The Passion of the Christ

On Good Fridays, Tim and I have always tried to observe the holiday in some fashion. We've gone to church vigils and musicals. We've even observed it in our own home. One time, a few years back, we went to a screening of the movie The Passion of the Christ.

It was held at a local church and we were excited to finally see the movie to help us understand just how much Jesus went through. What we soon discovered though is appearantly Jesus went through some things that were "too graphic" to watch. So at each of the really graphic parts, the church would put the screen to black and use a bible verse to depict what happened during that scene. They did this periodically throughout the movie.

It struck me as odd that on a day when we observe Christ's ultimate sacrifice for our sins, we were kept from the most gruesome parts of his murder so as not to be exposed to how "graphic" it was. Christ's death was not a PG kind of thing. It amazes me how we have made it that way.

Well, after the service, I was so curious about the missing parts, that we rented it and offered to watch it with my family. "It's too gorey" is the response I got.

My response "ummm... yeah... that's kind of the point."

Thankyou Lord for dying for me. Not a glamorous death, or a quick and painless one. Thankyou for dying a horrible, bloody, awful, too violent for me to watch death. It reminds me of just how much you love me, that you were willing to go through it, even when you had the power not to.