Thursday, March 20, 2008

Good Friday - The Day of Atonement


Posted by revolution at 7:39 AM  

3 comments:

revolution said...

I wanted that video to speak for itself without any commentary by me, so I refrained from adding any text to the post. But I still wanted to add to the comments section my thoughts on the video.

This is a promo video for the Good Friday service at Mars Hill Church in Seattle (Mark Driscoll).

Yes, the video is both gory and disturbing, even for my tastes. Driscoll says that they are going to re-enact the crucifixion at their Good Friday service. Having seen this video, I'm sure he means it when he says that children and people with weak stomachs should not attend the service.

If you find yourself shaking your head at this depiction of violence and blood, let me offer you this story from this past week.

My wife showed a Bible video to her first grade class this week about the Triumphal Entry, Last Supper, Jesus Praying in the Garden, His Arrest, Trial, Crucifixion, and Rising from the Dead. Because it was a video for children, many parts of this story were left out - AND THE CHILDREN NOTICED.

The children noticed that the parts about Jesus being hit with fists and sticks, being spit upon, being beaten, and being crucified with nails and stabbed with a spear were all missing from the "sanitized" video. Now surely, showing these children a sanitized version was definitely a good course of action for my wife.

But as adults, how many of us have sanitized the Easter Story? How many of us want to forget the pain and blood involved?

I've only watched The Passion of the Christ once. Once was enough. But sometimes I second guess that mentality. Should I make a concious effort to remind myself visually of that which is so vivid in the text of the Bible?

I don't know. But I do know that a dime-sized wafer and a thimble of grape juice don't do it justice.

Which is a more powerful symbol? A wafer and juice, or a visual representation of the actual events that took place?

March 20, 2008 at 10:29 AM  
michelle said...

thanks for this...

March 20, 2008 at 12:55 PM  
Anonymous said...

Awesome video! I have to give it to Mark Driscoll in that he holds nothing back. I would love to see this service just because the church usually does punk out when it comes to the death and mutilation of Jesus. And yes I did say mutilation.

You know that most kids these days would ask where is all the violence in this story because they are subjected to all this stuff just by watching TV at home. Is the fact that our kids are desensitized to violence and a lot of other things a problem. I would have to ride the fence on this because I think that certain things kids should understand the severity of the matter so that they respect the dangers but also there are many things that kids should not be exposed to until a correct age.

But in any terms a child should always know that Jesus died, and by that I mean inhumanely killed, for the forgiveness of all the things that we choose to screw up everyday of our lives.

So stop frontin' and keep it real!

WORD UP

March 20, 2008 at 1:42 PM  

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