The just released movie Killing Jesus is another example of the #1 reason you should be in church this Easter.
I have to give them points and kudos for the realism and professionalism of the production. Killing Jesus, the movie, was truly a gritty attempt to present the life and graphic death of Jesus.
However, I truly wish there did not need to be a however. The story was told from a secular view of Jesus and His claims to be the Son of God. There was so much good, so much to be commended, so much that was real life. Yet the movie ignored the spiritual and definitely anything supernatural. It made no claim as to the deity of Jesus, the power of God or even to the actual existence of God. It merely portrays Jesus saying He was God's Son. It was historical, plain and simple. Even the LA Times said, "The secular outweighs the spiritual" and that there is only "some minor wonderment." How do you seriously tell the story of Jesus with only "minor wonderment"? Even Variety calls the depiction "a muted emphasis on Christ’s divinity."
Simon's fishing trip may have just been a coincidence. Jesus cared for a leper, but didn't heal her. Jesus protectively hugs a little boy but was he really demon possessed in the first place?
A secular telling of Jesus' life is not inherently bad or morally wrong. But it is the way the movie painstakingly steers clear of addressing the issue of whether or not Jesus was Who He said He was. For example, Lazarus is mentioned in the movie and Jesus even visits his home. According to the Bible the fact that people claimed Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead was a strong reason the religious rulers wanted Jesus gone. But the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is not only skipped over in the movie, it's not even mentioned, not even as an oddity or potential parlor trick.
And at times the movie goes beyond ignoring the question of Jesus' divinity in actually offering serious doubt for the viewer. His own disciples did not believe in Him as Messiah nor did they ever mention seeing any real miracles. They merely had hope, even after the tomb is found empty.
In the tomb scene there were no soldiers visible at the tomb. This was a glaring omission made more obvious by the movie itself. The need for a guard is requested by Caiaphas in the movie but Pilate ignores the request. Thus the viewer is permitted, perhaps even encouraged, to consider that His followers may have stolen the body. This is perhaps the great problem with partially telling the story of a man who claimed to be God without addressing the proofs of His claim, even if the proofs are only alleged. The concerns of the foes of Jesus are openly addressed. But the support of His claim is completely undermined by ignoring the rest of the story. A more balanced telling would have left out the issue entirely or would have also dealt with the claims of the Bible that a guard was indeed posted.
Yet the most regrettable decision, in my opinion, is how they chose to handle Jesus' own feelings about His deity. The Bible makes it obvious that Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth and Jesus Himself believed He was the Messiah. In the movie even Jesus doesn't know He is God's Son. We witness Jesus being convinced by John the Baptist and later struggling again with whether He is Who He thinks He is. The movie thus portrays Jesus as an ordinary man who, at the age of 30, receives a divine call to preach, die and establish a new religion. Even in His death there is no mention that Jesus intended to give His life for our sin. An unbeliever's takeaway could be that His disciples added all the spiritual emphasis to the story sometime after His death.
The final scene could have been so much more - it actually was so much more in the Bible. But the movie simply ends with a feel good that Jesus is here for us. As the New York Times concludes concerning the resurrection, the movie gives us "only a glimmer of the part of the story that ought to be the whole point." And even in that glimmer the movie casts doubt on whether it happened at all.
Which brings us back to my #1 reason you should be in church this Easter. It's the only place you'll hear the real Easter story.
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