The sufficiency of "The Passion"

I was watching a version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on tape. It was a very cutesy-fied, cartoon version of the story ("Not that there's anything wrong with that!"). My five-year-old son was in and out of the room, mainly protesting that Thomas the Tank Engine wasn't being played on the tube. He eventually started paying attention to the story.

When the story got to the point where Aslan the Lion is executed on the Stone Table, my son became distressed. "How can you stand to watch this, Daddy???" he protested. Even in a fairy-tale analogy, with cute cartoons, the Passion of Our Lord still is maddeningly disturbing.

Somewhere over the past year or so, I've picked up a DVD version of Mel Gibson's drama, The Passion. I haven't yet cracked the plastic on the box. I've heard all sorts of reaction to Mel's work. The strongest reason against rushing to watch the tape is the sufficiency of the horrors of the Narnian fairy tale.

"On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" John 6:54-65