Son of God, the Movie

The new movie, "Son of God," is now showing in cinemas.  I saw it this past weekend. The actor portraying Jesus didn't look very middle eastern....and the flogging and crucifixion were gruesome, but not nearly as extreme as Gibson's "Passion of Christ" was.  It is a faithful telling of the gospel story told with all the skills of a 21st century movie maker.  I loved the tight editing.  The Apostle John narrates the story.  The movie shares John's point of view, that Jesus is the eternal Word, the Son of God, whose miracles are signs of this truth, that Jesus was the paschal lamb, who died for the sins of the world.

As the first gospel writers and redactors did, this movie maker takes Jesus's words we know in one scene in scripture and puts them in Jesus' mouth in other settings.  Such as in the call story of Peter.  Brother Andrew and then James and John and father Zebedee are absent in the scene as this movie explores imaginatively what that scene might have been like.  Another story we know elsewhere in scripture, when Jesus meets Peter at the end of a disappointing day of fishing, is used to convey Peter's call.  Jesus wades out to the boat and climbs in and quickly Peter pulls in an unexpected huge catch.  Then Jesus says, "Follow me, I will make you a catcher of people."  Peter follows because of Jesus' extraordinary power.  As I ponder Peter's call story in scripture, I imagine Peter dropping his fishing nets and following, because of Jesus' authority, perhaps also because of what he had heard about him, but most of all because of his extraordinary loving manner with people, "his way," as Peter speaks of it later in the movie.

The first disciples called themselves not so much a church, but "people of the way," the way of Jesus.   That resonates with me as I ponder the emerging nature of the church today, and the purpose of Lake Michigan Presbytery.  "The purpose of the Presbytery of Lake Michigan is to challenge, encourage and equip worshiping communities of faith to make disciples of Jesus Christ with the gifts God gives them."   The movie scene which most dramatically portrayed this "way" in the movie for me was the call of Matthew, a tax collector.  Matthew's eyes rimmed with tears as Jesus approached him.  Sitting at his tax collecting table lonely in a crowd of people, shamed for his benefiting from the empire's tax burden on his neighbors, Jesus loving gaze at Matthew without a word communicated understanding, compassion, forgiving love.  Matthew's eyes filled with tears and over flowed, as he leaves the tax table to follow Jesus.  That scene is worth the price of admission!  

Who in your community, like Matthew, is starved for love?  How do you need to grow as a disciple to encounter such a person and show such love that does not need words.  Our colleagues serving as chaplains in hospitals, nursing homes, the military, and with hospice are on the front lines of such heart to heart encounters.  Pray for them.  Pray also for God to open our hearts to recognize love starved people we meet in our daily activities outside the walls of our sanctuaries. Disciple making is not a program.  It is a way of living and encountering others in the way of Jesus with the amazing life transforming love of God.

Deep Peace of Christ,

John

"The purpose of the Presbytery of Lake Michigan is 

to challenge, encourage, and equip worshiping communities of faith 

to make disciples of Jesus Christ with the gifts God gives them."