For my birthday - Part 1

As I mentioned in my previous post about my birthday, nothing much happened on the actual anniversary of my birth. All the festivities occurred this past week-end. We went out to have a meal at The Olive Garden and most of us had a good meal. I was one of the ones that enjoyed the meal. And I think that everyone came around to enjoying the food by the time the left-overs were finished the next day.

After the meal, we went to see the movie Son of God in the theater. We had already seen the mini-series The Bible on TV and Son of God was made by the same people. We had expected that, perhaps, there would be new content in this version but it turned out that we had already seen the majority of this movie on TV. That was a little disappointing. But that was the only disappointment.

On TV, of course, the screen is smaller and the sound is less involving. On TV, you have to sit through commercials and a break of a week between episodes. We did get the DVD of the entire series and that cut out the commercials and waits of a week between episodes but it still couldn't compete with seeing this film in a movie theater. There is nothing like seeing a good movie on a big screen with big, full sound. This story deserved that. Some folks complained that you knew what was going to happen because of already knowing how the TV series was written. Well, in Titanic, you know the boats sinks and in Gone With the Wind, you know the North wins. And in every James Bond movie, you know he is going to get the bad guys. But many people still go to those movies and enjoy them.

In this version of the story, the writers put a special emphasis on the tough spot that the Jewish religious leaders were in. They were trying to balance keeping their faith and helping people survive in the face of the tyranny of the Roman occupation. I know they made the wrong choices but it was very interesting to see both their internal struggles and the outside forces forces vying to change them. If only they would have accepted Jesus as the true Messiah! But we knew how it was going to turn out. The real story is about how much God loves us. That never changes and it as compelling today as it was two millennia ago.

I felt this movie was well acted and beautifully staged. Also, there was great excitement when we found out that the actor playing Jesus is Portuguese. My wife is half Portuguese and my mother-in-law is second generation Portuguese. Another interesting part of the writing was the decision to have Pontius Pilate be such a strong character. I thought this was very realistic as Rome would not have allowed a weak governor in such a contentious region of their empire. And the ruthlessness that Pilate showed was just one more stress put on the Jewish priests making their characters a little more interesting than the simple, conniving, evil men of some other depictions of this part of the Bible.

In my next post, I'll talk about some of the gifts I got for my birthday.