[BRIEF NOTE] Final Comment on The Passion

[rfmcdonald]

Like many other people in the blogosphere, I've been commenting on The Passion of the Christ. I raised my initial concerns here, and then wrote a review for it as a byproduct of my medieval devotional drama class here. Visiting The Atlantic's website, I found a link to this October 2001 interview conducted by Studs Terkel of Mamie Till Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, victim in 1955 at the age of 14 of one of the more infamous lynchings of African-Americans in the Jim Crow era. After describing how she identified her son's body, Ms. Till Mobley continued:

Later, I was reading the Scriptures. And it told how Jesus had been led from judgment hall to judgment hall all night long. How he had been beaten. And so much that no man would ever sustain the horror of his beating. That his face was just in ribbons. And I thought about it and I said, 'Lord, do you mean to tell me that Emmett's beating did not equal the one that was given to Jesus?' And I said, 'My God, what must Jesus have suffered?'

"And then I thought about some of the pictures we see, where he had this neat little crown of thorns and you see a few rivulets of blood coming down. But his face is intact. And according to Scriptures, that is not true. His visage was scarred more than any other man's had ever been or will be.

"And that's when I really was able to assess what Jesus had given for us, the love he had for us.

"And I saw Emmett and his scars. Lord, I saw the stigmata of Jesus. The spirit spoke to me plainly as I'm talking to you now. Jesus had come and died that we might have a right to eternal life or eternal hell or damnation. Emmett had died that men might have freedom here on earth. That we might have a right to life.