Thursday, 25 September 2008

• The Last Tempation of Christ

  Monday night, I went and saw this movie as a requirement for one of the many classes I am taking which consequently prevent me from updating this site very often.  When I first headed on my merry way to watch the movie, I was under the impression that we would be watching The Gospel According to St. Matthew.  However, as that movie was currently not in the library, our teacher had to choose a different movie, and so he chose The Last Temptation of Christ.  I must say that I would highly recommend you NOT, I repeat NOT go and watch this movie.Once you finish reading what i have to say, I am sure you will agree that you probably do not want to see this movie.

  The movie begins with a narration by the main character, Jesus, and then narrows in on him building crosses for the Romans.  Now, after just the first about 30 seconds of this movie, I'm already staring at the screen wondering what in the world the director was thinking!  Throughout the course of the movie, I asked that question several more times as the class was exposed to very vivd scenes, that about a decade ago would be rated R but in today's age are simply PG-13.  Many of the main points of Jesus' life were more accurately portrayed, however, the ending was by far the hardest to watch. 

  At the end of the movie comes the part of the crucifixion.  It began quite accurate with how Jesus was accused, beaten and then nailed to the cross.  However, in this movie, while he is hanging on the cross, he asks for the pain to go away and suddenly, this young girl shows up and all the outside noise that was heard before can no longer be heard.  This young girl helps him off of the cross and leads him away to get married to none other than Mary Magdalene (sorry if I mispelled that...).  After they have quite a night, Mary dies and Jesus, in his rage and anger, takes an axe to the ground.  The young girl asks him if he is trying to kill God and then tells him that there is another Mary, the brother of Lazarus.  The next thing you know, he's married to her and they have several children and live a normal life.  When Jesus is old and withered and about to die, his disciples come back to him and Judas, who did betray him in the movie (even though he tried to refuse to), tells Jesus of how mad they are with him and that he failed in his duty to die for the sins of others.  At first, he responds saying that the young girl told him he was not the Son of God, that he wasn't supposed to die on the cross to save the world.  Hearing this, Judas turns to this young girl and asks if she looks like an angel, or a devil, revealing that this young and innocent looking child is actually Satan.

  Thankfully, the movie does end somewhat appropriately with Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, but for those who watch this movie and are not believers, they are immediately given reason to question the faith on the basis that even Christ gave in to temptation and did not live a perfect life.  As a Christian myself, I must say that it was hard to watch this movie and then hear the comments about it afterwards.  Even my own roommates began to talk of the stupidity of Christianity because of this now-revealed gaping hole in their savior.  The next day in class, our teacher informed us that the basis for this movie actually came from the Koran, not the Bible.  This makes me feel tons better, but I  know it changed nothing in the minds of roommates.

  I am glad to know that we have the assurance of the validity of the Bible to know that Jesus did die on the cross and that He did not falter in what He knew must be done to save us all.  In the past several weeks, while attending the Baptist Student Union here on campus, where the leader has talked about how we can say that the Bible is true and real.  Well, the one thing I remember the most is that the Bible has more original documents than any other writing found from during, before and after its time.  With that knowledge, it is all but impossible to refute the truth of God's word.

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