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April 2, 2004
The final Passover for Jesus
Easter is a time of contradictions; a time of painted eggs and
pogroms.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
It is not a coincidence that the Jewish holiday of Passover and
the Christian holiday of Easter tend to fall close to each another
on the calendar. The Last Supper, the meal Jesus is said to have
shared with his disciples on the last night of his life, is widely
believed to have been a seder. So, as Christians sit down to Easter
dinner this weekend and Jews observe Passover, it should be with
a sense of shared theological roots. But this holiday season is
different from the past, in part because what happened at Jesus'
last seder and in the hours thereafter has been the subject of intense
and often painful debate in recent weeks, largely because of Mel
Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ.
Easter has traditionally been a time of painted eggs and pogroms.
While festive aspects of the resurrection story are celebrated by
Christians worldwide, historically Easter has been a very dangerous
time for Jews, in places like eastern Europe, because the "passion"
– the suffering of Jesus on the cross – is the focus of
the first part of the Easter story. Though Easter Sunday celebrates
the rising of Jesus from the dead, many Christians through history
have focused less on the joy of rebirth than on Christ's brutal
and slow death on the cross. In Europe during the 18th and 19th
centuries, this was a time when some Christians would inevitably
be riled to seek vengeance on the people who priests and tradition
had always blamed for the death of Jesus: Jews.
The Passion of the Christ has been criticized on many fronts,
most notably for reflecting an interpretation of the passion story
that has been officially discarded by Catholic teachings. But a
Vancouver Christian minister has a more basic criticism of the film,
saying it misses the entire point of this most central story in
the Christian faith.
"I am responsible," said Rev. Dr. Richard Leggett, a professor
and administrator at the Vancouver School of Theology. "Not
the Jews. Not the Romans. I am."
The message of the Easter story, he said, is that Jesus died for
the sins of humankind. To suggest that the blame for the crucifixion
lies with a small group of individuals belies the entire basis of
Christianity's message, said Leggett, who is also co-chair of the
local Christian-Jewish Dialogue Group. He was speaking at a forum
on the film at Beth Israel Synagogue last week, which was attended
by several hundred Jews and Christians. Gibson's fixation on the
death of Jesus, while downplaying the ultimate resurrection, is
a problematic misinterpretation of the story, said the Anglican
minister.
Other problems Leggett sees with Gibson's portrayal is the mixing
up of various Gospel stories and the assumption that one interpretation
of the events surrounding the Easter story can be ascertained. Thoughtful
Christians, Leggett said, understand that the Gospels, written after
the fact by disciples of Jesus, each have their biases. The approach
taken by students of Christianity, he said, should be to construct
an approximation of the truth from the various reports available.
"You need all four [books of the Gospel] to even begin to get
a glimpse of what happened," he said, adding that Gibson has
essentially picked bits and pieces from the four books.
"Christians should make very clear that this is not the Gospel,"
Leggett said of The Passion. Despite the "appearance
of authenticity" granted by the use of Aramaic and ancient
Hebrew, the film is far from irrefutable fact, he said. "It
is one person's vision, one person's interpretation and a very selective
one at that."
Rabbi Charles Feinberg, Beth Israel's spiritual leader, shared the
stage with Leggett and presented his own critique of the film. While
Leggett blamed the filmmaker for sloppy interpretation, Feinberg
said interpretation can also be in the eye of the beholder.
"When people see a particular picture or image, they don't
always see the same thing," said the rabbi. "I think that's
true when Christians and Jews see this movie. When Jews see this
movie, all we see and hear are revolting anti-Semitic stereotypes."
The question-and-answer session provided an interesting spectrum
of Jewish and Christian responses to the film and discussion of
the history of Christian anti-Semitism. One questioner asked why
Jews can't move beyond a sense of persecution.
"Our deepest anxiety is that we will disappear," replied
Feinberg. "To understand us, to come to a dialogue with us,
that has to be acknowledged."
The forum at Beth Israel occured at the same time as a similar forum
at Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Richmond. These were just one of two
of countless occasions where people have come together to discuss
Gibson's film and its impacts.
The ongoing debate resulted in the release of a joint statement
last week by Lower Mainland Christian and Jewish leaders. The Christian-Jewish
Dialogue Group, formed by clergy at the behest two years ago of
Canadian Jewish Congress, stated that the film provides an opportunity
for people of differing faiths to enter into discussions about the
historic existence of strained relations. In the statement, Christian
clergy called on other Christians to reject the blaming of Jews
for the death of Jesus.
"We reaffirm in the clearest and most unambiguous terms that
Christian teaching attributes the death of Jesus to the sin of all
human beings, disciples and non-disciples alike," reads the
statement. "Any teaching that suggests that the death of Jesus
is attributable to a specific religious or ethnic community is false
teaching and must be repudiated by any Christian who claims to be
faithful to the witness of the New Testament writers. Any portrayal
of the events of the last week of Jesus' life that either implicitly
or explicitly attributes blame for the death of Jesus to the Jewish
people departs from Christian teaching and cannot be held up as
a vehicle for the proclamation of the Christian Gospel."
The Catholic Church in the early 1960s rejected ancient teachings
that placed blame on Jews and explicitly began four decades of rapprochement
with world Jewry. Gibson and his family are members of a sect of
breakaway Catholics who do not recognize the reforms of the 1960s.
The Christians who participated in the Beth Israel event were largely
from mainstream moderate or liberal denominations, including the
Anglican and United churches. While these Christians had serious
disagreements with the Gibson film, there is a large portion of
more conservative-minded Christians who are greeting the film with
rapturous praise. While a dialogue was taking place between like-minded
Jews and Christians, one of the participants noted that it may be
time for some Christian-Christian dialogue on the film as well.
On Monday, Vancouver Sun religion reporter Douglas Todd wrote
about a traditionalist Roman Catholic parish in Langley, where the
priest on Sunday condemned the Pope for meeting with "leaders
of false religions" and said that Jews who do not accept Christ
are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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