How not to find God while watching "The Passion" with a head full of acid
Constantine J. Warhammer

He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; by His wounds we are healed.

- Isaiah 53; 700 B.C.

It's Easter Sunday and there's only one proper way to celebrate the death and rebirth of Our Savior: take these two hits of acid and watch The Passion of the Christ, or as I like to call it, "Teach Yourself Aramaic in Three Hours." Take two because they are small and The Passion is very long.

You'll want to fire up the multimedia projector so Christ will tower above you, 81" across your wall. Remember when you first bought that? Sure, the A/V geeks on the Internet said its 400:1 contrast ratio was unacceptable for the true home-theater aficionado, but you knew how damp the ladies get in the presence of a big TV. What was that song you made up? "Let the Panties Hit The Floor," wasn't it? How did those lyrics go?

Let The Panties Hit the Floor

(to the "tune" of "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor," by Drowning Pool)

Let the panties hit the floor Let the panties hit the floor Let the panties hit the floor Let the panties hit the ... FLOOR!

You are not very creative. You are the Weird Al Yankovic of Suck.

About an hour into Mel Gibson's theological snuff film - no no no, that is too generous! Call it "a 30 million dollar Faces of Death video drawn out over two hours" - you feel the acid crawling up your spine like two black electric umbilicals. You must relax at this point. The room is about 120 degrees, Jesus's ribs are visible through his bloody, flayed side, and you realize Mel Gibson can't get anything right except violence and pain - he's deaf to any other tone; his movie small, petty and self-righteous. He is a child playing the symbols of religion without understanding the depth behind them.

As the acid claws its way into your brain, you might feel on edge. Your teeth may grind, and you may be reduced to a babbling Lady Macbeth, "blood . so . much . blood!" This is how Mel Gibson wants you to feel. His Jesus is a near-mute slab of meat, scourged and bloody, ready to make you feel guilty for simply existing. Resist this impulse! You must endure!

And if you do find yourself deep in the pit of existential discombobulation, do not turn to the teenage girls on Instant Messenger for help. Their hearts are too full of love and Hoobastank lyrics for the likes of you. You might try IM'ing God, though.

RepententSinner69: u there?

Auto response from GDawg420: brb, cleaning the many rooms of my mansion

RepententSinner69: how about now?

God is Permanently Away, and if we've learned anything from the apostolic tradition, it's that religious experience in the age of mechanical reproduction is nonexistent; our connection to the divine is nothing but a copy of a copy of a copy . and men in robes and pointy hats are guarding the Xerox machine! Not even LSD can sidestep the Pope when it comes to direct religious experience, because the Pope knows the very best in Shaolin kung-fu, including the Flying Tiger Claw and the Palsied Shuffle.

No, God speaks to us through movies, and Mad Max is His messenger. And if the torture of Jesus in The Passion is oddly reminiscent of that scene in Lethal Weapon where Riggs (Mel Gibson) is hung from the rafters and tortured with electric shocks; or that scene in Payback where Porter (Mel Gibson) has his toes smashed with a hammer; or that scene in Braveheart where William Wallace (Mel Gibson) gets drawn and quartered - well, maybe it's a sign of God's divine plan for Jes.I mean, Mel. Why, then, does Mel not get tortured even a bit in What Women Want ? Because that movie was written by Satan, who takes the form of bewitching temptress Helen Hunt.

Unfortunately, Mel's Christ is a bit of a bummer. He doesn't smile much, laughs even less, and his main teaching - "Love one another" - gets lost in the fact that he spends over two hours getting murdered. If this is the height of religiosity, you might want to stick to drugs for your "spiritual awakening." Mel Gibson's Christianity is a cult of death presided over by Morrisey-like dark poet who seems sensitive and sincere at first, but turns out to be just a brooding, self-important loner longing for crucifixion. [Note to former girlfriends: If you were writing in to suggest I'm projecting myself onto Jesus, beat you to it! Still those furious pens, ladies!]

You'll reach a point where Pilate, strangely cast as a thoughtful, caring ruler instead of the cruel warlord history marks him as, asks, "Can someone explain this madness to me?" And by now, drenched in sweat, shuddering in a fetal position, you say, "Yes, Pilate! Yes, that is a good question! What madness is this? Why don't we ask that of the snakes that've been crawling out of my wall for the past half hour?"

It's the madness of a religion that doesn't celebrate life, but worships death. It's a madness that can find meaning only in suffering, which means its art can never be enjoyed, only endured. In that sense, LSD is probably not the best drug for experiencing The Passion. Better to deal with it - if you must - the same way you would deal with church: by systematic, methodical application of bourbon and painkillers.