Some people have asked why we wanted to spend a large part of the Easter holiday weekend (over 4.5 hours) watching a film of Matthew’s Gospel. After all, we have all read Matthew’s Gospel before; there’s nothing unfamiliar about this story, so what is the point of giving up time in this way to do something so familiar? Why do people enjoy the experience of film? Is it just the ‘shared experience’? Or the popcorn and ice-cream? (all enjoyed by us as well!)
We live in a society which takes the written word largely for granted; it’s been available in printed form for hundreds of years. We can forget, therefore, the oral nature of Jesus’s teaching; how He communicated through spoken language and interacted with people. Film is a medium which attempts to recapture that.
‘Language originates in a living voice,’ Eugene Peterson says. ‘In its purest form it is spoken and heard, not written and read. Mouth and ears, not pen and ink, are the prerequisites of language.’ (‘The Word Made Flesh’, P 272) Children hear people speak to them long before they learn to speak themselves; they learn to speak long before they learn to read and write. As we heard the words of Jesus spoken with expression and intonation and watched His interaction with His disciples, with the crowds and with the religious leaders, familiar words came alive in new ways. The humanity of Jesus – His joy, His affection for people, His compassion and His understanding – all became very real as we watched and listened. The polarity between those who accepted His message with rejoicing and those who were offended by Him was very evident.
The difference between this film and so many others based on the life of Jesus rests largely on the words themselves. Of course, there was interpretation (what clothes were worn, the expression used, the visual ‘filling in’ of the story), but the words were entirely Scriptural. As such, those very words are infused with God’s power, for His Spirit inspired them and they are alive and active. Our prayer is that these words find a resting place in our hearts as we have heard, listened, watched, and that finding a resting place, they bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance and obedience which is the hallmark of discipleship.