A Curious Girl: Passion

I keep trying to add an entry, and then not finishing it... it's getting rather frustrating. Anyhow - I went to see The Passion of Christ. It was brilliant. It was frightening and disturbing and violent - but it was still brilliant. The things Jesus went through - for us. Passion is a wonderful way of describing it - 'passion' means suffering, although we know it as feeling very strongly about something. Both of which describe Jesus.

Chris asked me why Jesus had to die such a violent death. It's a hard question, but this was how I answered (feel free to agree/disagree in the guestbook - with any luck, it'll start notifying me of guestbook signings again)...

1) Jesus died because the world has embraced evil. We all have evil in us, and God can't stand evil. So, it was cast upon Jesus, and he suffered our punishment for us

2) showing the Devil who's boss by giving us and the Devil the ultimate chance to do evil - to kill God. Then showing he was stronger by rising again.

3) to show us the perfect life and the most willing death. to give us hope of resurrection. to help us understand sacrifice - God couldn't demand that we would die for a cause without doing so himself.

I've been thinking. And praying. Jesus's words are so beautiful - his love so overwhelming.

In church on Sunday, I had a bit of a revelation. Dave (the minister) was talking about when the woman poured perfume over Jesus, and how her sacrifice was sneered at. People always sneer at good things - either because they think they can do better, or because they assume there were ulterior motives. Dave talked about how Judas and the others had 'hardened hearts'. Depressingly, the same can also be true of me. I feel like I've happily kept developing my brain but my heart remains stubborn. I can reason and argue anything, but so often I find it hard to love and to trust. It's interesting how in the Bible there are so many signs that Jesus is the Messiah, but the most knowledgeable teachers refused to believe that a carpenter from Nazareth could be their Saviour - for no other reason than prejudice.

Christina and I talked about unity today. Christian societies in my university have problems with unity - Chris said that you have to approach unity with humility not stubbornness - she said that her charismatic friends have problems getting on with her slightly more conservative friends because they each feel that they'd have to compromise their own beliefs in order to get on. Christina wasn't impressed with this argument - our beliefs are love and grace, and little things like speaking in tongues are not important compared to that. Christian societies I know would do well to remember that, too.

Thanks guys for your guestbook signings. For some reason, I'm not being notified of them any more, so I didn't realise they were there at first! Chris - I don't think I agree - will debate it with you some other time, but I find it difficult to equate God with moral abstraction - it seems disappointing. Amy - thanks! I like your diary and I enjoyed your survey responses... plus you seemed to have guessed where I got the Mother Teresa question from ;) Christina - thanks for the reminder :) Diane - will try and remember to e-mail you.

I did have another entry in the works, which may be appearing on your screens soon :)

Later editing: since there seems to be nothing on the internet for 'ancylotome' you'll have to take my word that it means "a scapel used to operate on tongue-tied patients" or my sister's interesting definition, "an aphrodisiac's way of breathing when excited in any way". She didn't know what an aphrodisiac was.

Random word for today: ancylotome

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