross is all too easily sterilized; it becomes a clean shaven symbol, not an awful object of offense. With such little ease I make the Gospel an emaciated thing; I become a Doceist in practice. A flesh and blood Savior Who suffers and loves down to His last agonized breath: that is an uncomfortable thing when the whole weight of it falls on you, for in His love your own love is shown to be what it is. And facing a suffering God: who has ever heard of such a thing? This is how He saves the world? This is surely an offense, a thing of foolishness: but in it is the salvation of the world, of the flesh-and-bone world. The film bears this offensive reality down mightily, even excessively perhaps. We are in no doubt of the terrible reality of the Lord's sufferings, of His fear and anguish. The film puts it in full focus, and we can only escape it by closing our eyes or turning our faces. Yet even when we close it out from our eyes, we can hear it: the machine-gun beat of the scourging, the nails piercing His hands, the Cross falling into position, the final words of the Lord upon the Cross, and the silence as Mary holds His broken form.

Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.