The Passion of the Christ 

If you strip away 20 centuries of doctrinal development within Christianity…

If you strip away 20 centuries of church history…

If you strip away 20 centuries of Christian traditions…

If you strip away 20 centuries of preaching and the billions of words, spoken and written that have been expressed and proclaimed regarding the faith…

If you strip away 500 years of denominational development….

If you strip away all theological discourse, debate, and disagreement…

If you strip away the myriad of contemporary issues over which we may agree or disagree in terms of applying our faith… 

If you strip away Christianity's great teachers and heroes like Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Bonhoeffer, Lewis, and hundreds more… 

If you strip away all expressions of piety and spirituality…

If you strip away the magnificent works of Christian art that grace the walls of the great galleries of the world…

If you strip away all the creeds that have ever been written…

If you strip away everything that Jesus ever said and did up until the last week of his life…

             …you are left with a man who rode into town a hero one day, and a few days later was executed in the most heinous manner…

             …you are left with a man who died a hideous death at the hands of both the religious and secular; the believer and non-believers alike…

            …you are left with a man who in spite of having everything thrown at him that was evil and sinful, hurtful and hateful, still never wavered from his mission of love… 

            …you are left with the passion of the Christ. 

            This is what our faith finally gets down to after everything is stripped away.  The Passion of the Christ -  whether we are talking about the movie, or the accounts we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.   

What it finally gets down to for me, after everything has been stripped away, is just this. 

It's an experience of unmasking.
    First, it unmasks the capacity within all of us to be reduced and dehumanized by our own sin and fall under the spell of hatred and total contempt for another.
    Second, it unmasks the incredible lengths that God is willing to go to demonstrate unconditional divine love for the very ones who committed such horrendous crimes against the only Son of God. 

You can believe it to be true or not.  But know this.  If you are looking for a love in this universe that is infinitely greater that the sum of all human love, here is where you will find it. 

If you do not believe it to be true, then you are saying that no such love exists, and in the end all is vanity and meaninglessness.

If you do believe it to be true, then I say, be careful, because it will change who you are and how you live in ways you cannot imagine.