I just sat down to write a rant complaining about all the people who claim ThePassionOfTheChrist doesn’t have a point. In order to make my point I decided to look up the defenition of the world “passion”. Was I ever surprised.
Passion, n.
- A powerful emotion, such as love, joy, hatred, or anger.
- a) Ardent love. b) Strong sexual desire; lust. b) The object of such love or desire.
- a) Boundless enthusiasm. b) The object of such enthusiasm.
- An abandoned display of emotion, especially of anger: He’s been known to fly into a passion without warning.
- a) The sufferings of Jesus in the period following the Last Supper and including the Crucifixion, as related in the New Testament. b) A narrative, musical setting, or pictorial representation of Jesus’s sufferings.
In light of that, nobody should really be surprised that a movie about the passion of Jessus would be about anything other than his death.
But that not much of a case, so here is attempt two. Several critics I have read asked the question “Why?”. Why would anybody watch this movie?
To answer that lets start with the question, “Why would Jesus go through that?”. I think the line to Mary as he struggled with the cross along the Via Delorosa summs it up fairly well. “Behold, I make all things new.” Jesus was a man with a mission. He was convinced that by his suffering he could make all things new. Was he correct? I beleive so, but that’s your choice.
So what needs making new?
