We live in a graphic society. Our movies have become more gory, more horrifying, and more disturbing. Hollywood doesn’t hold much back. We are drawn to the detail and the emotion that it evokes. If a wound would draw blood, we do not want it to be left to the imagination; we want to see it. Or at least it would appear the general public does.
When I was in 9th grade my older brother went to see Jurassic Park in the theater and he protectively informed me that I may not be able to handle it. I will admit when I finally saw it on video I spent most of my time leaping off the couch, but I proudly handled the gore which had been unseen in my world thus far. It was the first of many movies I would subject myself to that continued to push the envelope of graphic images and disturbing material. I have since learned that it is best for my mental and spiritual well-being to avoid these types of movies or television shows, but there is one graphic movie that I will continue to watch because the imagery actually brings a lot of benefit.
As many did, I went to the theater in 2004 to see The Passion of the Christ and left drained of tears and emotionally raw. While many shied away from the violence, I appreciated it. Having grown up in the church, I was accustomed at a very young age to the idea of Jesus dying on the cross. I suppose it was oversimplified when I was a child in order to protect my sensitivities and then as I grew older my own spiritual lethargy lead me to never contemplate the graphic nature of the event. And on another hand, in my spiritual immaturity, I had always minimized what took place by considering that dying must be as simple for God as any of His other feats.
It is easy to become desensitized. In a world where pain and suffering is a common companion to our friends and families in the form of illness, addiction, emotional trauma, tragedy, and the like; we find ourselves drawing the line of how far we can even allow ourselves to care about our neighbor… or that homeless guy in Detroit… or that hungry kid in Africa. Sometimes it is just too much to even consider our own sorrows to allow sorrow to creep in for mankind. And maybe that’s why the box office blows up with movies that lead us to become desensitized to some of the pain and suffering that exists in our own small world.
Or maybe, for some of us, it reminds us that we do care, when we have tried so hard to not care just so we can function.
It is why I welcome Good Friday with a somber heart, because it is necessary to cause ourselves to care. Sometimes we need that reminder. And especially as a Christian who loves to delight in the gifts of my Savior, I need to remember that it came at great expense.
He suffered. Contemplate it. Cry about it. Experience it. Remember it. Because the joy that comes after realizing why He did it, will restore you enough to care about who He did it for…