Hmmm...

Saw "The Passion" today... rather, yesterday.

I'm not as impressed as I thought I was going to be. I'm going to see it again, because I want to see if there's stuff I missed. Maybe I just didn't connect.

I don't know... from the comments I've heard in regard to the movie, I guess I expected to be moved a lot more than I was. I expected to cry a lot. I expected to... I don't know. I expected more.

I guess it's a case of the movie not being as good as the book. I've read the book, many times. I've been moved greatly by the book.

However, I'm going to see the movie again because, as I mentioned above, I may have missed the connection.

I'm thinking that maybe the previews of coming movies set the tone for me... made it too commercial, not personal enough...

Many have touted the beating as being so completely severe... so violent that kids simply shouldn't see the movie. Personally, I think kids should see it. I think the beating, the stripes, the wounds, the viciousness... I think the display of Pilot's helplessness...

I think it was filmed very well. I think Mel Gibson did an awesome job with the portrayal. I highly commend him for his efforts.

Maybe I'm not as moved by this movie because my imagination has been more vivid? Maybe because I've heard this story, read it, thought about it, meditated on it, believed it... maybe because I know this story and have heard it every Passover since I was born... maybe that's why it's not as shocking to me... maybe that's why I'm not as emotional about it as I expected to be.

I don't want to downplay my own emotional involvement with the sacrifice of my God. That's not what I'm saying. I feel, though, as if I were more clinical than most; the difference between a pre-med student and a 30-years-of-experience doctor seeing a mangled patient...

I suppose my own question is whether I'm just cold and unfeeling or have simply seen the shocking parts so frequently in my mind that they no longer shock me.

I expected to be shocked. I expected to be moved so intensely that I would still be crying. But I'm not. In fact, my tears were few and silent; more a quiet mourning than a heart-wrenching emotional outpouring.

I cried more, and felt more intensely sad, when the ex and I split... the night of the "truth out".

So, is my lack of emotional outpouring... my lack of shock and profound sorrow... is that due to my not caring? No. I care. I think it's simply a case of having heard the story, having read it, having believed it, having meditated on it, having felt the power of My God's sacrifice for ME... so many times before.

The fact that Jesus did this for me, the fact that he was virtually skinned alive and beaten and bruised and taunted and teased and humiliated and cajoled and... The fact that He endured everything the movie depicted and more... it moves me.

But I think about it often.

Maybe the people who have said they were so shocked by this movie... maybe they just haven't thought about it before. Maybe they haven't seen the blood in their minds. Maybe they haven't projected themselves, mentally, into the pain, the anguish, the intense love.

I don't know. I definitely identified with Mary. I felt sorrow for her like I haven't before. And yet, I identified with her more because of the way she behaved... she wasn't hysterical as some have attempted to portray in the past. She wasn't wailing and tearing her hair and uncontrollably desolate.

I guess I identify with her because she portrayed her great sorrow as being tempered with the knowledge that it must happen.

Maybe that's why I'm not as shocked. I, too, know that it had to happen. In order for us, those Jesus loves so intensely... in order for us to have life, He had to go through this horrendous death.

Dunno.

It was a good movie. And, I'm going to see it again, possibly two or three times more. I'd like to see it without the previews.

The temple was, indeed, torn down and rebuilt in three days.

Awesome God. Awesome, Awesome God.