The End is just the Beginning

It is finished! We celebrate these words during Resurrection Weekend and we heard them again on the final installment of The Bible on the History Channel.  I've have generally enjoyed the series, but most of all I have enjoyed the conversation that has grown out of it.  There is opportunity here, in this moment, to engage the world with Scripture, we MUST take it!  At least one Wal-Mart that I know of actually sold out of the DVDs of the series the first day they were available.  We can either use it or run from it, I hope we use it.

Things They Missed:

1. The Resurrection: It would have been nice to see the power of the resurrection take place.  We are brought immediately to the empty tomb but I would have liked to see how they would have portrayed the event.  This is not a big miss, I think they did okay, but the other issue I had was that (as Pastor Paul mentioned) it was still dark when Mary went to the tomb and it looked like it was about noon or at least late morning in the show.


2. Jesus is God: I did not hear this enough for my liking.  There was a few mentions of Jesus as "Son of God," and even as a "Prophet" but not enough about Jesus being God himself.  Jesus resurrection rests on his divinity raising with his humanity and I thought they really struggled with portraying this.  I'm not sure they meant to leave it out but I do think they avoided heavily theologizing the events surrounding the resurrection.   Jesus is the Christ, he is a man but he is also God and that is a very important issue concerning both the crucifixion and the resurrection.

3. Stephen's Stoning: We never got to invest in Stephen, one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem so to the average observer this man was being stoned for some inexplicable reason.  Stephen wasn't just a young man who came and spoke brashly about Christ for a few minutes and then got stoned.  Stephen was an evangelist, a pastor, a preacher and a missionary.  Stephen helped the apostles build the church and cultivate it.  He was a key figure and the reason he was stoned was because of his outspoken faith Jesus as the Son of God and the risen Lord of Creation!  Not because he believed Jesus was a prophet as seemed to have been portrayed in the film.  This was probably my least favorite scene this week.

4. Here's Saul... where's???: We get to see Saul's conversion and his interaction with Ananais but we don't get to see the person that Saul (who later changed his name to Paul) could credit for finally being accepted as a leader within the church... and that was Barnabas.  An entire trilogy of movies could be made about Saul's journey from persecutor to persecuted, but I thought the shortening of the Saul/Paul story really did it an injustice.  I would have liked to follow along with that a bit longer, but it was clear that the producers desperately wanted to end with John on Patmos receiving his final revelation from God.

5. Baptism/Early Church: As I mentioned before this entire sequence was shortened to almost a blink of an eye.  But they got some major stories in there, like the conversion of Cornelius.  I thought that this is where some of the Catholic roots (along with Mary playing a major role during the crucifixion) of the makers really shown through.  The conversion of Cornelius, one of the first gentile converts, doesn't tell us much about Baptism in the account (Acts 10) but we do know that most, if not all, baptisms at this time were done purely through immersion.  Just pouring water on his head would not have been seen as baptism, however many adults within the Catholic church have experienced baptism this way.

Five Favorite Things:

1. Crucifixion Scene: I thought this was done powerfully well in the short time they had to spend on it.  I especially liked that they made it a point to use every account of the crucifixion within the story line.  Another fantastic thing about it was that they also made it a point to have Jesus quoting scripture the entire time he was on the cross.  I don't believe there was one word they had Jesus say on the cross that isn't recorded in the gospels.  I also liked the imagery of the Priests sacrificing their futile animal sacrifices at the same time the Lamb of God was hanging on the tree.  It displayed how close but oh so far apart they were from seeing Jesus as he truly is.

2. Pentecost: I've never seen this depicted in film so I was excited to see how they would handle it.  Though I missed the flaming tongues, I did think it was supremely powerful and even chilling as the great wind came and they started all speaking in different languages.  Adding nearly 5,000 to their number in one day was huge.  How do you disciple 5,000 new converts?  Amazing to say the least.

3. Saul on the road to Damascus: Again, a scene I had never really seen done in movie form and I thought it was done really well.  The fact that only Saul could see Jesus and his other companions could not was portrayed well and I liked that they actually had Jesus himself appear to Saul as apposed to a bright light out of the sky speaking his name.

4. Pilate's Role: Though I did miss the line "I am innocent of this man's blood" I thought how they handled the political and religious tension of the day was done very well.  The wife's role was embellished a bit but I thought it added to the tension and the man who played Pilate did a superb job.

5. The Arrest of Peter and John: Loved that they included this and that is was an integral part of their last hour.  The disbelief on Caiphas' face when told that Jesus was alive and that people were continuing to follow and belief was done well too.  Also the fact that Peter and John had just witness their Messiah come back to life and that this experience made them indifferent to the idea of death was portrayed really well within this scene also.


Final Thoughts:

I really enjoyed the last episode.  I think it would be a mistake for us as Bible believing Christians to get too hung up on the things the film maker's missed and the casting choices we may have not agreed with.  Whether or not you liked the portrayal of Jesus and the fact that once again it was a European playing the role should be of little consequence.  The goal was to get the story out, on the front lines and engage with it.  It is out there, #TheBible was a trending topic on twitter for 3 of the 5 weeks.  The Bible was also the top rated cable show in the nation during this span.  People are watching, will we engage?

- Pastor Josh