Sacrifice

Finally Friday! This week felt like it lasted forever..!

I went to see the Passion of the Christ last night with the youth group. It was such an amazing movie, completely not deserving of the mostly negative controversy. I mean, yeah, it was incredibly bloody and hard to watch, but we have to assume after studying the bible and the culture of the time that Jesus really was tortured in that fashion and to that extent. Whoever accused the movie of being anti-Semitic was, in my opinion, just being stupid and looking for an excuse to bash the film.

It was a lot more artistic than I’d expected. I really love how it was done. All the other Jesus movies I’ve seen before had basically two colours… black and sandy-beige. And red, I guess, but still pretty drab. This one is very much alive and (obviously) high budget. I think the thing I loved the most about it was that despite how very depressing and shocking it was at most times, there were still parts of it that were so beautiful. I like the way Mel Gibson set it up—passion week with flashbacks to the important events before it. And the symbolism!! Amazing. It depicted the role of the Evil One so well. Whoever cast that actress was spot on. And the poetic license Mel Gibson took with Simon’s character, that was just brilliant.

I wasn’t sure how I’d react to the violent scenes, but I was almost sure I would cry straight through. It was very strange, but I was more stunned than sad in those parts, but did get rather choked up in the sentimental parts with Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalene.

All in all I thought it was a powerful portrayal of the sacrifice God made for us and would recommend it to anyone interested in going.