It's still a good movie...

I was telling my pastor friends this morning that I just wasn't getting into the whole Easter/Passion thing this year. I had conveyed the same thing to Jane the other night. Usually this is one of my most emotionally intense times of year. I really connect with Passion week for some odd reason. But this year I've just kinda been floating along; going through the motions moreless. Not that I had lost my faith, but I just wasn't into it so much.

At any rate, I started working on the Maundy Thursday service yesterday afternoon. It is next Thursday, and I figured I'd better put something together whether I wanted to or not. I was looking through what we've done in previous years, and one year we did some readings, took communion, and just had a meditation on feetwashing. I was thinking about that, and then I wondered about maybe having a song somewhere along the line. I thought about maybe playing "Held" by Natalie Grant, because it kind of touches on the whole MT thing. Then I typed "song for feetwashing" into Google, and though it didn't come up with much, it did direct me to a clip from Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion. It's the scene where Jesus is being whipped and beaten, and as his eyes drop to the blood-spattered feet of one of the guards beating him, then it flashed back to the night he washed the disciples feet in the upper room... It suddenly connected.

I decided I would show that portion of the movie at our MT service, so off to the church library I went to find it. I started watching The Passion to find that particular scene and, even though I was fast-forwarding, I found that I... I just couldn't watch it. I started too, but when I got to the place where Jesus is being whipped... I just broke down. I couldn't watch it. It was too much. I bawled like a baby, right there in the sanctuary of our little country church, all by myself. Welcome to the week before Passion week.

Anyway... I found the spot in the movie, and marked it, and the service is somewhat laid out for next Thursday. Mel has gotten a load of bad press in recent years, but I have to say, I am glad he made that movie. Say what you want about him, but it brings me closer to Christ every time I see it, or parts of it. It's almost like... gee, maybe God can use even the worst of us in his redemptive plans. Maybe God doesn't need us to be holier-than-thou, but just needs us to be His. Even for a little while; bits and pieces here and there.

I dunno. I was pretty worn out the rest of the day. Spent a lot of time thinking about the people who have mistreated me (or whom I thought have mistreated me), and how unloving I have been towards them in return. I've not exactly been loving towards most of the people who've treated me well.

Father, forgive me, for I don't usually know what I am doing. I love you. Thank you for loving me.

Peace out; and in.