As we enter into Good Friday and the most solemn day of the year for most Christians, I wanted to share this beautiful and haunting music video. It is sung by two of my favorite artists, Brad Paisley and Sara Evans, and they do a masterful job. The video itself contains excerpts mainly from the Passion of the Christ film. Please be warned that the film and the clip can be difficult to watch in parts for many folks due to the realistic and graphic portrayal of the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior.
Nevertheless, as Pope John Paul II was reported as having said upon seeing a private screening of the film upon its release, "It is as it was."
Blessed be God forever! Amen!
8 comments:
I wanted to share this beautiful and haunting music video.
Merriam Webster gives this as one definition of haunting:
“To have a disquieting or harmful effect on: TROUBLE”
That is how the video spoke to me. Like a ghost you can see, but cannot hear, the video was … troubling. I know there are chains rattling in the attic, but I cannot hear them. I assume the rattler of these chains rattles with intent to haunt. That is, after all, the rumored effect.
John, I think "disquieting" does a wonderful job in its appropo descriptiveness.
The Romans executed millions of people who hung on the cross a lot longer than Jesus. Why Christians, and Catholics in particular, get hung up on his suffering which was a daily sight in any Roman city and often lined miles and miles of roads as a reminder to rebelious slaves is beyond me. His was a totally typical execution for the day. I get about the same reaction watching this as I do SAW II or some other torture porn horror flick... at least the special effects are better.
Free, it is a Christian’s understanding that Christ’s crucifixion was not merely a horrible physical act in and of itself, not to mention the flogging he took beforehand, but the added emotional dimension of a torturous death on the cross by those that He loved that incalculably increased his suffering.
Indeed if a stranger harms you, the pain you suffer and anger you may feel are simply because of the physical act inflicted upon you. However, If you were to be harmed in such a grotesque manner by someone you loved, how much more horrible and painful would this act be?
As Christ is God and Creator, His love for all mankind was and is present and everlasting. Therefore, to be betrayed and tortured despite having never sinned or acted in a way as to warrant this punishment by the very creation of man that He loved must have increased his suffering to an unimaginable degree.
Indeed the 19th Century English theologian, Brooke Foss Westcott, states this far better than I can.
“We arm ourselves against pain by checking our emotions, by hardening ourselves to opposition, by closing our eyes to the extent of the evil about us. But it was not so with Christ. No isolation of absolute purity separated Him from the outcast, while His sinlessness was the measure of His loathing at sin. Every denunciation of woe which He uttered was wrung from a righteousness which was but the other side of love. The wrongs which He endured were more terrible as a symptom of spiritual blindness in those who inflicted them than as a personal agony. How often when He was threatened, and rejected and reviled, must the prayer have arisen in His heart which found a final expression upon the Cross: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. They knew not, but He knew, and even then He bore the burden of their hardness and unbelief.”
Pain, lots of people go scourged before the got crucified, Jesus isn't special in that regard. His execution was very typical for it's time. I won't get into the religious stuff with you because that falls into what happened after he died on that cross...
Free, it's also important what happened before he died on the cross. Jesus, as stated several times in T's comments above, was innocent of any and all crimes. Pilate knew he was innocent, but he caved at pressure from Caiphas and the other Pharisees who felt insecure in their positions at the thought of Jesus being the Messiah. Truth cannot be seen by those unwilling to accept it. Can you see it, Free?
No Matt, I can't. The Romans exectuted likely a great many innocent people, not to mention millions of slaves fighting for their freedom over it's thousand year history. They killed every citizen of Carthage, and sewed salt into the soil so no one could ever live there again. Crassus lined the apian way with 6000 slaves on crosses after winning the 3rd Servile war shortly before Jesus's birth.
Clearly, being crucified harly entitled on to an eclusive membership in any club.
As for Jewish motivation, claiming to be God was a clear violation of Jewish law - assuming of course you aren't God- and clearly the Jewish clergy didn't think Jesus was the son of God. They acted consistantly within their legal framework. We of course don't do things like that 2000 years later of course, but shuch practices were fairly common for the era. Heck, Muslims still do it.
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