Mel Gibson's long obsession to make a movie about the suffering of Jesus has finally been accomplished. The controversy it has engendered may endure for years.

Today, as Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, the seven-week period leading to Easter, "The Passion of the Christ" premieres in theaters across the country.

The film graphically portrays the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus, including his torture and crucifixion. It has been eagerly anticipated by many Christians, especially evangelicals, as a film testimony of the suffering of their savior for humanity. Yet it has been dreaded by some Jewish advocacy groups for its potential to stir up anti-Semitism. And it will be debated for another reason -- one Catholic film critic has said that "The Passion," while not anti-Semitic, is too obsessed with violence to adequately portray the meaning of Christ's death.

Audiences, including those in Polk County, will now be able to decide for themselves.

Some churches are so excited that they have bought all the seats for some screenings, handing out tickets to their members and encouraging them to bring friends. Saddleback Church, an Orange County, Calif., mega-church whose pastor is best-selling author Rick Warren, has purchased 18,000 tickets at seven area theaters, according to press reports. Archer and Sherry Bonnema of Plano, Texas, a Dallas suburb, purchased 6,000 tickets for a special morning screening today, and gave half the tickets to their church, Prestonwood Baptist.

All four of Polk County's first-run theaters are showing the film, and at least three report local churches have purchased large blocks of tickets, or in some cases, entire screenings.

A Southern Baptist church, The Rock of Winter Haven, has arranged to move its 9:15 a.m. worship service Sunday to the city's Cobb Grand 10 Theaters, which will be followed by a screening of "The Passion." The church is covering the cost by selling tickets for $5.50 each. It was the idea of the Rev. Mike Jarrett, the church's senior pastor, said Jack Smith, The Rock's youth pastor.

"He really felt a direction from God that this has the possibility of the next great awakening, and it was something we needed to get behind," Smith said.

The film is seen by some evangelicals as an accurate depiction of Christ's self-sacrifice and therefore an opportunity to spread the gospel. Cornerstone Baptist Church in Lakeland has bought out two screenings of the movie at Lakeland Square 10 Theaters, at a total cost of about $5,000, said the Rev. Joe Daniels, the church's assistant pastor.

"We saw it as a window of opportunity for people not only to hear the truth but to see what Christ has done for us. . . . We've challenged our people to take a handful of tickets -- some are taking four, some are taking 60 or 70. One lady has 60 people from her business coming," he said.

Such evangelistic efforts can make Jews and other non-Christians uneasy. Joni Doddemeade, president of Temple Beth Shalom, a Reform Jewish congregation in Winter Haven, said she overheard a group of Christians discussing the film recently.

"A lady said, `We need all unbelievers to see it.' That offended me," she said.

The principal concern of organizations like the Anti-Defamation League is that the movie will cause anti-Semitism by blaming Jesus' death on all Jews. Doddemeade said she is not worried about that and there had been little discussion of the movie at Beth Shalom.

"My feeling is, if people are going to be anti-Semitic, they're going to be anti-Semitic. A movie's not going to turn you overnight into some raving Nazi," she said.

Other Jews are more concerned. Rabbi Eddie Fox of Temple Emanuel, a Conservative congregation in Lakeland, said he returned last week from Atlanta, where the movie was a constant topic of discussion in synagogues.

"Some people love all people regardless. . . . Then there are those that it takes very little to ignite them. That's what I'm concerned about, the fringe groups," he said.

Fox said if the movie presents Jesus' death as part of God's design, it could help absolve Jews of guilt. He is a fan of Gibson, he said, and he hopes that "The Passion" will not provoke hatred.

"This is America. It's free speech, OK. I just hope not anything negative comes of it," he said.

Evangelical Christians, who are often allied with Jews over support for Israel, have tried to downplay the question of culpability for Jesus' death. They point to Gibson's statements, especially in his recent interview on "Primetime" with Diane Sawyer.

"He said, `I love the Jewish people and pray for them.' And when he was finally asked, `Who killed Jesus?' he said, `We all did.' That was a great answer," said the Rev. Dan McBride, senior assistant pastor at Victory Church in Lakeland. "All of us have a part in the crucifixion of Jesus."

Daniels agreed.

"I don't believe it will promote anti-Semitism. If there were any question about it, we wouldn't be part of it," he said.

But how the crucifixion is portrayed has been another point of controversy. Gibson has defended the film's extreme violence as a deliberate effort to show the depth of Christ's love in sacrificing himself for the world. He told Sawyer: "I wanted it to be shocking, I wanted it to be extreme, I wanted to push the viewer over the edge."

He succeeded, said the Rev. Lloyd Baugh, who saw "The Passion" at a special screening. Baugh, a Catholic priest, teaches theology and film studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is the author of "Imaging the Divine," a book about film portrayals of Jesus.

"It's hard to watch. The violence is unremitting. I have a serious issue with that," he said. "It's one thing to read, `They took him and scourged him and took him to Pilate,' which takes about 12 seconds. It's another to see that for 45 minutes with blood spattered everywhere."

Baugh's principal complaint is that the graphic beatings and whippings inflicted on Jesus are presented without any explanation of who Jesus is or why this is happening to him.

"The physical suffering of Jesus is removed from its context (as) an act of love of God in Jesus -- his life, death and resurrection. When you focus an extreme amount of time and an extreme amount of violence on only the suffering, then you're exaggerating. We're not saved by the number of times Jesus is struck by a whip or the amount of blood left on the floor of Pilate's palace," he said.

Gibson's traditionalist Catholicism, which predates the theological reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, may be the source of such a portrayal, Baugh said.

"It's what I grew up with in the '50s. `Every lie you tell is another strike of the whip on Jesus' back' -- that sort of thing. It goes way beyond good taste and theological validity because Gibson believes fervently it's for his own sins Jesus is being crucified," he said.

As to whether the movie portrays anti-Semitism, Baugh said Gibson faced the same difficulty as all directors who put the Passion of Christ on film -- how to portray the enmity of Jewish leaders as it is described in the gospels without indicting all Jews.

"My own feeling is that the image presented is pretty balanced. In the trial, at least two priests say, `This is an innocent man' and `This is a travesty of justice.' In the crowd, there are hundreds of Jews who cry, `Set him free,' " he said.

Baugh says there are moments of beauty and brilliance in "The Passion of the Christ" and that all movies about Jesus have been surrounded by controversy because each is an interpretation. In the end, it is Gibson's vision that is both the source of controversy for critics and inspiration for advocates.

"I think what we're hoping to see is a realistic representation of what happened in Scripture," said Daniels of Cornerstone Baptist. "We want to see lives changed."