April 2, 2004
GREATERADE:
'I Thirst': A meditation on one of the last words of Christ. (David Neff, 04/01/2004, Christianity Today)
Two Psalms of David recorded particularly rich parallels to Jesus' sufferings (numbers 22 & 69), and they both mention the thirst of a desperate man. [...]Jesus' thirst is laced with irony:
* His executioners' act of mercy is connected to a Psalm about scorn and rejection.
* His body's compelling sense of thirst says, Drink and live. But Jesus knows that he will die.
* The one who said, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. … streams of living water will flow from within him."—that person is now dying of thirst.
One of the most bizarre criticisms of Mel Gibson's Passion is that he overdoes Christ's suffering. This despite the fact that these events were sufficiently horrific to make even Him despair: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? Posted by Orrin Judd at April 2, 2004 3:00 PM
I don't mean this in any belittling way, but.
Was Christ's suffering particularly greater than any of the host of others doomed to crucifixion?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at April 2, 2004 6:53 PMNo. It's a particularly painful way to die and God presumably hadn't suffered much in His past.
Posted by: oj at April 2, 2004 7:15 PMOf course, many believe in the whole weight-of-all-the-world's-sins thing, which no other crucified man had to deal with.
Posted by: brian at April 2, 2004 7:31 PMThanks. That's roughly what I thought.
Full disclaimer: I haven't seen the Passion.
But having read about it, it seemed odd to me the movie dwells on sadistic violence that, awful though it may have been, was not visited uncommonly upon Christ.
I'm not trying to make any grand point here, just curious.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at April 2, 2004 8:10 PMJeff:
Remember at the end of Spartacus how awful Kirk Douglas looks?
Posted by: oj at April 2, 2004 8:28 PMOJ:
Never saw it. But then I haven't seen a minute of Friends, either.
I'm not sure what that says.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at April 3, 2004 6:58 AMRent it--amazing movie.
Posted by: oj at April 3, 2004 7:31 AMOK, I shall.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at April 3, 2004 9:23 AMSpartacus has been re-made and will be on cable TV soon (can't remember which network, USA, TNT, TBS?). Dr. Kovac (from ER) plays the lead role. It will probably be more graphic than the original.
Posted by: jim hamlen at April 3, 2004 9:30 PM