The Meaning of His Suffering

With the impending release of Mel Gibson's movie about the Passion of Jesus Christ, here is an Orthodox view of the subject.

The Meaning of His Suffering, by Federica Mathewes-Green. Some excerpts:

It’s a mark of our age that we don’t believe something is realistic unless it is brutal. But there’s another factor to consider. When the four evangelists were writing their own accounts of the Passion, they didn’t take Gibson’s approach. None of them depict Jesus with a destroyed eye. In fact, the descriptions of Jesus’ beating and crucifixion are as minimal as the writers can make them.

"Having scourged Jesus, Pilate delivered him to be crucified," the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) agree. "When they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him."

...

But in the earliest Christian writings we see a different understanding of the meaning of the Cross, one which, shockingly, didn’t think it was important for us to identify with Jesus’ suffering. For contemporary Christians it’s hard to imagine such a thing. The extremity of Jesus’ sacrifice has been the wellspring of Christian art and devotion for centuries. It has produced great treasures, from late Renaissance paintings of the Crucifixion, to the meditations of Dame Julian of Norwich, to Bach’s glorious setting of "O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded." Mel Gibson’s "Passion" arrives as the newest entrant in a very old tradition.

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What changed? In the 11th century, a theory emerged that shifted the common understanding of the Cross. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, proposed that our sins constituted a debt to God which could not be simply erased without unbalancing justice. The debt was too immense for any human to pay, and only Jesus’ death could be an adequate sacrifice. Protestant Reformers, coming a few centuries later, modified some implications of the theory, but retained the core intact.

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Yet for the first millennium, and continuing in Eastern Christianity today, the Cross means "victory." In this idea of the atonement ("theory" would be too strong a word for a view expressed with a light, wondering touch, and without expectation of wholly satisfying human curiosity or logic) God in Christ effects a rescue mission. Humans are being held captive by Death, due to their voluntary involvement in sin, and are helpless to free themselves. In a majestic sweep of events Jesus takes on human life in order to die, invade hell, and set the captives free. The focus is much broader than the Crucifixion alone.

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How then could Jesus be a ransom, sacrifice, or offering? Early Christians understood such terms to mean that it cost Jesus his life to rescue us. It was a sacrifice to the Father, as a soldier might offer a superlative act of courage to his beloved general. It was the price of entry into the realm of Death. It cost Jesus his life’s blood to enter Hades and save us, but it wasn’t a payment to anybody.

This helps us see why they did not linger over the details of his suffering. It would be as odd as welcoming home a wounded soldier, and instead of focusing on the victory he won, dwelling on the exact moment the bayonet pierced his stomach, how it felt and what it looked like. A human soldier might well feel annoyed with such attention to his weakness rather than his strength. He would feel that it better preserved his dignity for visitors to avert their eyes from such details, and recount that part of the story as scantly as possible to focus instead on the final achievement.

Posted by Dienekes at February 15, 2004 03:27 AM | PermaLink