“If we must have a Jesus let us have a legitimate Jesus.”
- Stephen Dedalus, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
So after just having seen the big Son of God (2014) movie, my initial reaction is “Meh.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Jesus, I love movies, and above all I love Jesus movies… Ok, I actually love Jesus more than Jesus movies but you get my drift. At some points in the movie I was rather impressed with artistic decisions the filmmakers made but others times where I felt I was watching a bad Leslie Nielsen-esk parody of The Passion of the Christ (2004) (i.e. meticulous recreation of scene staging sans any humor).The movie uses John the evangelist as our window into the life of Christ. It begins with John as an old man living on Patmos narrating to us the prologue of his gospel weaved into flashback scenes from the history of the Jewish people. The virgin birth is clearly understood to be alluded to by this narrative, but never explicitly mentions. We see baby Jesus born in a manger and visited by magi. Then the adult life of Jesus is kicked off with the call of Peter/miraculous catch of fish. When Jesus approached Peter’s boat and calls him by name to catch a bunch of fish it is not clear if Peter has any idea who Jesus is. But Peter does seem to feel obligated to show this wandering hippy who invited himself into the boat that there aren't any fish biting. Yadda, yadda, yadda… Jesus invites Peter to “change the world.”
A while later in the film we have the call of Matthew. The scene begins with a bunch of people griping about those nasty tax collectors who work for the Romans. Rather than directly reprimanding the Pharisees and disciples, Jesus, being a good Rabbi, recognizes a teachable moment when it presents itself. He tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector where they both go to the temple to pray. The Pharisee thanks God he is not like the tax collector whereas the tax collector asks God's mercy. Jesus praises the humility of the tax collector and condemns the self-righteousness of the Pharisee. Well, low and behold, it was not a made up parable after all but biographical about our man Matthew who subsequently abandons his sinful career to join the band of merry disciples.
These two scenes give us a pretty good idea of who Jesus is in the film. He is very much a divine miracle worker who can manipulate the world around him (as attested to by the many miracles he performs) but also has a supernatural knowledge of the human heart. His knowledge does have its limits in the film. Jesus is surprised by the deaths of Lazarus and John the Baptist. Also the night before he is crucified Jesus experiences some flash-forwards and is like, “Oh snap! This is my last supper.” (I think that might actually be a paraphrase.)
The trial and crucifixion were the weakest part of the film (this is perhaps because The Passion did them so well). Judas was basically duped into helping Caiaphas whose biggest beef with JC seemed to be a comment he made to a tween girl about how the temple would be destroyed. In fairness Jesus did say this after he very nonchalantly knocked over four money-changing tables. Regardless, the film did leave me wondering why on earth Caiaphas was scheming to take down the mostly harmless Nazarene while showing little concern for this other Jew named Barabbas who was actually instigating armed riots with the Romans. Just saying… I personally would be much more concerned Pilate would be much more pissed off with the Jews for the guy who murdered Romans rather that the guy who preached peace. But maybe that’s why I’m not a Jewish high priest. One other off putting thought I had during this part of the film was, “For someone being crucified, Jesus sure seems to be smiling a lot.”
The resurrection scenes were very well done and curiously had strong Eucharistic and Petrine theology associated with them. After a modified great commission Jesus disappears (err… Ascends?) and Peter announces that there is a whole lot of work to be done. Then we return to John on Patmos and hear how all the other disciples were martyred in spreading the Gospel. In a very creative and poignant conclusion to the film Jesus appears to the aged John and starts speaking the book of Revelation. Finally, Jesus tells/warns the audience that he is coming back soon.
Now although there were less than a dozen people in the 10 o’clock “premiere” I went to, there was a 7PM showing of the movie that was sold out. A Lutheran church in town booked the theater and invited their congregation to use the film as an outreach tool. I arrived at the theater early enough to hear some of the reactions of my Lutheran friends as they left. “Powerful” was a word that was repeated numerous times. And I think, clearly, for people of faith this can be a very powerful film. I wish it would have been as inspirational and thought provoking as The Passion of the Christ was a decade ago, but that is as a Jesus movie aficionado speaking. I have no doubt that this film will be inspirational and thought provoking for many within the Christian world; however, for some of the critiques I mentioned and others I left out I do not foresee this film having nearly the cultural impact The Passion did. Which is a shame, because it is a great story… nay, the greatest story. And if you’re not going to see the movie (and even if you do) I’d strongly encourage you to spend some time reading one of the original versions this Lent. They’re actually cracking good reads!
