SENTINEL WATCH March 22, 2004 Issue

'To triumph in Christ'

By Channing Walker

Whatever anyone thinks about the film The Passion of the Christ, it has catapulted the story of all stories, about the King of all kings, to the front of our attention. Which is where that story belongs.

What the story shows, but some viewers feel the movie doesn't, is a message of love so unstoppable that heaps upon heaps of hatred could not quench it. A love so pure, so unwaveringly drawn from the Father, that it couldn't help but transform what looked like the worst defeat into the greatest victory. A love so unselfish that, even in the midst of agony, it flowed with assuring comfort to a panicky criminal, also being crucified. A love so universal that thousands of years later hearts everywhere are still being warmed and quickened and remade by it.

Jesus' crucifixion was a time when mind numbing violence did not lure the attacked into responding in kind to the attacker. A time when the message of peace was so woven through every word and action that the Prince of Peace prevailed. Even to the point of Jesus' caring for the guard in the garden of Gethsemane—the guard that had come to arrest him. Although one of the disciples slumped into violence, slashing off the guard's ear, Jesus did not. He responded as the Prince of Peace, as the Great Physician. He responded with healing, touching the man's ear and restoring him to wholeness. In so doing, he not only enlarged a record of healing, he left a legacy of the authority of Christly peace to outface violence, a peace that is measurelessly powerful.

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