Risen (2016)

Last Saturday night, 20 of us gathered at chapel for Chinese takeaways/fish and chips ahead of watching Risen (2016), the story of Clavius, Roman tribune and Pontius Pilate’s right-hand man. The film opens with a wonderful depiction of a Roman attack on a zealot uprising, led by recently released Barabbas. It soon becomes evident that the film starts on the day when Jesus, or Yeshua as the characters call him, is crucified. 

Pilate entrusts Clavius with the job of locating Yeshua’s body after His resurrection. Convinced that it has been stolen, he has all the recent graves of Jerusalem dug up and examined. People heard asserting that He is risen are interrogated until eventually, he bursts into a room of disciples only to see Jesus Himself among them.

Clavius is played by Joseph Fiennes, an actor I already admire for his role in the 2003 Luther. That he accepts roles in films of a religious flavour is testament to his diverse abilities, although he does seem to specialise in rather a stoical acting style. It’s a great story, and there are some genuine moments of comedy in the script, despite the gravity of its plot. Pilate, speaking to Clavius with his back to the door, orders him to investigate the empty tomb immediately, and “find the body before Caiaphas and his pack of raving Jews arrives here”. “Too late”, remarks the High Priest, as he strolls into the room having heard everything.

Clavius is a fictional character, and I was relieved at the film’s end that none of my brethren demanded I show them which chapter and verse demonstrated his existence. Likewise, the Romans’ discovery in the empty tomb of a piece of cloth looking remarkably like the Turin Shroud caused a few chuckles among our decidedly Protestant audience. My only other, albeit minor gripe, was use of the word Yahweh. I’ve little objection on religious grounds, and I have no doubt that a Roman like Clavius would have felt no embarrassment in using God’s covenant name. But Peter and the disciples? Unlikely, methinks. Credit must also so to Bartholomew, an otherwise lifeless character in the new testament who is nicely portrayed as a likeable, bright-eyed optimist who can’t stop grinning. 

Clavius declines Peter’s offer to formally join the disciples, instead setting off on a trek into the desert wherein he shares his story with a hermit. What happens to him next, we know not. What is beyond all doubt, however, is that Clavius Niger, having met Messiah Yeshua, will never be the same again. His journey into light began not with his discovering the risen Christ in a room, but an earlier scene in which the self-confessed devotee of Mars, the Roman god of war, prays not to his patron but to Yahweh, the Jewish God, seeking help with his quest. 

And ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13