THE CAMBRIAN PESHER
THE VOICE OF THE DESPOSYNI TO THE AMERICAN DISPERSION
Ash Wednesday, 2004
Beloved:
I have not seen Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ currently being shown in theaters across the United States. I did not want to see it until I had first composed this Pesher. I expect to be carried away with its emotion. It will be one of those films in which people will experience spiritual awakenings, something too personal and profound to permit attention on anything else.
The idea of Passion plays is nothing new. As far as I know, they have been in existence for over a thousand years. When I was just out of high school, I spent some time with the Jesus People. In the mid-sized city where we were, there was a guy who would dress-up like the crucified Christ and carry a cross down the various thorough-fares. It drew a lot of attention. The rest of us would follow along behind passing out tracts and witnessing to people.
Later, I spent some time with people affiliated with Youth With A Mission. I discovered that YWAMers often did the same sort of thing: putting on skits and other visual arts performances to draw attention and then to witness to people. It was a very effective technique of what I call "pre-evangelism". In a sub-literate age, it may the only way that most people will get the message of the Gospel.
Throughout the Christian world, especially in Roman Catholic countries, you will have Passion processions. In many of these countries, you will find a few earnest souls that will actually attempt to experience the crucifixion by having themselves nailed to a cross. I doubt that the Roman Catholic Church officially approves of it, but I suppose that many of these people are expressing their own anguish for their sins and are doing some sort of penance.
The phenomenon of religious film represents a revival of iconography to spread the Gospel. Back in the time before the printed Bible, the principal method of teaching people the Gospel was the use of pictures. Yes, of course, you had traveling monks who taught the people the Gospel story, and I suppose those stories were related through the usual channels of rumor and conversation in villages where the itinerating preacher would speak. But the official means of learning the Gospel was through the Latin mass, and if you did not know Latin, like most commoners, you were left to gaze in wonderment at the church's icons and statues.
When the Reformers discovered the Scriptures, they were appalled at the level of ignorance and superstition which surrounded them. Some of them fanatically purged their lands of icons, burning churches, shrines, and monasteries. But most of them chose a different course and attacked the ignorance they saw with disciplined and systematic instruction from the printed Bible. It was a better method to transform the world. An amazing burst of freedom and advancement occurred in the Western world, most notably in the United States of America, which during its Colonial period and a century following, was the most literate nation in the world. It was also a society with the highest level of Biblical literacy.
Our leaders generally acknowledge that literacy in the West has suffered decline. Certainly, Biblical literacy has eroded alarmingly. It is much easier to find someone who can converse with you on Charlton Heston's film "The Planet of the Apes" than it is to find someone who is even remotely interested in discussing the Gospel message. That might change after the juggernaut of Gibson's "Passion", but it won't be clear if that will be a good thing. Admittedly, it is much easier to get people to watch a film than to read the book from which the film was taken. Will people feel compelled to read the four Gospels after seeing this film, or will the Sacred Text pale in comparison to the cinematic power of this film's visual effects? If the latter is the case, then we will have entered a different age of communicating the Gospel.
It will not have come without warning. For over a century and a half, American evangelicalism has indulged in the clerical story-teller. Successful preachers have been the men gifted at painting word pictures. They have built the largest churches and made the most money. They have been the envy of their more sedentary critics. In the end, however, all denominations have learned the lesson and have followed the same path: either touch the emotions or leave the playing field. Now, in the wake of the Passion the church which can most effectively communicate through film will be the most successful.
Film has become another form of liturgy. Liturgy has always been one of the arts, perhaps the most important art. Preaching tried to replace it, but as I said, it could do so only if it employed visual effects - oratory and later drama. Film has taken us back to the pictures on the church walls. It has taken us back to iconography. With its dialogue, it has brilliantly blended both preaching and liturgy. There is no subtle message in the fact that Gibson's production company is called "Icon". But can it be used as a substitute for worship? Can it create a genuine experience with God?
Grail theology will say that it is a false dualism to pit the word against the image. Indeed, the legends of the Grail themselves are based upon tales told in the old bardic tradition. Yes, we are commanded not to make any graven image and we are forbidden to adore it. But man is also made in an image - the image of God. So the Word is the image, and the image is the Word (John 1:1). And the WORD became flesh and dwelt among us, "and we beheld his glory". The power of the arts lies in the manifestation of that glory that lives within us. The arts cannot express a void. The Gospels are not void, nor is the faith of those who produced this picture. It represents more than a historical account - and even a living faith. It took a life of its own and became one of those precious moments when the Father reaches down to a fallen race to remind it that there is still a way out.
Jesus Christ was never the only man to be crucified or to be cruelly beaten. He was not the first and only man to experience a premature and ignominious death. Nor was He the first to ever suffer from a broken heart. In some respects, the film cannot express how the agony suffered by Christ was different than the sufferings of any other man. Audiences will share sympathy for the innocent man who suffers, and certainly the sinless Christ will arouse the greatest sympathy. But the suffering in His heart, not as man, but as God, we cannot see. Such a thing can only be spiritually revealed when we see the true nature of our sin. This is the theological plateau which cannot be reached by human effort; it comes from a revelation by God of Himself to the consciousness of each individual. That is what we call "the Grail Quest": the search for this experiential connection to God. To quote from my book, The Mother Heart of God
If we consider all the suffering in the world, it seems just to malign the character of the Creator and to lay it all at His feet. But that is a selfish and narrow point of view. We do not see the whole picture. If the Druids were correct and the universe is God's Body, then our suffering is God's suffering. As the Apostle says, "And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it" (1 Corinthians 12:26).
When we suffer, God suffers with us - every evil word, every murder, every rape, every abuse and violation. He feels the pain of every injury and suffers the anguish in ways we cannot imagine. And He sent us Christ - the symbol of God and the symbol of man - to suffer before our very eyes so that we might know that God's heart is broken. . .
[and] that God has forever absorbed His own wrath.
God's heart is still broken today. And as long as sin lives on in the world, it will remain broken. In this fact we can understand the Apostle's assertion that every sin crucifies Christ again (Hebrews 6:6; 10:29). In each and every sin, we both crucify Christ and crucify ourselves. We are all connected.
On this eve of cataclysm and renewal, of Earth changes and the testing of humanity, it might be that God is providing one more reminder of His message of love - a reminder that we can all experience together through the medium of this film - to find a cultural symbol to unite us in a common heritage of forgiveness and to ready us for what is to come.
A servant of Jesus,
James
Collect for the Day:
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.