This is the new video from Sanctuary First. Set in a future where gatherings are strictly limited and seeking to influence people towards belief in God is forbidden, we hear of Josh Emmanuel who not only speaks about God but in a mysterious way seems to reveal God. As a result he has attracted a small but faithful following.
The result of this is his arrest and subsequent execution. Three days later the cabinet in the prison morgue is opened and his body has disappeared. An urgent investigation is set into motion with an unexpected ending.
Throughout the video we never actually see Josh Emmanuel. Christ figures have dominated art for generations but there has always been a problem about depicting Christ in films. Directors either go for the ethereal as with Max von Sydow or the down to earth bruiser like Willem Dafoe but very few get it right. Probably still the best is Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St Matthew with Enrique Irazoqui, an unknown Spanish student, taking on the role. His rather fragile appearance belied an inner strength which dominates the film.
The problem is we do not know how Jesus looked. I was led to think about this recently by a comment made by Donald Macleod in his excellent new book Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement. Speaking of the worldly and spiritual pressures acting on Jesus throughout his ministry the Professor says: ‘they clearly took their toll, even of his physical appearance: so much so that he could be taken for a fifty-year old (John 8: 57) when he was scarcely thirty.’ The Scripture reference is to the religious establishment’s reaction to Jesus’ claim to have a unique relationship with the Heavenly Father and that Abraham ‘rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.’ They respond: ‘You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham.’
It is a verse I have often read and but have never take it to mean what the Professor suggests. I am still not convinced but when you think of Jesus’ earthly life, especially as it is summarised in Understanding The Atonement (pp. 17-18) it makes some kind of sense.
If you wish to see Missing click on www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk/video/watch/missing
