Watched the Son of God

Yesterday, I watched the movie Son of God directed by Christopher Spencer and featuring Diogo Morgado as Jesus and Roma Downey as Mary, the mother of Jesus. I'm just refreshed by the unique take that the writers took on Jesus life. It may not be intended to be a more scholarly take on His life but it succeeded in portraying Jesus as having walked on earth as a real man and still God's beloved Son. The Jesus in this story (I don't know if it was the intent) had a more youthful aura compared to a more mature presentation of Him in previous movies, which is actually not bad when you would think that He was a son, God's very own Son. He was vulnerable and prayed to an omnipotent Father. The portrayal of Jesus being God's Son was more elaborated for me by this new movie.

The previous Jesus movie, the Passion of Christ, had a very successful take on Jesus' death. It was enough for someone to come out of a movie house repenting of sin because of the cost of His eternal sacrifice. But this new take on Jesus really brought the relationship aspect of Christ, his humanity and His resurrection more alive and relevant to modern day times.

For example, a major portion of the movie was spent on the discipleship ministry of Jesus, starting from the calling of the first disciples. Jesus would teach His disciples how to pray and try to explain the Kingdom of God, something of which they did not fully understand until after Jesus died and was resurrected. He dealt with the disciples' fears, their progressive (and partial) comprehension of spiritual things by using examples that can be seen in the real world – bread, wine, fish and the dead, and was with them in their failures. He was very much present in their lives in the three years of His ministry on earth.

The movie highlighted a Jesus that could relate with real people. It creatively casted actors who may not necessarily look like Jews, different-looking people from various ethnicities (although there were specific ethnic groups in the Bible during this time) and have made it relatable to our times. Jesus related with men, women (I still love any take on the "woman caught in adultery" plot as it really demonstrated God's radical grace), the religious, the irreligious, a governing ruler, the sinner, the sick, the educated, the uneducated, even the dead! Jesus spoke words that were very unusual, unexpected and left people thinking, calling them from their normal way of life to something greater.

Having placed some emphasis on Jesus' resurrection in the end was a good thing because He is truly alive and is risen up to now. His relationship with His disciples lives up to this time because He lives and is among us. He is with us. Our God is risen and He is alive and continues to work in every one of us.

Jesus was a truly relatable man, the Son of God. Those are what I will take home with me after watching the movie.

How about you? Anything new you learned about Jesus this weekend or on Holy Week? What did you like about the movie?