A Quick Thought on Jesus

I've been thinking about the ways in which Mel Gibson sought to make Jesus into a hero, which points to a theological matter that is all too easy to forget: He was human. Because we consider Him to have been God, it is easy for Christians to see Him as sort of going through the motions. We let an idea that is clearly mistaken according to the Gospels seep in — that Christ could see the big plan in its entirety.

Actually, it may overstate the case to say the idea is "clearly mistaken"; there are degrees to which that's a valid debate, but it does have the adverse effect of dehumanizing Jesus. So, when He stomps on the snake at the beginning of The Passion of the Christ, I was inclined to forgive the cinematic cliché as an attempt to remind us that Jesus, the man, was indeed human, with doubts and fears to overcome, and thus capable of being heroic, of giving us that "go get 'em" feeling.

However, this point gets caught up in non-Christians' misunderstanding of believers' reaction to the movie. If we take Christ as a hero — the captain of our theological team — then seeing him beaten so badly might prick our protective instincts or, worse, our lust for revenge. But that's not really what Christ is to a Christian. He's God! How could we possibly feel like big brothers to Him? Our theology (or most branches of it that I know anything about) emphasizes thanking Him, making requests of Him, begging for His forgiveness.

I just realized that, at no point in the movie, did it occur to me that the apostles should try to save Jesus amid the confusion of his march to Calvary. When the soldiers (I think it was them) mocked Him, saying, "Come down off of your cross," one knows that legions' coming over the hill to save Him would have been doing grave harm. It would be wholly foreign, then, for us to leave the movie theater declaring, "You can't do that to my messiah!"

Just had to mention that thought.