Dwight Longenecker
Too often we Christians have given in to the temptation to sanitize the crucifixion and sentimentalize the resurrection. But the resurrection was not, at first, a cause for rejoicing, but the source of fear—soul-shaking, knee-knocking, heart-pounding, earth-quaking fear.
One of the good things about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is the gore. He has not sanitized the torture and execution of Jesus Christ. After doing the research, Mel Gibson said, if anything he toned it down. The gritty death of Jesus Christ is important to remember because the other side of the coin is the gritty glory of the resurrection.
This was real. It was blood, sweat, and tears. It was gutsy and gruesome. He was stripped naked, beaten into mincemeat, and hung out to die. His friends wept in frustrated fury and fled in craven cowardice. Likewise, his resurrection was not a walk in the park on a Spring morning. This was not a happy ending with a nice lady weeping quietly and feeling sad about a friend who had died.
This was the terrifying realization that on top of it all someone had stolen his body. Then it was the even worse horror that we all would feel in the face of the un-dead. Was this thing a ghastly ghost? Was he an imposter? How could this be? Was this a fearsome ghoul from the underworld—some grotesque mannequin from the realm of the dead? This was not, at first, a cause for rejoicing, but the source of fear—soul-shaking, knee-knocking, heart-pounding, earth-quaking fear.
The physical reality of the cross and resurrection is a powerful antidote to the bad religion in our society today. Ross Douthat chronicles the bad religion in his book of the same name.[1] He surgically lays out the Disneyland Christianity of the prosperity preachers with their fake smiles, » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/04/reality-resurrection-dwight-longenecker-timeless.html