I sat watching a big-screen Jesus being whipped to shreds.

The first nail drove into a clawed hand, apparently Mel Gibbon's own. He didn't just want to direct his controversial Passion; he wanted to identify himself as one of those responsible for the Certificate 18 violence on Christ.

Once, I closed my eyes, and even as I did I knew it could have been a hundred times worse.

No censor would ever allow a film certificate to cover the reality of Calvary. The blood, the hanging flesh, the human pulp are but symbols of what actually happened -- the crucifying of the Son of God's inner being.

He who knew no sin suddenly became sin. The perfect turned paedophile and prostitute, murderer and rapist, and far more.

Many experience inner-being agony as far worse than a bone break. Seven years ago burnout hit me, and wild jangling nerves ripped me to shreds. In recovery, I vowed I'd break my neck before ever risking that again.

Horrible as it reads, God the Son became God the Sin. Torn from his inner oneness with God the Father, he screamed: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

But then, at last, came a sigh of triumph - Tetelesti! - the word market traders wrote on outstanding bills when paid -- It is finished. The debt for the sin of the whole world was, once and for all, paid in full.

Amazingly, the arms that stretched out on Calvary two thousand years ago are the same that now lovingly yearn to embrace all who nailed them there.