In Risen (2016), A Roman Tribune, Clavius, is tasked with overseeing Jesus’s crucifixion; more importantly, Pilote tasks his Tribune with making sure that no one steals the body out of the tomb so no one could claim that Jesus is arisen. This would put the Jesus movement within Judaism as much more of a threat to Pilote as well as the Jewish leaders. More than Christians can glean interesting lessons from the film. That is to say, it is by no means a remake of The Greatest Story Ever Told and Son of God.
Both Pilote and Clavius exclude the possibility of a resurrection from their minds, so when the body goes missing, they naturally assume that it is possible to find the corpse. The possibility of anything supernatural is reserved only for the Roman gods and goddesses. So when Clavius sees the resurrected Jesus lounging in the Upper Room with the disciples minus Judus, the Roman’s reaction is sheer shock. This can’t be possible, yet it apparently is. So he goes with the disciples to the Sea of Galilee as Jesus has instructed in the room. In that turn-around, Clavius’s operative cognitive paradigm completely shifts; he is like a lost boy in his newly adopted paradigm. In the process, he first questions his extant assumptions and then adopts others that fit with new empirical knowledge. How often does this happen to people in life? Most people hold to their beliefs as if they counted as knowledge. Ironically, this disease is particularly evident in people for whom religion is important—the political realm running a close second—but the harm is arguably worse in religion (e.g. all the religious wars and arguments). I submit that faith and rigidity are actually incongruous even though a person holding to her beliefs is part of a cognitive faith.
Although the film centers on the Resurrection, a more significant contribution made by the film concerns the relationship between Clavius and Peter. On the journey to the sea, the two men start out fighting, with Clavius cutting quite a scar into one of Peter’s legs. Even so, after saying The Lord’s Prayer with the other disciples, Peter tosses some bread backwards to the excluded Roman. I can scarce think of an instance in which I have witnessed such a feat, even by Christians who claim to follow Jesus. Peter has absorbed Jesus’s teaching and example such that the disciple who is the Rock allows himself sufficient flexibility to become a friend to the ironically otherwise isolated Clavius.
Clavius’s night chat with Jesus is also of note, as the viewer gets not only a snapshot of Jesus’s philosophy, but also how far the character arc goes for Clavius. He is not only open to Jesus’s teachings (and values!), but also accepts them. Would the Tribune have been even open to the messages that those who live by the sword may die from it, and that “there are no enemies here” had he not seen Jesus arisen? I contend that this is the vital question for contemporary Christianity. Perhaps even in it, assumptions may need to be re-examined rather than merely assumed. Namely, is anything missed in the hegemony of the supernatural?
