A Nail of Two Cities

Good Friday. A major cosmopolitan city, full of races and faces up for a jolly on one of the big holidays of the year. Around the city centre, the sounds of music and the hustle of celebrations jostle for public attention.

Meanwhile, at the centre of local government, voices of reason are drowned out with "treason!", as a mob in the miasma cast their inevitable verdict on the innocent young man standing before them. The Roman occupation of this city leaves the passage of sentence to Pontius Pilate, who despite the warnings of his troubled wife who'd dreamt of trouble from the 33-year old before him, says "crucify!". Washing his hands, the civil powers with riot shields carry away the young teacher to be left for dead on rotten wood at the city rubbish dump.

This could be Jerusalem: how ironic it's name means "city of peace". It could be 1973 years ago, but tonight the BBC chose to move the drama, the pathos and the tragedy to another city which has known violence, agony and death at the hands of terror and life cut short. This is Manchester, England, AD2006.

As I type this, BBC TWO is airing the "as live" repeat of The Manchester Passion, a controversial but imaginative 21st century reworking of the story of the betrayal, trial and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Gone are the sacred soundtracks of Handel and Bach, in are the often despairing music and lyrics of the Gallagher brothers of Oasis and the words of Williams, Robbie, minus the voice.

Is this reverent, is it appropriate? As M-people's Search for the Hero Inside Yourself echoes across the rain-washed streets of the North-West, should Jesus' people be mourning or moaning tonight with this radical re-working of the familiar passion narrative?

My own view is it's very appropriate. If anything causes a cynical, secular nation to look again at the most important event in history, it's to be welcomed. The message of the cross cannot be weakened by the creative licence of the 21st century, it can only be strengthened. It is timeless and free of cultural bias. Like the seminal Franco Zeffirelli film of a quarter of a century ago being shown again this weekend on ITV3, Jesus's story can bear re-interpretation in a thousand different ways without loss of its power.

Now, it is finished. Jesus is dead, taken down from the cross. How do you see him: Mad? Jester? Untied.

Buried in a borrowed tomb,the world now waits again for the answer. Promised passionately in the hero of heroes own words, one day soon it will get it.