[Today’s the final day of my Pre-Christmas Marathon, and for my final review, I chose a religious film as a reminder of my faith at Christmas. A very Merry Christmas to all!]

 

When Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem,
What did He know in His heart?
Was he a child, a blank slate like all of them,
Or was He wise from the start?

How would it be for His mother and Joseph
To know that their Son was the Lord?
Would His divinity capture much notice,
Or would it be veiled and ignored?

What questions and theories must Mary have pondered
While holding her Lord in His youth!
For centuries since, the same matters we’ve wondered,
And still only God knows the truth.
_________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

It’s no secret that faith-based films usually play to a niche market of believers, yet even as a Christian myself, I still must admit that few of them transcend the usual preaching-to-the-choir lessons that are reassuring but rarely challenging. Bible-based stories are particularly predictable since I and most viewers know these stories like the back of our hands and have probably seen multiple versions of the same tales. I don’t mean to dis Biblical films because I think more quality adaptations should be made, as they were back in Hollywood’s Golden Age, but The Young Messiah stands separate of most of its cousins because it focuses on Jesus’ childhood, a time that is barely mentioned in the Bible.

Based on Anne Rice’s novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, the film follows Jesus (curly-haired Adam Greaves-Neal) as a seven-year-old as His family leaves Egypt to return to Nazareth and visit Jerusalem. A key question that apologists have surely debated for centuries is that, if Jesus was God, when did He know? Did He shift from a naïve child to a Messiah knowledgeable of God’s will when He reached a certain age? The Young Messiah posits such questions earnestly as Jesus himself wonders what is so special about Him, and Mary (Sara Lazzaro) and Joseph (Vincent Walsh) debate whether they should reveal the miraculous story of His birth or wait. As Joseph tells his adopted son, “your questions are the questions of a child, but the answers are the answers for a man.” Such discussion could have been boring (and perhaps to uninvolved viewers, it is), but it’s treated as an important question for a warm and close-knit family. Said family is also kept personable by the jovial presence of Jesus’ uncle Cleopas (Christian McKay) and the relationships of Jesus and his cousins, one of whom admits he is jealous of Jesus’ specialness.

None of this is in the Bible, a fact that has derailed many a speculative story in the past. It didn’t actually happen this way, but it could have. My VC refused to watch The Young Messiah because of its non-Biblical basis, but unlike revisionist accounts that question the roots of faith, The Young Messiah approaches its material with a key belief as part of its foundation: Jesus is God. In all its discussions of what that meant for a young Jesus, it never questions that tenet of Christianity and ultimately affirms it. I don’t consider it wrong that the filmmakers have turned a debate over Jesus’ early days into a feature film because the respect they feel toward the subject is obvious and its connections to actual Bible events anything but sacrilege. Certain aspects are even kept greatly conservative, such as making Jesus’ “brother” James his cousin, a detail held more closely by Catholics than Protestants.

A good example of the film’s taking a credible idea and running with it is depicting Herod’s son Antipas as a paranoid weirdo who has inherited his father’s fear of being overthrown by the promised Messiah. Since that fear made his father murder the infants of Bethlehem, Antipas continues the thirst for blood by hiring a Roman centurion (Sean Bean) to hunt Him down. Since we know the Biblical account, we know what will not happen, but the film’s narrative remains interesting and sometimes tense because, unlike most Biblical films, we don’t know exactly how its embellishments will play out. Likewise, another threat is kept present as Jesus is shadowed by a demon (Rory Keenan) who whispers into others’ ears of who Jesus might be; it makes sense that Satan knew about the young Jesus, but any involvement he might have had before their confrontation in the desert must be left to the realms of speculation.

It helps too that The Young Messiah is of a respectable quality, fitting in nicely with other Biblical films of artistic merit, such as The Nativity Story and The Passion of the Christ. The cinematography is consistently handsome, especially as Jesus’ family journeys across the Judean countryside. There is a bit of an overreliance on slow-motion when certain scenes are meant to have spiritual significance, and perhaps letting the profound moments speak for themselves could have made them stronger.

Yet The Young Messiah does what few faith-based films do in depicting a story that’s never been told while keeping its basis in the Gospels. Even in Jesus’ final monologue, the simple fictional lines hold an insightful truth: beyond coming to die, Jesus became man to live, both as a child and as an adult, so He could relate to His creations in all things but sin. The Young Messiah may appeal mainly to Christian audiences, but it has more food for thought than most Christian films try to deliver.

Best line: (Joseph) “I know you have many questions, but you need to let them sleep in your heart for now. Why? Because your questions are the questions of a child, but the answers are the answers for a man. That is one bridge I cannot build. I don’t know how. But God can, and we must trust Him.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2016 S.G. Liput
437 Followers and Counting

 

 

 

Praying in the garden

Is a Man Whose heart is hardened

To the fact that He will soon endure the worst of any pain.

That devil snake unnerves Him,

Saying man does not deserve Him;

Jesus nonetheless resigns Himself to die, but not in vain.

 

He remains reserved and docile

When His ally and apostle

Judas gives his last betraying kiss to seize the Son of Man.

His other friends desert Him

As the soldiers bind and hurt Him.

He is led away, according to the Jewish leaders’ plan.

 

The Sanhedrin asks and mocks Him,

But it seems that nothing shocks Him,

And He’s all but silent till He says He is indeed divine.

They’re infuriated by it,

And, regardless if He’s quiet,

They insist that He be put to death because He crossed their line.

 

As He’s taken for His sentence,

Judas cannot find repentance

And is hounded by his demons till he hangs himself in grief.

Meanwhile, as Jesus eyes him,

Peter thrice in fear denies Him,

And he flees and weeps in bitterness for slandering his chief.

 

Jesus stands in Pilate’s power,

But He does not beg or cower;

He stands silent as the Jews accuse their King of wicked lies.

Though both he and Herod gather

That He’s innocent, he rather

Has his soldiers scourge the Man, perhaps to forgo His demise.

 

Still the Jews demand damnation

And will not accept placation,

And they free the foul Barabbas rather than a guiltless Man.

Pilate fears a new uprising

So he ends up compromising.

Pilate cleans his hands while giving in to his taxpayers’ plan.

 

As the soldiers strike and beat Him,

All the angry crowds mistreat Him,

And He’s forced to bear the heavy cross on which He will be hung.

Through the teeming streets, He carries

Quite a weight, that’s also Mary’s,

As His mother watches helplessly, unlike when He was young.

 

When He strains His final sinew,

When He falls and can’t continue,

They compel a man named Simon to assist Him with the beams.

When a woman comforts Jesus,

Wiping off the blood that frees us,

All the soldiers start to beat Him until Simon intervenes.

 

On the hill of crucifixion,

They complete the Lord’s affliction,

And they nail His hands and feet against the hard, abrasive wood.

As He knew the night preceding,

When His followers were feeding,

He is lifted overhead in utter pain for mankind’s good.

 

As the Jewish leaders scorn Him,

And His friends and mother mourn Him,

He forgives His own accusers, barely drawing enough breath.

When He feels abandoned even

By the God He did believe in,

He gives up His soul and spirit and thus triumphs over death.

 

As a sudden storm blows straight in,

There is only loss for Satan,

Though disciples round the cross are still in sorrow for their Lord.

Mary’s woe may dominate her,

But it’s only three days later

That the Savior Jesus rises, having life for all restored.

_____________________

 

First off, let me say that this poem and review are written solely from my position as a Christian, more so than my other posts. I personally believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and those of the world, but like so many Christians, my convictions sometimes tend toward complacency. It’s easy to skim the Gospels and read that Jesus was flogged, mocked, and nailed to a cross, but after years of such tame review, His death often fails to achieve the level of meaning it once had. It takes a brutally honest portrayal like The Passion of the Christ to help viewers to fully appreciate the severity of his suffering, to recognize just how much He endured for me and for you.

Embroiled in controversy, Mel Gibson’s foreign-language, cinematic passion play, the highest-grossing R-rated film in the US, is exceedingly violent, an almost continuous cavalcade of tortures and ugliness, yet Jim Caviezel is a subtle and credible Jesus, bestowing a patient solemnity on all he suffers. Gibson himself has stated that the film falls short of depicting the crucifixion in its full horror (which is true to some extent since Jesus was likely crucified naked rather than with the traditional loincloth), while others have called the film’s agonies overwhelmingly excessive and more than enough to kill a man. To address the latter grievance, I must point out that Jesus did not merely suffer physically but spiritually as well. In addition to all the blood and humiliation, the weight of mankind’s sin throughout the ages was piled on Him so unbearably that God the Father turned His back on His Son. As opposed as I am to violence, I see The Passion of the Christ as an unflinching reminder of the Lord’s atonement to snap unexcitable believers like myself to a fuller appreciation of it.

The film also possesses notable artistic merit that cements its status as one of the quintessential Jesus movies. The literal interpretation of Genesis 3:15 (about crushing a snake’s head) is a brilliant symbol of Jesus’ final determination to go through with the dreaded task ahead of Him, and well-placed flashbacks offer meaningful respites from the carnage. The depiction of the Last Supper is saved for the arrival at Calvary as a fitting remembrance of Christ offering His Body and Blood. Other smaller details also hold significance, such as Mary’s wiping up her Son’s blood after the scourging: in the Catholic Church, any spilling of the Eucharistic wine/Blood is an occasion for swift and solemn purification. The most moving scene is Jesus’ rendezvous with His mother on the Via Dolorosa; after a previous good-humored scene together, this heart-breaking reunion portrays one of Jesus’ falls, interspersed with snippets of a childhood accident, and speaks to anyone who has given or received maternal love.

While I now watch The Passion of the Christ around Good Friday every year, it took me a while to muster the courage to view it, and my VC still cannot bring herself to watch such a disturbingly brutal film. I agree it is gruesome (particularly the wince-inducing scourging scene) and certainly not appropriate for children, but light is only fully appreciated and comprehended amid darkness. That light is even portrayed in the brief final scene, a refreshingly explicit reference to the Resurrection compared with artistically oblique endings in Ben-Hur and Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s not for everyone, but The Passion of the Christ is the most spiritually stirring film I’ve seen in some time, one that everyone who can handle it ought to see.

Best line (again given added depth after witnessing the horrors He endured): (Jesus, from the cross) “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.”

 

Rank: Still List-Worthy (#101)

 

© 2014 S. G. Liput

290 Followers and Counting

Praying in the garden

Is a Man Whose heart is hardened

To the fact that He will soon endure the worst of any pain.

That devil snake unnerves Him,

Saying man does not deserve Him;

Jesus nonetheless resigns Himself to die, but not in vain.

 

He remains reserved and docile

When His ally and apostle

Judas gives his last betraying kiss to seize the Son of Man.

His other friends desert Him

As the soldiers bind and hurt Him.

He is led away, according to the Jewish leaders’ plan.

 

The Sanhedrin asks and mocks Him,

But it seems that nothing shocks Him,

And He’s all but silent till He says He is indeed divine.

They’re infuriated by it,

And, regardless if He’s quiet,

They insist that He be put to death because He crossed their line.

 

As He’s taken for His sentence,

Judas cannot find repentance

And is hounded by the demons till he hangs himself in grief.

Meanwhile, as Jesus eyes him,

Peter thrice in fear denies Him,

And he flees and weeps in bitterness for slandering his chief.

 

Jesus stands in Pilate’s power,

But He does not beg or cower;

He stands silent as the Jews accuse their King of wicked lies.

Though both he and Herod gather

That He’s innocent, he rather

Has his soldiers scourge the Man, perhaps to forgo His demise.

 

Still the Jews demand damnation

And will not accept placation,

And they free the foul Barabbas rather than a guiltless Man.

Pilate fears a new uprising

So he ends up compromising.

Pilate cleans his hands while giving in to his taxpayers’ plan.

 

As the soldiers strike and beat Him,

All the angry crowds mistreat Him,

And He’s forced to bear the heavy cross on which He will be hung.

Through the teeming streets, He carries

Quite a weight, that’s also Mary’s,

As His mother watches helplessly, unlike when He was young.

 

When He strains His final sinew,

When He falls and can’t continue,

They compel a man named Simon to assist Him with the beams.

When a woman comforts Jesus,

Wiping off the blood that frees us,

All the soldiers start to beat Him until Simon intervenes.

 

On the hill of crucifixion,

They complete the Lord’s affliction,

And they nail His hands and feet against the hard, abrasive wood.

As He knew the night preceding,

When His followers were feeding,

He is lifted overhead in utter pain for mankind’s good.

 

As the Jewish leaders scorn Him,

And His friends and mother mourn Him,

He forgives His own accusers, barely drawing enough breath.

When He feels abandoned even

By the God He did believe in,

He gives up His soul and spirit and thus triumphs over death.

 

As a sudden storm blows straight in,

There is only loss for Satan,

Though disciples round the cross are still in sorrow for their Lord.

Mary’s woe may dominate her,

But it’s only three days later

That the Savior Jesus rises, having life for all restored.

_____________________

 

First off, let me say that this poem and review are written solely from my position as a Christian, more so than my other posts. I personally believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and those of the world, but like so many Christians, my convictions sometimes tend toward complacency. It’s easy to skim the Gospels and read that Jesus was flogged, mocked, and nailed to a cross, but after years of such tame review, His death often fails to achieve the level of meaning it once had. It takes a brutally honest portrayal like The Passion of the Christ to help viewers to fully appreciate the severity of his suffering, to recognize just how much He endured for me and for you.

Embroiled in controversy, Mel Gibson’s foreign-language, cinematic passion play, the highest-grossing R-rated film in the US, is exceedingly violent, an almost continuous cavalcade of tortures, yet Jim Caviezel is a subtle and credible Jesus, bestowing a patient solemnity on all he suffers. Gibson himself has stated that the film falls short of depicting the crucifixion in its full horror (which is true to some extent since Jesus was likely crucified naked rather than with the traditional loincloth), while others have called the film’s agonies overwhelmingly excessive and more than enough to kill a man. To address the latter grievance, I must point out that Jesus did not merely suffer physically but spiritually as well. In addition to all the blood and humiliation, the weight of mankind’s sin throughout the ages was piled on Him so unbearably that God the Father turned His back on His Son. As opposed as I am to violence, I see The Passion of the Christ as an unflinching reminder of the Lord’s atonement to snap unexcitable believers like myself to a fuller appreciation of it.

The film also possesses notable artistic merit that cements its status as one of the quintessential Jesus movies. The literal interpretation of Genesis 3:15 (about crushing a snake’s head) is a brilliant symbol of Jesus’ final determination to go through with the dreaded task ahead of Him, and well-placed flashbacks offer meaningful respites from the carnage. The depiction of the Last Supper is saved for the arrival at Calvary as a fitting remembrance of Christ offering His Body and Blood. Other smaller details also hold significance, such as Mary’s wiping up her Son’s blood after the scourging: in the Catholic Church, any spilling of the Eucharistic wine/Blood is an occasion for swift and solemn purification. The most moving scene is Jesus’ rendezvous with His mother on the Via Dolorosa; after a previous good-humored scene, this heart-breaking reunion portrays Jesus’ fall, interspersed with snippets of a childhood accident, and speaks to anyone who has given or received maternal love.

While I now watch The Passion of the Christ on Good Friday every year, it took me a while to muster the courage to view it, and my VC still cannot bring herself to watch such a disturbingly bloodthirsty film. I agree it is gruesome (particularly the gratuitous scourging scene) and certainly not appropriate for children, but light is only fully appreciated and comprehended amid darkness. That light is even portrayed in the brief final scene, a refreshingly explicit reference to the Resurrection compared with artistically oblique endings in Ben-Hur and Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s not for everyone, but The Passion of the Christ is the most spiritually stirring film I’ve seen in some time, one that everyone who can handle it ought to see.

Best line (again given added depth after witnessing the horrors He endured): (Jesus, from the cross) “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.”

 

Artistry: 10

Characters/Actors: 9

Entertainment: 4

Visual Effects: 9

Originality: 8

Watchability: 4

Other (deep spiritual meaning regardless of violence): +8

 

TOTAL: 52 out of 60

 

Next: #100 – You’ll see  🙂

© 2014 S. G. Liput

227 Followers and Counting