'Behold, I make all things new.' A reflection on "The Passion of the Christ"

Ever since I was young, Holy Week was characterized by presentations of the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. From Fr. Patrick Peyton's Family Rosary Crusade productions (the one where Christ's face was always turned from the audience) to Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth to the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar, my Holy Weeks throughout the years were saturated with opportunities to watch and reflect upon the life of Christ.

When I committed my life to follow Christ and trusted Him as my absolute savior in the early 1990s, I gained a greater appreciation for the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord, building upon the foundation that was built by those years of exposure to Passion presentations. Ironically, going into the twenty-first century, such Passion presentations have become scarce, if not totally dispensed with, on Philippine national TV. Going through the local channels this Good Friday morning in the hope of finding a Passion story, I was disappointed to find telenovela rerun marathons and Dragonball being played. Thank God for DVDs. I pulled out my copy of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and watched it, continuing my personal tradition of mass media reflection. I do this to bring my faith to a more tangible, even visceral, level. I don't want to just know in my head; I want to know in my heart.

Watching the film (albeit interrupted by technical problems where my player jumped several chapters forward) made me relive the horror of what Christ went through to save sinners like me. It was terrible, and brought back my old childhood fear of detailed crucifixes. But the horror of it made me realize the awfulness of my sinfulness, that the Son of God had to go through such an ordeal to pay for my sins, and the sins of the whole world. Thus I am all the more grateful and all the more compelled to extend grace to those around me.

But something of bigger significance came to the fore. During the scene where Jesus was carrying His cross and His mother Mary came to Him, Gibson took some artistic license by putting to Jesus' lips words that can be found much later in Scripture:

"Behold, I make all things new."

This quote from Christ can be found in Revelation 21:5 (the above wording is from the King James Version). Watching the accompanying features of the DVD revealed that the producers intended this line to be the theological backbone of the entire production. And it was fitting, because "in [Christ] the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through [Christ] to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross" (Colossians 1:19-20 ESV). Romans 8:19-21 (ESV) says "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. . . in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."

This is a big departure from the soul-centered salvation that many churches preach today, both Catholic and Protestant/ Evangelical. Yes, Christ died to pay the penalty of sin that those who believe in Him would have eternal life. Yes, souls of those who believe in Him are saved from eternal damnation as per John 3:16. But the salvation that Christ purchased with His blood did not stop there. As the passages from Romans 8 and Colossians 1 attest, the salvation of souls, of human beings is just the beginning of a cosmic plan to redeem and restore all of fallen creation. God wants His world back, the world that was cursed because of Adam's disobedience and rebellion (Genesis 3:17). He wants to purify it from all corruption and detestable thing so that He might live in it with His people and be truly God and Lord over all (Revelation 21:3). And such cosmic scale redemption and renewal began advancing in earnest at the beachhead that is the Cross.

The Gospel as given in the Passion presentations reflect the Gospel as it is preached throughout the centuries: "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4 ESV). This is to fulfill Christ's message that "the Kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15 ESV). Putting these together, Philip Yancey quotes John Howard Yoder as saying "The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come."*

Whenever I see a depiction of Christ being raised up on the cross, I now hear those reassuring words, "Behold, I make all things new!"

May it be so soon, Lord!

*Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Mandaluyong City: OMF Literature, Inc., 1998), 196. Emphases mine.