Movies to Watch For?

My wife and I have been watching "Jesus of Nazareth" this afternoon. I usually end up watching it every year after church. It is a Scriptural train wreck, and the writer's and writer/director Franco Zeffirelli took incredible "poetic" license in their production. Nevertheless, the story is there, and I still like it.

There are several scenes that really get to me throughout the mini-series, but two in particular always move me a lot. One is where Peter has denied his Lord and Savior, and then locks eyes with Jesus as the temple guards take him away. The performance by James Farentino as Peter will live in my memory. So will his genuine seeming portrayal of this man with a broken heart, when he makes a very emotional plea to his fellow Apostles in hiding.

Many are offended by portrayals with a blue-eyed Robert Powell type in the role of Jesus, but I can get past that. The Bible says that; "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him." (Isaiah 53:2) When I see the really good-looking types cast in the role, it always has "commercial appeal" written all over it. People were attracted to Jesus because of who He was and what He had to say to their hearts, not because He had dashing good looks.

It's interesting to think about cinematic portrayals of the life of Jesus, and all of the furor over "The Passion," from a couple of years back. What followed the Passion's commercial success was talk of Hollywood's usual knee-jerk reaction to anything monetary, and the "flood" of Christian movies that the media said would no doubt follow it. Where are they? I would like to see them. There have been a few, but most of them were already in production before the Passion was released, including the very successful "Chronicles of Narnia."

If they had bothered to check, they might have known that the most viewed, originally theatrically released movie of all time is the movie produced by Campus Crusade for Christ entitled simply, "Jesus." I didn't say that it was a phenomenal commercial triumph, but the most viewed. It is a simple but well enough done movie that conveys well, the story of our Lord.

No movie about Jesus is going to be perfect, but when you think about the number people who are estimated to have seen it, in excess of four billion, you wonder why Hollywood ignores such an amazing occurrence. I guess the reason is that Campus Crusade for Christ has shown it to so many people as a means of evangelizing them. After all, the Bible is the most widely read book in the western world, and probably the rest of the world too, and Hollywood takes little note of that.

One could say that Hollywood has made many Bible movies, and that would be true, but being faithful to what they represent is something else altogether. That is why what seems archaic to most, the written, inspired, infallible Word of God is so very, very important. The most visually stunning, well-acted and grand theatrical production could never come close to what the Holy Spirit brings to a reading of God's Word, when done so with a humble and willing heart.