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After seeing Mel Gibson’s Passion film, I will never quite be the same.

While I have known from my childhood that Jesus went through terrible agony to complete his mission to save us, my understanding of it is greatly intensified by images that I don’t think I will ever forget, especially when I read the Gospels.

Hopefully this film will cause a great awakening that will turn this country back to its roots.

There were two such awakenings in the 1730’s and 1740’s, and they had a profound impact on our nation’s growth and maturing into a great nation, one that was founded upon the our Christian-Judeo beliefs.

Out of those awakenings, many great and Godly people were created. Although most pastors have probably heard of David Brainerd in seminary, few others have. However, the life of this man has exerted an influence on many of us without our knowing it.

David Brainerd was born in 1718 in Haddam, Connecticut, the son of Hezekiah Brainerd, Esq., a “worshipful” man who was one of “his Majesty’s council for that colony”, and a Connecticut legislator. David Brainerd’s grandfather was Daniel “Deacon” Brainerd, who was a founder of Haddam, a merchant, a deacon in his church, a Commissioner and a Deputy to the General Court.

In other words, David Brainerd came from good stock, parents and grandparents who were Christians and accomplished people. But three years before he was born, David’s grandfather “Deacon” died. Then when he was only nine years old his father died. When he was fourteen years old, his mother died.

With the Christian influence gone from his life at that young age, he drifted away from God. He essentially became a non-believer, but when he was twenty years old, he found God again.

At that time, he tried farming for a living, but being an intellect, quickly lost interest in manual labor. He set his sights on Yale, which was in those days a Bible College.

While at Yale, Brainerd made a careless remark about one of his professors, and was expelled. At that time, you could only be a minister in Connecticut if you were a graduate from Harvard, Yale or a European University. Unsuccessful at convincing the college to readmit him, he thought he had lost his chance to fulfill his calling to be a pastor.

But others were on Brainerd’s side, and came to his aid. He was eventually made a minister and was sent out as a missionary to the Indians who lived in Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware.

From the time that he had entered Yale, Brainerd suffered frequent illnesses, both mental and physical. He had the beginnings of tuberculosis, suffered with severe bouts of depression, and was deeply lonely.

He also struggled with the hardship of life that was part of living alone in a wilderness. He had little good food during his ministry to the Indians, was poisoned, had his horse stolen, and on one occasion, fractured his leg.

Yet in spite of all of this adversity and the constant intense pain from tuberculosis, Brainerd reached a level of Christian maturity that few ever approach.

His life was so inspiring that a friend, Jonathan Edwards, wrote a book called “Life of Brainerd”, based on Brainerd’s diaries. People who were inspired by the book included John Wesley and David Livingston.

Brainerd spent the last nine years of his life suffering from the tuberculosis that would eventually take his life in 1747 at the age of 29, yet during those last nine years he led hundreds of Indians to Christ.

Shortly before his death, his friends Jonathan Dickinson and Aaron Burr attempted once again to get him admitted to Yale, but when Yale refused, they chartered a new Bible college in which Brainerd become its first enrolled student. That college was Princeton University.

But that wasn’t all – Eleazor Wheelock was so inspired by Brainerd’s diaries that he founded another Bible college in Lebanon, New Hampshire for both whites and Indians. Later that college was moved to Hannover and became Dartmouth College.

So why the comparison of Mel Gibson to David Brainerd? Except for the physical illnesses, Gibson’s life in many ways parallels Brainerd’s in that he was born a Christian, fell away, and then came back to produce this powerful film that will undoubtedly lead millions to Christ. And as Brainerd was rejected by Yale, Gibson has been rejected by Hollywood.

Brainerd shared then, and Gibson shares now, the same passionate love for the One who loved us so much that he gave his very life for us. In turn, Brainerd and Gibson risked every earthly possession they had to spread the truth about Christ.

Perhaps the selfless examples of Brainerd and Gibson will inspire many others to risk it all as well, and many more will be led to Christ, and to do many great things in his name.