After watching Passion of the Christ I have a few questions.
One.
Why did the “Jewish religious establishment” feel that they needed to pay Judas to find Jesus anyway?
Was Jesus preaching in secret? Was he a fugitive of the law? I never got the impression that he was teaching in back rooms and in poorly lit basements under a whisper. He was supposed to be out in the open, standing on a hill and gathering hundreds if not thousands of people around him.
But if he was so open about his teachings, then they wouldn’t have had to pay anyone to tell them where he was going to be now would they?
They could have just arrested him after one of his sermons.
Not only did they have to pay Judas to find him but they didn’t even know what Jesus looked like. Judas had to kiss him on the cheek so the thugs that the "Jewish religious establishment" sent to arrest him would even know which hippie to rough up.
They actually asked Judas, “how will we know who he is.”
That is when Judas came up with the homoerotic idea to plant big wet one on Jesus.
So it is safe to assume that Jesus wasn’t some superstar pop icon like some people would want you to believe.
The fact is that people didn’t even know what the fuck he looked like.
Not even his enemies.
Think about that for a second.
If you let Christians tell the story he was the most popular thing since Manna.
If he had it like that I doubt it would have been a problem to just arrest him whenever he was out and about preaching to thousands of disenfranchised Jews hanging on his every word.
If he was that sweet they wouldn’t have needed Judas’ help in finding him and could’ve saved 30 silver pieces?
Two.
This brings me to my next problem, the beat down.
Seriously Mel, are we supposed to walk away from that thinking that the Romans put a little something special on that ass whupping that they served Jesus that day?
I am sure Jesus wasn’t the first or the last criminal to catch an ass kicking like that.
In terms of beat downs, people have gotten much worse around the world before Jesus and since Jesus for much less.
Genghis Khan once poured hot silver in someone’s eyes and ears for stealing his tribute.
That was worse.
Stealing Genghis Khan’s shit I think is also much worse than just saying that you have a better way of looking at things and turning over a few tables at a synagogue.
Hell, African American slaves were beaten to death not just beaten bad enough to still have the strength to carry a 500 pound cross a few miles on his back through the streets then up the side of a friggin mountain.
How can others go through much worse than Jesus ever did and yet Jesus’ ass kicking is enough to cleanse us of our sins?
I guess when you are the self-proclaimed son of man you’ve earned the right get off light.
Hell, at the rate that we charge up debt for being inhumane towards one another humanity would have been right back where we all started before they pushed that thorn crown into his forehead.
Three.
Another problem I had with the movie was Jesus’ arrogance.
Actually this was a huge problem I had.
That is right, I said arrogance.
After the first wave of beat downs with those sticks, did you notice that they quit beating him once he fell to his knees?
They only brought out the heavy artillery (cat o-nine-tails) once Jesus stood up defiantly like, “what? That’s all you’ve got?”
In the immortal words of Marsellus Wallace talking to Butch in Pulp Fiction … “Fuck pride.”
Jesus should have just acted like he passed out.
That’s what I would have done.
In my opinion standing up after all of that was the equivalent of playing "Fuck the Police” at volume ten when you get pulled over by the police for drunk driving.
I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to be sympathetic towards someone when I see that. That is what I call “asking for it.”
Then again I am not the savior of mankind. Maybe being the savior of mankind dictates that you flip your nose up at the establishment every chance you get.
This would go along way to explaining why I am not the savior of mankind.
I kept yelling at the screen, “stay down…stay down…”.
Then again I was saying that and I know how the story ends so what does that say about me?
To me it seemed like Jesus had umpteenth opportunities to get out of that whole situation if he wanted but it looked like his ego kept getting in the way.
How many times did people ask him simple, direct questions where if he would have just opened his mouth and explained himself, instead of acting like he was too good to answer them, they could have cleared all of this up in no time?
I know he wanted to be all defiant in front of the guys that were railroading him but give me a break.
Pride is a motherfucker ain’t it? Apparently even for Jesus.
See that is why I was a little confused when he said, “God why have thou art forsaken me” it was like it was just sinking in that he was pretty much fucked.
It took getting nailed up on a cross for that?
If I were Jesus I would've said that "why have thou art forsaken me” line right about the time that I saw the crowd cheering for Bar'Abbas over me.
It was almost like he thought God would have saved him way before he was nailed on that cross. Like that whole time he was expecting the cavalry to arrive and now he realizes once he is up there that they ain’t coming.
Maybe that is why he was acting so defiant, he must’ve been expecting God to strike everybody down with lighting bolts the whole time he was being biggety with everyone.
Well maybe God did give him an out.
God gave him Pontius Pilot and Herod. What bigger out did you need? God could have given him for Los Angeles Police chief Darryl Gates.
See where I am going with this?
Both Pontius and Herod found no reason to harm. If Jesus would have just sucked up his pride a little bit and explained himself he could have be released unscathed, but he didn’t say anything. He just sat there defiantly and let things follow their course. Which is fine, if that is how you wanted things to go down, but then why are you crying about it on the cross once the end is near like someone (God) was “forsaking you”?
Read the Bible, Herod was actually a fan of Jesus. All he wanted was to see Jesus perform a few magic tricks. Read him a fortune or something. Herod definitely would have let Jesus walk.
Four.
My last problem with the film is that the story of Jesus seems to be, at least from my view, a condemnation of capital punishment.
And I know that wasn’t Mel Gibson’s intent considering he’d kill anything but an unborn fetus.
I am sure the conservatives of the world would disagree with me, but what I felt appalled people in that film, at least the people that were appalled, was not that this was being done to Jesus per se, but that this level of inhumanity was being done to anyone.
When homey got pissed off at the Roman thugs mercilessly kicking Jesus he stopped the Roman soldiers by declaring that he wouldn’t carry the cross a step further if they didn’t stop kicking Jesus ass.
He didn’t know who the fuck Jesus was. He just knew that what they were doing was pretty fucked up.
See that film was pretty accurate in my assessment as to how we feel today about our convicted felons today.
When it comes to convicted felons, whether it was in Israel 2000 years ago or in any state penitentiary anywhere in the world we feel like we have the right to do anything we want to someone once they have been convicted in the eyes of the law.
How many conservatives complain that convicted criminals have televisions when they shouldn’t, books when they shouldn’t, three meals a day when they shouldn’t?
How much sympathy does a convicted felon get when he complains about getting raped in jail?
That all comes with the territory, right?
The court said that they were guilty.
Even if you are innocent of these particular charges you must’ve done something otherwise you wouldn’t be in this position right?
Isn’t that the line of logic they use?
The story of Jesus , or at least the story of Jesus told by Mel Gibson is about how inhumane we can be to the people that we judge. It is a condemnation of capital punishment as much as it is anything else.
I would say that this is especially true for the Passion of the Christ which really isn’t so much a story about anything after 30 minutes into it.
What really confused me was at the end of the movie when a tear drop from God comes falling down to the earth and starts an earthquake.
What’s God sad about?
If God didn’t want Jesus to be killed then he could have done something about it. Better yet, if he didn’t want Jesus to be killed he could have chosen some other way for Jesus to pay for our salvation.
He was a carpenter. He could have repaired front porches for people for no charge or something until the humanities debt was paid off.
God is God after all isn’t he?
God by definition means that you get to make the rules as you see fit.
And if he (God) chose not to do anything to prevent what Jesus went through from going down because what happened to Jesus had to be done then what the hell are you crying for?
Surely God had the gift of foresight. He knew exactly how it was going to go down. What, it just hurt to see it all play out? That is what foresight is. You see it ahead of time.
The Rabbis and the Romans were just doing his bidding. They were fulfilling prophesy. They were just playing their role. Without them, Jesus doesn’t die for our sins and everyone is still fucked. I’d say that they deserve a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to tell a priest on my death bed that I am sorry for writing this article and be forgiven and still get into heaven.
Besides, you’re crying for only son and all you could muster up was one single tear? It must be a man thing because mother Mary was totally fucked up about it.
She had snot coming out of her nose and everything. She was crying so hard that her eyes were red. I guess mothers take the execution of their sons a lot harder than fathers.
Either that or what they say is true, “Mother’s baby, father’s maybe.”