This brief phrase actually summarizes the entire reason why Jesus suffered and died on the cross.

In the midst of this discussion, we find a short but important phrase in verse 22: 'Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.' In Romans chapter 11, Paul is talking about the initial rejection of Christ by the Jews and the opportunity for salvation for both the Jews and the Gentiles. And whether or not any of us should choose to see the movie, it is hoped that this study will help us to better understand why Jesus had to suffer and die as He did. And thus we enter into this study on the context, the purpose, and the meaning of the Passion of the Christ. All that blood and gore (whether one is watching it on a movie screen or hearing about it in a gospel sermon) will have little meaning unless we first understand why it happened, and why it had to happen.

Truly all the excessive violence will make no sense without first understanding the context. The other article said, 'The movie drowns any message about Jesus' life or teachings beneath torrents of blood.' ' offers scant information about Jesus prior to His final 12 hours of torture and crucifixion, the brutality has almost no context.' The more favorable article said, 'The movie leaves so much untold about the story of Christ, but the good news is that we Christians get to tell the rest of that story.' And that is one very good way of looking at it. But both articles made the observation that the movie does leave out a great deal of the story of Jesus. One newspaper on that Wednesday contained on the front page two articles about the movie: one was quite positive in its comments, the other was rather negative. One article on the movie said, 'You must be prepared for whippings, flayings, beatings, the crunch of bones, the agony of screams, the cruelty of the sadistic centurions, the rivulets of blood that crisscross every inch of Jesus' body.' Indeed it does appear that the movie is very shocking and graphic. And the biggest discussion, it seems, was about the extent of the violence in this movie.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004, was the opening day for the movie, 'The Passion of the Christ,' a movie of much conversation and interest.

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