Passionate suffering

So I was one of the very blessed 8000 Canadians to get to see an advance screening of Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ'. It was a ministry event that pretty much all the Christian ministers in Calgary (and the other cities it went to) were invited to. I'm not allowed to review or talk about the movie until it's release date on Ash Wednesday though. But that's okay. I wouldn't want to say anything anyway. It's something you need to experience for yourself.

I can say this. I didn't learn anything I didn't already know, but I FELT all the things that I knew like never before. Before you go see it when it comes out, take a few minutes to prepare yourself to watch the brutal, graphic reality of what Jesus went through before his death. Decide for yourself if you will grow from seeing it so realistically portrayed that you could be standing in Mary's place 2000 ago, or even more difficult, standing as a member of the San Hedron during the arrest, the crowd during the trial, or the guards during the rest of it.

There's talk of Anti-semitism in the movie. If you want it to be there, it's there in the same way if you want it to be in the Bible, it's there. But don't go in looking for blame... the Jews or the Romans or anyone else. Look at it in the sense that it was no nation that killed Jesus, no religion (he was a Jew with many Jewish followers), it was evil, and sin, all that ever was and all that ever will be that killed Jesus. But he was stronger than all the evil there is and rose from the dead, so we don't ever have to die.

If you go to see this movie, and you wanna talk about it, either to debate points of view, ask questions, or just to say 'man, that was _________' feel free to email me. youth_minister_guy@hotmail.com

Lots of other stuff happened today too, but its still all processing, so stay tuned!