“In a little hilltop village they gambled for my clothes …”
                                                                                    Bob Dylan

Who could have imagined that our own fighting Jack, the Road Warrior himself Mel Gibson, would be the one to rise from the ashes to refresh our hearts and minds with the good news of Christ Jesus in his magnificent new film, The Passion of the Christ. And here perhaps is a little lesson for us Christians that even out of what we think of as the Sodom-like Hollywood could come such a gift. And I’ll bet, truth-be-told, we’d be surprised how many Hollywood folks admire the film as well.

Jim Caviezal, a devout Christian himself, in the role of the Christ should, without a second thought, take best actor of the year as we see him first in the shadowy garden of Gethsemane agonizing his doom. Its doom alone that counts as we watch a visualization of Satan and He. The black-hooded evil one speaks in the same old mantra of no-hope for the salvation of man: no one man could possibly carry the weight of the sins for all mankind. But as always with his words, the Lord crushes the evil serpent. What’s that you say? This scene does not appear in the text? Gee, I didn’t know that!

      “And he answereth him, and saith,
      O faithless generation, how long shall
      I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?
                                             Mark 9:19, Luke 9:41

Quite naturally the artist, if he is an artist, in the painting, in the writing, in the musical composing and, yes – in the filmmaking uses his own impressions and imagination and his learned craft itself to highlight and shade and dramatize his subject. The brilliant artist brings his own sensibilities to his subject in the case of religious art, by way of the divine. The untalented hack slavishly copies without soul or interior statement, thus as you would purchase a cheap portrait or seascape on the boardwalk on the Jersey Shore.

But our painter, Gibson, pursues the complete story through his camera and on his canvas. He makes us look, he insists that we see with our eyes (the fundamental job of all artists) the agony as well as the ecstasy: the crown of thorns, the scourging of the flesh of every inch of the body, the hands nailed to the cross, the spitting and scorn of the fickle public, the weight of the cross as he and the decent citizen of Rome, a Jew, drag it in its path on the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha where the unspeakable crucifixion is committed by the Roman Centurions at the pleasure of we such-very-nice people.

But it’s here where the artist is unfairly criticized for the opposite of imaginative embellishments. Here he is said to be too literal in these more physically terrible scenes of cruelty. “Requiring modification through modern interpretation,” or such some gibberish – so say the scribes, critics, and divinity school Sanhedrin of Time-Warner and Newsweek – “For these are honorable men” (Mark Anthony).

But let’s face it, folks; Jews, Christians, and all we lost souls in between; we would be unhappy and fight among ourselves no matter which artistic choices Gibson the good would have made. The unending scourging and the torturous beatings on the way to heaven via Golgotha were the worst anyone could imagine.

                                 No Worse there is none
                                                                    Gerard Manley Hopkins
                                                                    Jesuit Priest A.D.

Yet it’s a strange and terrible beauty that we must see and watch with clear eyes, and remember all our living days that we remain in the flesh. What’s the expression we often hear? Never again. Furthermore, one struggles to understand his own Christian sisters and brothers who have such timidity not to see this magnificent movie which belongs on a chapel ceiling somewhere in Rome or the Holy Land. Would you avert your eyes to Picasso’s Guernica, or the hideous beheadings of Caravaggio? Or do you want to go back to Demitrius and the Gladiators of the 1950s, or David and Bathsheba in the cheap and indescribably ignorant Hollywood ending of these walking off hand-in-hand into the sunset? I’m sure mssrs A.O. Scott (New York Times), Kenneth Turan (L.A. Times), and Jon Meacham (Newsweek) wouldn’t bat an eye at this! In the face of such overwhelming hateful and mean-spirited reviews of The Passion, it’s hard, as a mere Christian, to write a review of this fine film that doesn’t lash back at these mockers who sit atop their tall building of the big corporate magazines and newspapers of the intellectual rabble – and their compatriots, the heads of your Ivy League divinity schools up and down the East Coast and throughout the nation. Have you ever seen these characters on PBS? You’d learn more from Dr. Phil! As my good pastor says, “Give me a break!” However, we happen to have an attack dog here at WING TV who does his job quite well, and I leave this job to him on other pages.

Jesus the Rabbi was not only a rebel, but also a reformer. He was the first to see his synagogues grow lazy, self-satisfied and slavish – giving distortion to the standards rendering them mere rules and regulations. And as the Pharisees and Sanhedrin grew headstrong and filled with pride, so too today our Christian Church grows lazy, crazy, and distorted. Witness the filth of our Catholic brethren which has been going on since God knows when?! And now we are presented with an Episcopal Bishop who announces his own practice of buggery – and is applauded and allowed to remain a high authority of Mother Church!!

But out in the clear light is the ecstatic film of Mel Gibson’s Passion – Praise Jesus – where on the third day the victory is God the Father’s and ours, miserable such as we are. And do take the kids.

In the afternoon I had seen the world’s premier of The Passion of the Christ, and that evening I attended Ash Wednesday services and never before was I so filled with the Spirit of God and love for all men. Over a long life I thought of all the people of the Jewish faith I ever knew. And particularly one who lives in another city – and how much I look forward to his wonderful letters so filled with grace and wisdom – far above my own – like reading the pleasant poetry of the Old Testament, our words for the Hebrew Torah. For it’s the Jewish people we love most, for without their God we would have none. God bless their holiness, their good stewardship of our world since the beginning of time, and their sheer genius for religious thought. This is not to say they haven’t gotten in Dutch with God from time to time down through the timeless pages of the Old Testament – but as we crossover into the big-time change and precede to 33 AD we find them one day committing a doozy. Yet this had to come to pass and they’ll have their place with God – as well as others – in the long run. Remember, eternity is like baseball: it’s a long season.

Mel Gibson’s movie didn’t make me hate anyone. Not even the Romans – though I don’t know any Romans personally. But I’ll continue to see the films of Fellini whenever they play. And one particular film by Pier Paolo Pasolini (The Gospel According to Saint Matthew) – the only Christian film that debatably could be as great as Gibson’s. This man Pasolini was a Communist, homosexual, and worst of all, an ancestral son of Pontius Pilate. Go figure? And let God judge.

Jews, Romans, Countrymen – and Christians – we’re all sinners in the eyes of the Lord. Mel Gibson in his Passion of the Christ, like the Ramones with rock n’ roll, pared “mere Christianity” (C.S. Lewis) down to its basic three-chord rhythm (3-in-1) no more, no less. Christianity is not sentimental.

What Christ is looking for is a chap who will come onboard for the big win – and think long and hard about his sins. Yes, even that one he committed a minute ago. We Christians are the most stereotyped and caricatured of any group, and “Christian” now translates to “fundamentalist,” or as I’ve recently heard, “fundie.” But that’s okay. Say it. You won’t get yelled at. It’s been open season on the followers of Jesus Christ now for 2000 years and going strong. But guess what: we’re still here.

             Come in she said, I’ll give you
             Shelter from the storm
                                                    Robert Zimmerman Dylan