Who is this man?

To quote a friend who has recently met God, when I sms'd to ask if she and her husband prayed to accept Christ:

"how can I not believe he is God? A carpenter's son who is only 33yrs old. teach and heal pple with alsome wisdom and unexplainable power. His word read by many generations and still makes sense 2day.... Who is this man if he's not God? he is for sure not human. we love him. we wish to be with him."

Unlike probably half of the rest of the Singaporean christian community (pointedly the flock belonging to a particularly wealthy church that blocked booked and bought a few nights of the showing), I have not yet seen Mel Gibson's film interpretation of the Passion of the Christ.

Neither am I decided about how watching in visual gory detail the suffering and death of my Lord and Savior will exactly enhance my faith. How should it? Further than whipping up in me for the two hours in the theatre extreme feelings of sorrow, repentance and love for Him? Which I feel daily reflecting on the number of ways I've crucified him over and over each time I forget, each time I lie, each time I curse the tasks laying before me and the people that I have to deal with?

The film, which has attained a life and a momentum of its own, will not by any means be discredited by a few of us who have learnt to see the cross for what it is: a symbol of suffering and death. A symbol of God's outpouring of love for a creation that has turned against him in every possible way. A symbol of servanthood and humility extended to the most undeserving. I appreciate that the Passion is by far the most accurate depiction of the Gospels to date - the Christ is not a clean, handsome white bloke who reads the Scriptures with a proper Shakespearean ring, nor does he walk around with a halo around his crown - but I fear that for the two hours in the theatre - what I respond to is the product of clever digital effect, lighting and a nifty sound crew skilled and trained at manipulating the visual media to stir the souls of its captive audience.

500 or so years ago, Calvinist reformers and hordes of protestant converts, fired up against years of oppression under a power-hungry Papacy, surged through churches in Europe to destroy statues and relics of Saints, believing all such visual representations of the holy will only lead the mob to blind idolatry. While I do entertain impulses to put right things that are wrong, I do not wish to be an over-religious zealot with a holier-than-thou attitude about what we can or cannot do with the Bible. I certainly have no wish to rail against the movie industry - it keeps my weekends properly entertained and occupied. What I do want to keep is a certain amount of perspective and not let myself be caught up in the Billy Grahamish fervour that turns a crowd of the faithful into an emotional mob. Blame it on Shakespeare.

But I guess for the pre-believer, the film exercises tremendous power to affect and transform. To paraphrase another friend who ventured as part film-critic and part cynic to watch the film last night, and over breakfast this morning had this to say:

"It was such a freaky show. I was bawling through half of it (*she points at her puffy eyes*)- at first from the sheer horror of the suffering inflicted on the man - but later from something else. I don't know what it is. (*she shrugs*) And I'm never this frightened watching horror."

Who is this man, if he is not God?

Maybe I shall go and watch it after all. And bring with me someone who has yet to meet him.