The movie's end was stark and uncompromising. After Jesus breathed His last upon the cross, thunder and lightning split the sky as if the earth were enraged by Abel's blood. An earthquake shook the hill of Golgotha, scattering the haughty Roman soldiers like a pack of cowards; it upended furniture in the palace of Pontius Pilate, reminding the bureaucrat of blood he could never wash away; it split the altar of the Temple in two, leaving Caiaphas and his fellow Sadducees terrified,  their smugness shattered; and it drove Satan in the depths of Hell to despair, to look up from the white volcanic cone where he paced alone, and scream. Then, deep inside the tomb where Jesus' nearly skinned cadaver lay, a ray of light appeared. The dead man awoke, healed of stripes and scars, and started for a moment into the light. Then the screen went black. The torture of Christ had gone on for most of two hours. The resurrection lasted five seconds. If you turned your head you missed it. As I left, I couldn't suppress the thought, "Such a bloody religion. I wish I were a Buddhist..."

The soul-crushing cruelty of the Roman guards dominates the action.

We walked out of the Evangelical church which screened The Passion of the Christ in a solemn silence; priests and monsignors, monks and nuns, pastors and their  wives. No chatter, no buzz, no "word of mouth." We were all too stunned. It was almost as if we'd seen a Filipino Passion Play, during which a pious volunteer is actually crucified. (Relax, he isn't killed.) I was numb long before the movie's end�in fact, I'd "checked out" during the flogging sequences. The initial torture ordered by Pilate was depicted in real time�all forty lashes�and imposed by sadistic Roman soldiers who "got off" as Jesus' blood sprayed their faces. This flaying reduced His body and face to an unrecognizable ruin of gore. My sensibilities overloaded�as they had during "Saving Private Ryan"�and I felt myself switch off, shut down, withdraw.

I left the present tense of the story, and started to notice the many artsy touches throughout this beautifully rendered film: the visual references to landscapes and paintings of Christ by Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rouault�but most of all to Hieronymous Bosch. The better part of the film could pass for an animation of Bosch's grotesque landscapes and Passion pictures. The Middle Eastern music reminded me of the profound melancholy of Maronite liturgical chant, and ancient Melkite hymns. The uniformly exquisite acting brought to life the figures of Mary, St. John, the Magdalene and Judas Iscariot more vividly than I'd seen in any New Testament film.

But the grim, unrelenting violence continued�and by this time it was pretty much wasted on me; it had no more impact. To quote This is Spinal Tap, the amplifier had already "gone to 11." I yearned for more of the flashbacks depicting Jesus' sermons and benedictions. There were some, interspersed throughout, but not enough to remind us who this man was or why we should force ourselves towatch His slow destruction. I looked in vain for the scenes of scandal, where Jesus denounced the merciless Pharisees and trashed the moneychangers' booths, or flung the gauntlet of His divinity in the face of the audience�which would have explained the implacable hatred He stirred in Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. If you knew nothing else of Jesus' story than the film conveyed, you would be puzzled as to why so many angry bearded men were stirred up to crucify this gentle soul.

We walked out in a solemn silence; No chatter, no buzz, no �word of mouth�. We were all too stunned.

It is here that the charge of anti-Semitism finds a niche into which it can slither and hide. Some defensive Jewish viewers have suggested that Gibson left the Sadducees' motives unexplained because he attributes bloodlust and hatefulness to Jews as a race or a religion. There is nothing in the film, or Gibson's expressed beliefs, to suggest such a thing; however reluctant Pilate seems to crucify Jesus, however eager are Caiaphas and his knot of supporters, the soul-crushing cruelty of the Roman guards who are torturing for fun, not out of any religious conviction, dominates the action. Their brutality leaves the crowd of Jewish onlookers (many of whom weep as Jesus carries his cross) in the blood-soaked dust.

The movie is utterly orthodox in attributing Jesus' death to the sins of all men�a point made in its very first sequence, a brilliant exchange between Jesus on Gethsemane and a skulking, beautiful Satan. Indeed, the overpowering sense of personal responsibility for Jesus' death which this film conveys makes you wish you could find a scapegoat, someone on whom to blame this torture other than yourself. You might find yourself wishing that the film presented "perfidious Jews," or tyrannous Romans, or a monstrous Judas figure, as an escape valve for your guilt. But that would defeat its purpose entirely, and Gibson is too much of an artist, and too solidly faithful, to allow it.

The film's exclusive emphasis on Jesus' final meekness, going as a "lamb to the slaughter," did disappoint me. I found myself wishing the movie had included more of the things that Jesus said throughout the New Testament which rankled His listeners�and to be candid, rankle me, making me always reluctant to read the central document of my own religion. (Yes, I'm one of those Catholics whom Evangelicals rightly mock because we don't enjoy reading the Bible.)

The prophetic utterances, "So the last will be first, and the first last," the outrageous demands, "Sell all you have and give it to the poor," the bizarre advice, "Turn the other cheek," and finally the many statements which seem humanly haughty and obnoxious such as, "He who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me." Whenever I read these passages, I must confess, my reaction is annoyance, even anger. I find myself thinking: "This guy had better be God. Or else he's a self-aggrandizing nutcase."

While I do believe in His divinity�and have consequently spent the past 25 years as a pro-life activist and Catholic apologist�this doesn't quite neutralize the queasy feeling in my gut. On a primal level, I can understand all too well the crowds who turned on Christ�a point driven home by the Palm Sunday liturgy, in which the congregation plays their part, shouting "Give us Barabbas!" For this reason, I've never been able to manage the spiritual feat encouraged by theologians such as Robert Hugh Benson, who urges us in his profound book of that name to cultivate The Friendship of Christ. Through grace, it's possible to love Jesus. (In fact, one's eternal destiny depends on it.) But He's sometimes a hard guy to like. For film-goers to truly appreciate their personal implication in the death of Christ, I think it would be valuable to present those aspects of His message and person which really would tempt them, like the Jerusalem mob, to turn on Him. 
 

It is not guilt, but forgiveness, which will pour from the cross and descend through the ages.

What turns us back to Christ? The film is rich with suggestions, with moving moments that demonstrate how Jesus is indeed the face of a loving God turned towards man. Gibson leaves out any flashbacks to Jesus' miracles�the very proofs of His divine authority, as He frequently asserted. No loaves and fishes multiply, no Lazarus rises, no blind men see. Instead, the wonders the film presents are more impressive�they amaze us with Jesus' power and willingness to forgive. We see Him rescue Mary Magdalene from a crowd of righteous Pharisees�who all too eagerly seek to enforce Mosaic law by stoning her. Wracked with torture which we share, crushed by mockery, and tempted to despair�He turns to Dismas, the penitent thief, and promises him, "This day you will be with me in my kingdom." And most astonishingly, He turns to the gloating Caiaphas, who taunts Him from the foot of the cross (with Satan lurking behind him, supportively), and looks directly at him as He delivers his final absolution: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This phrase utterly negates Caiaphas' hasty, callous curse, "Let his blood be upon us, and upon our children." (This controversial biblical statement reportedly made the final cut, but was not subtitled). Jesus refutes him, with divine authority; it is not guilt, but forgiveness, which will pour from the cross and descend through the ages.

It is here that Jesus sets Himself apart from Jewish prophets whom He resembled, from mythological gods who died like Dionysius only to rise with the grapes each season, from warrior kings who fought for justice. As the eminent French critic Renè Girard observes in his works on the figure of "the scapegoat" through millennia of human history, Jesus undercuts and in fact inverts the plans of those who would destroy Him, who consider it expedient "that one man should die for the sake of a nation." Had Jesus died with a curse on His lips, with imprecations against the Pharisees and His faithless followers, his sacrifice would have been meaningless�a political martyrdom, which ended in futility. (Too many false Messiahs died in this very way; the Jews who followed one of them and rebelled against the Romans circa A.D. 70 would kill themselves, down to the last woman and child, in the senseless self-slaughter that followed Masada.) The stories of Jesus' resurrection would likely not have been believed, since He would have proven himself to be just another man.

The most wondrous miracle Jesus performed throughout His life�which converts one of the Romans who crucified Him, on the spot�was His forgiveness, freely bestowed, in the midst of hideous suffering, on His tormentors. Such courage and generosity are literally superhuman�yet they answer to man's deepest need, to the darkest squalid corner in each of our hearts which we "know" is irredeemable, which we yearn to bring out into air and light, and heal. In this film we see with unbearable clarity how Jesus descended into the personal Hell each of us carries around, and purged it clean.