Watching 'The Passion' for Lent

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from Asia News, February 9, 2005, with the headline, “Mel Gibson’s Aid to Lenten Penance— ‘The evocative power of Mel Gibson’s The Passion helps us to experience Lent,’ says Archbishop Capalla. For the top Filipino bishop, The Passion of the Christ is a powerful help in evoking the sorrow caused by sin. ‘Lent’s penitential practices must help Catholics realize the malice of sin in order to repent and to evoke sorrow that leads to confession,’ writes Monsignor Fernando Capalla, Archbishop of Devao and President of Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines, in his Lent message.

“For the Archbishop, Lent can have two effects on people: it can transform their lives, and it can renew society. Both however, depend on a reawakening that comes from repentance. To reach this point, one must go through the traditional steps of the Via Crucis, as well as intense prayer and scriptural meditations, self-denial and mortification, fasting and abstinence, sacramental confession, recollection, and retreats.

“But one can also view again Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. ‘Even though it is but a human shadow of Christ’s suffering, the motion picture,’ Archbishop Capollo writes, ‘is a powerful help to evoke the sorrow caused by sin and lead us to the Sacrament of Confession. The time leading up to Easter,’ the prelate explains, ‘must lead us to experience God’s mercy and forgiveness. Our sins have been embraced by our Lord in His suffering body. Only [by] embracing the example of Jesus are we able to forego the many comforts and privileges that have weakened our spirit and prefer God above everything and everyone else. Hence, we become Christ-like—a new creation. This is what Easter means. This is what Lent must bring about.’”

Tom: Dave, this is what I grew up with as a former Roman Catholic—Lent, giving up things, mortifying the flesh, and the thing that worries me is that I see much of this now, but it’s always been a part of Anglican church, it’s always been a part of the Episcopal church and Lutheran church, but now I see this in the evangelical church. They are turning to the sacramentals, to Lent, to imagery, to candles, incense—all of these kinds of things—to draw them nearer to Christ, and see evangelical churches going through forty days of giving up this, giving up that…this is Roman Catholicism, or orthodoxy.

Dave: Well, Tom, we have been talking about denying self, and the need for humility. On the one hand, you would think that was a good thing. On the other hand, it doesn’t really accomplish much, does it? I mean, this is like Ramadan, the Muslim fast from sunrise ‘til sunup, and then he can feast and do whatever he wants the rest of the time.

Tom: Well, as Catholics, Sunday was your day off. Whatever you gave up during the week was okay on Sunday.

Dave: So here we’re going to give some things up—when? Lent, during this period of time? The Bible doesn’t say that. The Bible says, and we quoted it earlier, “I’m crucified with Christ. It’s not I but Christ that lives in me.” It should be my daily moment-by-moment experience as a Christian. Then what is the point of doing some special stuff during Lent? It’s not in the Bible. I don’t find it. Now, you could go back to The Old Testament and see that there were things similar to this, but this is not biblical Christianity. We are not under the law. Christ is supposed to be living His life in us all the time.

Furthermore, Tom, to say that The Passion helps us experience Lent—it’s a powerful help to bring our sins before us…Well, it’s a very powerful movie, and you’ve written about this more than I have, but it’s all about the physical sufferings of Christ, and it’s not biblical, and we won’t go back over that. It’s a Catholic film. But yes, you could be really worked up about the physical sufferings that Christ endured. As a matter of fact, He didn’t endure the worst physical sufferings of anyone on this earth; that’s just simple fact.

And it was not in His physical sufferings that He paid the penalty for our sins. It’s absurd—not rational—that these wicked, evil Roman soldiers were God’s ministers of righteousness meting out God’s punishment for the sins of all the world, eternal punishment, and somehow they did that with their physical beatings. Supposing they didn’t hit Him quite enough, you know? So that’s not even rational and it’s not biblical.

It was in the spiritual sufferings that He endured at the hands of the Father. “He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, but it pleased Yahweh to bruise Him, and you made His soul an offering for sin.” So now we are getting the wrong impression, and as you pointed out, it’s all a physical thing: it’s in the sacraments, it’s in the candles, it’s in the rituals, and that will only take you away from the reality of what we need in our souls and in our spirits.

Tom: The flesh profits nothing: the Scripture couldn’t be more clear about that, and when we begin to look to these helps, these aids, to draw us near to Christ, and they’re physical helps or aids, it’s just antithetical to what the Bible teaches.

Dave: Well, Tom, this is the Philippines, so I guess if you really wanted to go all the way with this, you could get yourself crucified like numbers of people do in the Philippines, and that is counter to the truth of the Word of God. So now I’m getting in this and I’m getting credit for this. What I need to do is follow Jesus, follow the Word of God, love Him with all my heart, and allow Him to have His way in me.

Tom: Dave, just one last comment about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ: people said, “What was the movie? It’s gone, no longer around.” Well, Mel sold—mainly to the evangelical church—he sold 12 million DVDs, and if you don’t think that these DVDs are going to be used during Lent in evangelical church, I think you’re missing something there.