Sunday Sermonette: Splatter Porn
Today in the Western Christian Church is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Passiontide. On this day, Christians remember Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding an ass, or a colt, or both a colt and an ass, depending on which Gospel you read. This week, Christians will remember Jesus's last meal, his betrayal at the hands of a trusted friend, his trial, his execution, and his resurrection. This week is the most sacred time of the Christian year.
It's the greatest story ever told. Like all old stories, it ultimately comes down to blood.
Ancient people believed a magical essence animated all living things. You can break someone's bones and they keep living. You can hit them over the head with a club, and sometimes they'd get up and hit back. You could stop their breathing, but fish continued to live without air. No, it must be in the blood. Deprive a human or animal of blood, and the life force disappears, returned to the gods whence it came.
It was a short jump from there to the belief that blood must be shed to gain the gods' favor. Whether it was plucking the still-beating hearts out of the sacrifice's chest or slitting the throat of an animal before the altar, the thirst of the gods was never slaked. Certain kinds of blood were better. Even after humans stopped sacrificing other humans, the blood of a big expensive animal like an ox really helped make your voice heard by the gods. Even better, a whole bunch of oxen. A lamb was within most people's reach. For the very poor, a dove. But something had to bleed.
This is the week that Christians celebrate the sacrificial bloodletting of the son of God. You see, God hated the fact that we doubt and disobey him, but God loved us. So God worked out a clever dodge whereby his righteous indignation would be appeased: the ultimate blood sacrifice. He impregnated a human female. She gave birth to his son. He then either planned or allowed (is there a difference if you're an omnipotent being?) that son to be brutally tortured and killed in a barbaric bloody manner designed prolong his death agonies as long as possible. His son was whipped with a Roman scourge, and then nailed to a cross to die of exsanguination and exposure. It usually took days to die on a cross.
Isn't that the greatest love of all?
Christians think so. The instrument of execution is the symbol of their faith. Look at Pope Francis' coat of arms. In addition to the cross, you'll see three nails, representing the spikes that affixed Jesus to the cross. My old church had a life-sized statue of a crucified corpse hanging front and center.
The film Jesus Christ, Superstar made 55 million dollars at the box office. The Last Temptation of Christ, boycotted by many Christians, made only $14 million. The Mel Gibson splatter-fest, The Passion of the Christ, grossed over 600 million dollars worldwide during its theatrical release, the top-grossing R-rated film of all time. My parents, who don't usually see R-rated movies, saw it twice.
Mel Gibson made Quentin Tarantino look restrained. The Passion of the Christ is 127 minutes long. Only 16 of those minutes pass without a scene of graphic violence or bloodshed. Roger Ebert called it the most violent movie he'd ever seen. Critic David Edelstein called it "a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie." Now you can say you were there when they crucified my Lord - at least, as close as a big screen and surround sound can get you.
But it's a scam. Sure, if the Gospel stories are true, Jesus was arrested one night, badly treated by Roman guards, tried the next morning, flogged, executed at noon, and was dead by three. I don't want to make light of his suffering - it must have been terrible. But a lot of people have suffered for far longer. A hundred years earlier, Roman soldiers lined the Appian Way from Rome to Capua with Spartacus and his rebels, crucifying six thousand men.
Yes, Christians protest, but Jesus didn't have to die for us. He offered himself as a sacrifice.
Many people have sacrificed themselves for others. They died protecting their buddies on the battlefield or while trying to rescue the victims of a burning building or natural disaster. Remember all those police and firefighters running towards the Twin Towers while everyone else was running away?
And here's the important part: All of those who died saving others, protecting others, substituting their own lives for others - they stayed dead. Jesus was the son of God, and according to the Creeds, fully God and fully human. He didn't stay dead. He rose to reign at the right hand of God in heaven, forever.
Jesus didn't die for your sins. Jesus had a bummer of a weekend for your sins.
What? You don't believe it? Why, then you leave God no choice. You're going to be tortured forever and ever.
All you have to do is believe that Jesus died for your sins, and you can spend the rest of eternity singing praises to God. Which doesn't sound all that much better, when you think of it.
God himself sent himself to suffer and sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself that we might live an eternal static existence with no more reason or purpose than to tell him how great he is.
We don't practice human or animal sacrifice anymore. We think it's barbaric, a vestige of ancient superstition. How is this bit of two-thousand-year-old splatter porn any different?
It's the greatest story ever told. Like all old stories, it ultimately comes down to blood.
Ancient people believed a magical essence animated all living things. You can break someone's bones and they keep living. You can hit them over the head with a club, and sometimes they'd get up and hit back. You could stop their breathing, but fish continued to live without air. No, it must be in the blood. Deprive a human or animal of blood, and the life force disappears, returned to the gods whence it came.
It was a short jump from there to the belief that blood must be shed to gain the gods' favor. Whether it was plucking the still-beating hearts out of the sacrifice's chest or slitting the throat of an animal before the altar, the thirst of the gods was never slaked. Certain kinds of blood were better. Even after humans stopped sacrificing other humans, the blood of a big expensive animal like an ox really helped make your voice heard by the gods. Even better, a whole bunch of oxen. A lamb was within most people's reach. For the very poor, a dove. But something had to bleed.
This is the week that Christians celebrate the sacrificial bloodletting of the son of God. You see, God hated the fact that we doubt and disobey him, but God loved us. So God worked out a clever dodge whereby his righteous indignation would be appeased: the ultimate blood sacrifice. He impregnated a human female. She gave birth to his son. He then either planned or allowed (is there a difference if you're an omnipotent being?) that son to be brutally tortured and killed in a barbaric bloody manner designed prolong his death agonies as long as possible. His son was whipped with a Roman scourge, and then nailed to a cross to die of exsanguination and exposure. It usually took days to die on a cross.
Isn't that the greatest love of all?
Christians think so. The instrument of execution is the symbol of their faith. Look at Pope Francis' coat of arms. In addition to the cross, you'll see three nails, representing the spikes that affixed Jesus to the cross. My old church had a life-sized statue of a crucified corpse hanging front and center.
The film Jesus Christ, Superstar made 55 million dollars at the box office. The Last Temptation of Christ, boycotted by many Christians, made only $14 million. The Mel Gibson splatter-fest, The Passion of the Christ, grossed over 600 million dollars worldwide during its theatrical release, the top-grossing R-rated film of all time. My parents, who don't usually see R-rated movies, saw it twice.
Mel Gibson made Quentin Tarantino look restrained. The Passion of the Christ is 127 minutes long. Only 16 of those minutes pass without a scene of graphic violence or bloodshed. Roger Ebert called it the most violent movie he'd ever seen. Critic David Edelstein called it "a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie." Now you can say you were there when they crucified my Lord - at least, as close as a big screen and surround sound can get you.
But it's a scam. Sure, if the Gospel stories are true, Jesus was arrested one night, badly treated by Roman guards, tried the next morning, flogged, executed at noon, and was dead by three. I don't want to make light of his suffering - it must have been terrible. But a lot of people have suffered for far longer. A hundred years earlier, Roman soldiers lined the Appian Way from Rome to Capua with Spartacus and his rebels, crucifying six thousand men.
Yes, Christians protest, but Jesus didn't have to die for us. He offered himself as a sacrifice.
Many people have sacrificed themselves for others. They died protecting their buddies on the battlefield or while trying to rescue the victims of a burning building or natural disaster. Remember all those police and firefighters running towards the Twin Towers while everyone else was running away?
And here's the important part: All of those who died saving others, protecting others, substituting their own lives for others - they stayed dead. Jesus was the son of God, and according to the Creeds, fully God and fully human. He didn't stay dead. He rose to reign at the right hand of God in heaven, forever.
Jesus didn't die for your sins. Jesus had a bummer of a weekend for your sins.
What? You don't believe it? Why, then you leave God no choice. You're going to be tortured forever and ever.
All you have to do is believe that Jesus died for your sins, and you can spend the rest of eternity singing praises to God. Which doesn't sound all that much better, when you think of it.
God himself sent himself to suffer and sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself that we might live an eternal static existence with no more reason or purpose than to tell him how great he is.
We don't practice human or animal sacrifice anymore. We think it's barbaric, a vestige of ancient superstition. How is this bit of two-thousand-year-old splatter porn any different?