The Passion of Christ

I'm a little bit of two minds about going to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ. On the one hand I'm impressed by the reviews and the assurance I'm hearing that it follows the biblical narrative closely. On the other hand, I am uncomfortable seeing the suffering of our Lord portrayed so forcefully, as I've heard Gibson does. I know Jesus' suffering intellectually, but I suspect seeing it portrayed with no holds barred will hit me a lot harder. But then again, being hit a lot harder would probably be a good thing for me.

One thing that doesn't trouble me at all is the charge that the movie is anti-semitic. From everything I've heard, this charge is just nonsense. I think it was Michael Medved (a Jew) who said that some of the Jews in the movie are good guys, including Jesus himself, and some are bad guys, but all the Romans are bad guys. I guess from that you could argue that the movie is anti-gentile, or you could conclude - as Medved does - that the whole discussion is silly.

Here are some Passion related links:
The official movie site
Using the movie as an outreach
A fan site