Dear Brothers and Sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Great anticipation and controversy surrounded the release of Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ."  While we could go to great lengths in defending the movie against its non-believing critics, it would seem better to use this letter to discuss a concern that we've heard expressed by some within the body of Christ, namely the question, "Why so little about the resurrection?"

For starters, it is important to provide some context so that we can understand exactly what a "Passion" is.  Going back to the earliest days of the church it became customary to present dramas and musical narrations of significant Biblical events.  By the end of the 12^th century these dramas and musical settings became known as "historia," the most popular of which were settings of the Lord's Passion. 

Throughout the Reformation era and beyond it became popular for Lutheran musicians to compose musical settings of the Passion with the text being taken exclusively from one of the Gospels, like St. John, or a harmony of the Gospels, like we read at Trinity for midweek Lenten services.  This musical genre reached its apex with the Passions of J.S. Bach composed in the 18^th century.  By Bach's day a Passion was a dramatic setting of the Biblical text that included a narrator to sing the part of the Evangelist, a choir to represent the crowd scenes, and soloists to provide an interpretation of what was taking place.  Above all, it is important for us to remember that a Passion is meant to present the events that occurred from the Last Supper until Jesus' death on Friday afternoon  - a period of approximately 24 hours. 

Many of you, like us, have seen the latest movie on the Passion. It is important to note that, like the Passion depictions referred to above, it too, is only meant to present those things that occurred Thursday night to Friday night.  We have also heard comments like the movie is too gruesome, or, only as