 It's not a Movie - The Passion (21 views) Subscribe   
   From:  Minister Falcon (OSMFalcon)     Feb-27 10:40 am  
To:  ALL   (1 of 1)  
 
  825.1  
 
The Word Today: today's news in spiritual perspective 
By Dr. James C. Denison 
Pastor, Park Cities Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas 
February 25, 2004 

It's not a movie

Last night I sat next to a father of five as we watched The Passion of the Christ.  Before the movie began, he and I talked about our families, work, home, the usual.  When the movie was over, I didn't speak to another person until my wife asked me about the movie at home.  The entire theater sat in stunned silence when the movie ended, until the credits were nearly complete.  I've been going to movies since I was a small boy, but I have never experienced what I felt last night.  This was no movie.

You are in Gethsemane, struggling with Satan and wrestling with the soldiers.  You cringe when the Christ is beaten and bloodied on the way to his Jewish trials.  You stand before Annas and Caiaphas and peer into their scheming souls.  You join the horrified bystanders as the Romans whip him, beat him nearly unconscious, his entire body shredded and torn.  You hate the soldiers who spit into his bloodied face and wedge their thorned crown into his lacerated scalp.  You despise Pilate for his cowardice in yielding to the crowd.  And yet somehow you feel that you have done the same to Jesus.

The way up the Via Dolorosa to Calvary feels like the longest journey of your life.  Your shoulders ache with the weight of the cross.  You are grateful to Simon of Cyrene as he helps your Savior up from the dirt and shoulders his pain.  You grieve with his mother as she watches, helpless, her soul as torn as his beaten face.  You cannot bear to watch as they rope his arms to the cross, gouge the spikes into his palms, and drive them through his flesh.  And yet you cannot look away.  Somehow you feel that you owe him at least this, that you must watch what he did for you.

When he pardons the repentant thief to his left, you feel the mercy of God, the weight of your own sins lifted.  When he looks up into the sky and gives his spirit to his Father, you know that it is finished.  The earthquake which tears the ground and terrifies the people feels like just vengeance upon such horrific, miserable sinners.  But you cannot feel justified in condemning them, for you know that you stand among them.  His bloodied corpse in his mother's arms, with the tears of heaven falling upon their faces, is a scene you will remember for the rest of your life.

Then you are inside the tomb as the massive stone is shoved aside.  You watch with a mixture of shock and joy as the shroud collapses, its enwrapped body gone.  When the risen Christ stands, you cannot move.  You can only sit motionless.  In my entire life I have never felt such electricity.  I can see him now, this morning, as I write.

If a movie is a film you watch on a screen, this is no movie.  You have been to Calvary.  You watched as Jesus was tortured and executed, for you.  You will never again wonder if God loves you.  You know that the passion of the Christ is you.

Copyright (c) 2004.  James C. Denison.  All rights reserved. 

         

 
  
   Options  Reply Delete Edit  
 
