Behold, the man.
If you watch The Passion of the Christ with a critical eye, you will see behind it the figure of a man. That man is Mel Gibson, and he figures strongly into his own work. What he emphasizes, what he deemphasizes, what he adds, what he subtracts, all these add a distinct texture to the Passion story. His is not a perfect work. It is messy, it is capricious, it is reticent, it is often hard to look at, and in the end it is flawed. But it is sincere, and like a fountain flows from an apparent well of passion.
It is not easy to now steer the topic to the heart of this passion, where pours another fountain, of Jesus’ blood. The film is bloodier than Braveheart, and before I had followed to the crowd all the way to Golgotha, my heart had grown stony with dispassion. That part of me which is shocked by pain and anguish, which is rended by emotion at watching the representation of my avowed saviour flayed alive, that part of me was overwhelmed and had fallen silent. Yes, we are struck cold hard in the face with the humanity, the fragility of Jesus, Yeshua ben-Yosef, the young carpenter, son of Mary, friend of Peter and John, betrayed of Judas. Yet we can do nothing but stand alongside Mary, Mary Magdalene and John, watching helplessly. And we can do nothing but share in the disgust of Simon the Cyrene as we have our faces shoved into the face of pain and suffering. I am a worm
, writes the Psalmist, of the Messiah, and yes, we would gladly believe that this sputtering mess before us is such. To admit his humanity would be to admit our own frailty, our own inevitable descent into mindless pain and death. To admit, perhaps, that we have some responsibility toward him.
There is another side to this problem, no, this dilemma. Why is he here? He is here because he claims that he is God, or is the son of God, or some such blasphemy as that. God? This man? How? Does God simply put on his Earthsuit and come on down? Impossible. Does God eat? Does God sleep? Does God shit? Can you see God? Can you touch God? Can you hold God? Can you reduce God to a sputtering mess of ribboned flesh and blood and thorns? You heard the man—it was him that said it, not me. No, no, this cannot be God, this bloody, gaping heap of a shell of a man. No, when God decided to save us, he just nipped on down to planet Earth, went to some parties, healed some poor people, gave us a few extra tips he forgot to write down on the stone tablets, jumped up on the cross, said his lines, and on his way back to Heaven he stopped at the local county Hell to pass out Bibles to the inmates. This is a much more comfortable, pleasant God to admit. No, to hold that this man, this disgusting, repulsive, shivering mass is yet at the same time God is to irrevokably admit that we do not understand God like we think we do (and perhaps we do not wish to understand), nor do we understand any other human being on the face of this earth, nor, at long last, do we even understand ourselves.
Which brings me to Pilate. Much ado has been made of the portrayal of Pilate in this movie. To those who charge that Gibson’s Pilate is too much a wet blanket, I reply: you have read far too much into the mythology of the Brutal Dictator, and read far too little into the nuanced performance of Hristo Naumov Shopov. We would all rather that Pilate be as psychotic and bloodthirsty as his soldiers, or at least a loon in the grand Roman tradition, like Nero—for our purposes, this contemplative, this divided, this human portrayal will not do. He is too much like us. He is harried by demands from his superiors, stymied in his attempts to rule an unruly outpost, ready to do his job barring no cost, and flat out annoyed with these pompous priests and their provincial politik. And they want to what? Crucify him? When did Crucifixion stop being a horrific statement of the power of Roman rule and start being a convenient way to off every little pariah who gets their holiest of holy panties in a bunch? Gah. Who is this man anyway? What has he done, and why did it require that I be disturbed, not once but twice, and the first time in the middle of the night, with the threat of insurrection? Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
No, Pilate is too well portrayed for our comfort. The moment we can begin to sympathize with his situation, at that moment our image of the Brutal Dictator falls apart around us, and it doesn’t merely fall at our feet, it clings to us. It can’t be shaken off. For once we see how we might fit into Pilate’s sandals, it frightens us to wonder how the heft of the flail would feel when held in our hand, or how the hammer that drove the spikes into the stigmata might fly if swung by our arm. A popular trivium: in this movie, the hands that held the hammer that pounded the spikes that wounded our Christ were Mel Gibson’s own.
Jesus Christ was an asker of questions, questions that could not be easily answered by those he asked. His questions were incisive, divisive, pounding, a sword thrust straight to the heart. “Who do you say that I am?” he asked of Peter. Peter would spend his life recovering from the answer that he gave so readily, because Peter had not at that moment answered in his own heart the implicit question: “Who do you say that you are?” Peter had not yet confronted himself as the adversary, the one who would resist Jesus’ mission, the one who would deny the very one he had admitted. Likewise, many of us have not confronted ourselves as the Roman soldier, the Nazi executioner, the serial killer, the callous slaughterer of innocents, the quiet, unassuming bystander who stands idly by, holding the coats of the murderers.. Our first instinct is to look the Christ in the eye and say, “Look, you don’t have to do this. I’ll find some other way to get out of this mess you made for me.” He simply stares back at us, and with no words asks us, “Who do you say that I am?”
This question will take us down a dark road, straight but narrow, past that crucifixed hill to our own hearts, and within to a cave owned by a rich man who often travels far away. If we are brave enough to see the question through to the bitter end and roll away the stone, then yes, and amen. We will see the grave clothes lying empty and Jesus striding forward, naked as a second Adam. What happens afterward is the story of a breakfast of fish by the sea, the story of Peter, and Paul, and Luther, and ultimately of grace. Gibson does not take us any further than the empty tomb, but that he has traveled this road so far, and invited us to come along with him is enough. Enough to remind us.
Who killed Jesus Christ? Was it the Jews? Was it Rome? No. Look closely at a mirror, and repeat to yourself, “Behold, the man.
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April 28th, 2004 at 5:54 pm
Well written. I agree with your assessment - this is no easy film. Somehow, I managed to remain open to the horrific imagery throughout it, but what torture!
I also interpreted the fragility of Jesus, both in the opening scenes and in the final moments, as reminders that whether or not we agree Jesus was God, Jesus was human, and through his final hours, he bore the weight of humanity not on God’s shoulders but on his own. If Jesus, as human, could respond to the violence and hatred inflicted upon him while also struggling with what seems like God’s betrayal, and NOT slip into hatred and denunciation of his own, how petty must we seem in this modern era, where we slip into hate like a pair of shoes, and instead of turning the other cheek we slice our attacker’s cheek open in response and claim that God is on our side.
I grew up Protestant, later becoming a Buddhist, but of course Christianity continues to live in my psyche. I am one of those who killed Jesus; I remember in my younger days cursing God for forsaking me… for what? For giving me a peaceful place to live, a good family, food to eat, a good education? No, for not being more popular in middle school, in one instance. And though a different tradition speaks to me now, I still believe in the message of Jesus’s life.
As the Sons and Daughters of God, or as seekers of our own awakening to the ultimate truth, should we not aim to be like those who have shown us the way?
Thanks again for this post. It’s important.