s I write in mid-February, the media is buzzing over Mel Gibson's new movie "The Passion of the Christ." The Adventist Review feels no compulsion to comment on any or every media event that comes along. This movie, however, because of its topic and the controversy it is engendering, is different.

The film was timed for release on February 25, which is Ash Wednesday and the traditional beginning of the Easter holy season. But well before this date it made marketing history through advance ticket sales, which reached 30,000 per day.

Evangelical groups and leaders have enthusiastically endorsed the movie. "I have often wondered what it must have been like to be a bystander during those last hours before Jesus' death," said Billy Graham. "After watching 'The Passion of the Christ,' I feel as if I have actually been there."

The National Religious Broadcasters, an evangelical organization, featured a preview of the movie at its annual convention, held February 13-18 in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a crowd of some 6,000 in attendance.

Focus on the Family, run by James Dobson, ran a highly positive interview with Mel Gibson in its magazine. In it Gibson told of feeling something like a divine mission to make the movie, and spoke of people being converted who worked on the set. Newsweek in its February 16, 2004 cover story quotes him as saying: "The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film." Some Adventists saw the movie through one of the many advance screenings. They are calling it the most powerful viewing they have ever experienced.

I have not seen the movie. I don't criticize anyone who has, but I don't intend to see it. Here's why.

From all accounts the movie is jarringly graphic. Mel Gibson has starred in violent movies: now he has made the ultimate violent movie. The Newsweek article calls the violence in the R-rated movie "at first shocking, then numbing."

I abhor violence and cannot stand to watch scenes of violence. I don't need to see this movie.

Second, the movie offers Mel Gibson's interpretation of the Passion. The Newsweek cover story pointed out several places where the movie deviates from the Gospel accounts. For example, Gibson has Mary Magdalene trying to get help from Roman soldiers when Jesus is taken away to be tried by the priests. You will not find this in the Bible. Beyond such discrepancies, the question of the meaning of the event inevitably rests with Gibson.

I prefer to let Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John interpret Jesus' sufferings and death for me. Their accounts are starkly specific, listing the grim details and leaving it to the Holy Spirit to speak to the reader's imagination, filling in the blanks.

But I also want to express my hope and prayer for this movie- that it may lead many to a new, or renewed, appreciation for the sufferings of Jesus. Jesus died a violent death. He was executed! His sufferings were excruciating, more excruciating than any movie-maker could portray, because He bore not only extreme physical abuse but a terrible weight of spiritual desolation.

Those of us who have been Christians for a long time and have heard the account of the Passion over and over easily forget its grim human reality. Those of us who grew up in the church often take "the old, old story" far too lightly. If Gibson's movie shakes up complacent Christians, it will serve a noble purpose.

The movie has been controversial from the outset. Applauded by evangelicals and endorsed by the Vatican, it has been castigated by Jewish groups and the public press because of its perceived anti-Semitism. Over the course of the centuries Jews have suffered terribly at the hands of Christians who branded them "Christ killers." Critics of the movie fear that it will awaken these detestable feelings.

The facts of history are clear: Jesus was crucified--the Romans' method of execution. A Jewish mob stirred up by the leaders called for His blood, but only the Roman governor could sign the death warrant.

Ultimately, however, the issue goes beyond Jews or Romans. We were all involved in the Passion. Our sins--mine and yours--nailed Jesus to the cross.

That is the point above all others that I hope viewers will take away from "The Passion of the Christ."

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William G. Johnsson is the editor of the Adventist Review.