The last two days have been pretty intense. I'm sitting on the mezzanaine in the Reading Boiler Room snatching a shell-shocked half hour of silence. It's one of those times when you don't want to say anything, there are no words to fit this place...
Yesterday I enjoyed my morning off journalling, a long chat to my parents, an accidental two hour sleep in the Global prayer room (oops, oh well I obviously needed it) and a stimulating brain fry of a session with Roger Forster on the radical history of the church.
This morning I awoke feeling a little more human, excited about the mornings bible teaching. As Ralf and Tim took us through the latter part of Jesus ministry and the last week before His crucifiction the story was growing in life and meaning with the wealth I've learnt in the last six months. As they hurried to a close I felt a surge of dissapointment, "We're getting through the life of Jesus far too fast", I thought. I should not have been so quick to frown.
Ralf cleared his throat and said in His lovely east German drawl, "I could not possibly do justice to the last 24 hours of Jesus life so we have made time this morning to watch The Passion of the Christ together." A mixture of relief and fear ran through me. I've only seen it once and it absolutely floored me. I remember sitting in a cinema next to my beautiful sister in silence, tears running down our cheeks long after the credits had ended and I wasn't sure if I could handle the emotional roller coaster today.
As the flim played projected onto a cracked wall in a chilly Boiler Room I was transfixed. It's not a film I can watch lightly, not at all. To see the pain, the evil, the injustice and yet the triumph of King Jesus death is excrutiating. You feel every lash, every taunt. When the film ended the group slowly lef the room and a quiet awe has decended. How do you continue your day when you've just had a fresh revelation of who Jesus is in such technicolour splendor? xc