The Passion of the Christ

Isaiah 53:1-12 and Matthew 27:11-31

 

 

            In a book called A Grace Disguised, Gerald Sittser describes his personal journey through the heart of darkness after watching his wife, his four-year old daughter and his mother die in a car accident.  He tells of a dream he had shortly after the funeral in which he ran frantically west toward the setting sun.  He could not catch it, of course, and soon found himself standing in the twilight.  He was filled with the darkness of despair.  He glanced over his shoulder to the east and saw a vast and terrifying darkness closing in on him.  Sittser told his sister about the dream.  She listened, and after listening for a time, she said, “Gerald, the quickest way to reach the sun is not to chase after it in the West, but to plunge into the darkness and through the darkness until one encounters the rising sun.  Don’t go west, Gerald, go east.”

 

            My friends, today we go east.  We encounter what is perhaps the greatest Mystery of the Christian Faith: the passion of the Christ.  Before The Passion referred to a Mel Gibson movie, it referred to that part of each Gospel’s narrative in which Jesus was arrested, tried and crucified.  Today’s phrase from the Apostle’s Creed, “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” summarizes Jesus’ passion: his arrest in the dark of night, his false trial before first Jewish and then Roman authorities, his crucifixion under the Roman Governor of Palestine, Pontius Pilate.  The question confronting anyone who dares to look at Jesus during his passion is clear: why did Jesus have to suffer and die?

 

*****

 

It does seem like a waste.  His entire ministry lasted no more than three years. His teachings can be summarized in one small pamphlet. He never harmed anyone. Surely God could have just made it all better without all the fuss. Surely God could have just, well, forgiven us...after all, isn't that what we are supposed to do. All of our lives we are taught that forgiveness should be part and parcel of our lives. We are to forgive and forget, let bygones be bygones.

 

But forgiveness is not as easy as some folks make it sound. "Forgive him, he's your brother." "Forgive her, she's your wife." "Listen, you're a Christian, what your husband does shouldn't worry you, just forgive him and move on." The words roll off the tongue like syrup, intended to encourage us to pretend that forgiving others is really a rather benign business. Yet, we rightly wonder at all the anger and pain inside us that somehow doesn't correlate with all the forgiving we the faithful are supposed to do. We may feel guilty that we aren't the forgiving kind who instantly and easily forgive, but we find it hard to say, "Don't worry, it doesn't matter," because deep down we know it does matter! It matters that someone close to us has hurt us. It matters that there has been a bit or even more of betrayal. It matters and we hurt and believe it or not, that's OK. For in forgiveness where there is no pain, there is no gain. Where there is no pain in forgiveness, there can be no reconciliation in love.

 

Forgiveness is painful, and if it isn't, it isn't forgiveness. If there were no pain it would mean that we were indifferent and there is an ocean of separation between forgiveness and indifference. Forgiveness grows out of the soil of love. When you or I love another, it means we have invested part of ourselves; our hope, our trust, our dreams, our lives. Such an investment opens our lives to the possibility of great joy: great joy because we can share in the lives and dreams of another. But it also opens us to the possibility of pain: pain because we care so deeply about that other that what they do and have done affects us. If the other person does not live up to our expectations, or if they do things which harm themselves, others or us, we feel it. We hurt. We hurt because we love. If on the other hand, we feel no pain, it means we probably didn't care what happened to them. It means we may not have loved as we thought we did. And if we didn't love, there is really no reason to forgive because it didn't matter in the first place. In order for forgiveness to be real, there needs to have been a relationship that was injured or broken but which begins again when we move through our hurt to say, "I forgive you."

 

*****

 

One of the modern crises in faith is found here in the swirl of confusion about love and suffering and forgiveness, and how God fits into all these things, and how we fit into all these things. Where did the notion come from that, if we forgive someone, the pain we feel in our heart should instantly and completely disappear? Where did the notion come from that, if we love someone, we should never cause that person any pain, never do anything that will cause even discomfort in their lives? Where did the notion come from that life was so easy that we find ourselves surprised, at least mildly, when we encounter a source of suffering? A friend of mine once told me about her nephew who is a brilliant young man, IQ off the charts. The family spent quite a while not knowing where he was. It seems that he left Florida to hitchhike to Alaska. The young nephew is a poet who thinks he needs to suffer for his art. My friend's comment about him was poignant. She said, "What he doesn't understand is that if he simply lives, suffering will come to him. He doesn't need to seek it out." He doesn't need to seek it out, for it is woven into the fabric of our days.

 

Another friend told me about his brother-in-law acting strangely. Over a Thanksgiving visit, he and his wife's concerns grew. The brother-in-law was becoming mentally ill. He had lost his job. He was becoming reclusive. He was beginning to exhibit strange behavior. One afternoon my friend decided to search his brother-in-law’s room. He found literature that lent itself toward twisted thinking and a loaded shotgun. This was quite a blow to my friend and his wife, but their responsibility was clear: they called the police and had the man committed to a state hospital. The point of the story is found in my friend's wife. She was so angry at her mom! Her mom could not or would not see what was happening to her boy. Her mom could not or would not admit what was happening, could not or would not share about what was happening, and certainly could not or would not do anything about what was happening. Why? Because the mom did not want to cause her son any pain. The mom held the misguided notion that love meant protecting each other from all pain. Now I grant you that families are to protect one another. But our protection itself can go too far. Our protection can become toxic.

 

That Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate teaches us that healing hurts, wholeness has a price. Yes, God loves us. God loves the human beings he created and God desires our best. He gave us all that we needed and all he desires is that we listen to him and allow him to guide us to life. But we wouldn't listen to him. We went our own way, wreaking havoc wherever we went. Ignoring God as soon as we thought he was out of sight. We betrayed his love. We harmed ourselves. We made a mess of things. I suppose God could have given up, or tried to be indifferent, but he couldn't. God's love was too great. And our pain, was God's pain. So God chose to forgive. And God understood clearly that to bring true forgiveness to the ultimate act of sin, our betrayal of his love, would take the ultimate act of pain, the death of his son on the cross. No pain, no gain. But Christ was willing to suffer the pain.

 

That Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate is of importance in that, within the Apostle's Creed, Pilate represents the rejection of Jesus Christ by his world. The disowning of Jesus is seen as representing the rejection of the Creator by his creation. The New Testament portrays that rejection in many ways. Jesus was rejected at Nazareth by those who had known him from his youth. He was condemned as a blasphemer by the leaders of the people. He was condemned by Pilate as a political threat to the peace and stability of Rome. It would be wrong to isolate any of these groups, and place the burden of Jesus' crucifixion on them alone. The New Testament sees all these things--the congregation at Nazareth, the leaders of the people, the Roman governor--as pointing to the same things: the sinfulness of human nature. All human beings, no matter who we are or when and where we live, are sinners, needing God's forgiveness and reconciliation. It is sinful human nature itself that led creation to crucify its creator. Sin bites so deeply into human nature that it comes close to destroying our ability to recognize God when he comes among us.

 

So deep rooted is sin that we are incapable of breaking its stranglehold unaided. It enslaves us. It is like an addictive drug that destroys the will and the ability of individuals to break free from its grip. Yet, the gospel affirms that God has acted to break the hold of sin upon us. Through the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, God is able to transform our situations. The guilt of sin is forgiven; its power is broken; its stain is cleansed. But the Creed asks us to consider the cost of this breakthrough. Forgiveness is a costly business, which demanded the suffering and death of the Son of God.

 

Christ's death on the cross was not a meaningless act, or a nice thought, or the culmination of some esoteric legal proceeding in an obscure Roman province. It was instead the eternal act of forgiveness that made reconciliation between us and God a true possibility. It was the costly act which opened our hearts to the way of new life. It forever changed the way we can relate to the one who loves us so much. It is also a model for us to follow. It demonstrates that in all of our relationships, there is no gain without some pain. Love means knowing that pain is a possibility, but that even in pain forgiveness can come. Our forgiveness was bought at a great price, the price of God's pain, but that it was pain born of love, a love for us that never dies.

 

*****

 

Why did Jesus have to die and to die a gruesome death?  Why must we deal with his death in order to find our life?  Why is it that to be a disciple of Jesus we must journey to the Cross, plunge into the darkness, experience anew the suffering of our Savior?  Why must we go east?

 

            We journey to the Cross because we believe God is a particular kind of God, a God unlike any other “god” in all the world, a crucified God.  As Jurgenn Moltmann reminds us: “The death of Jesus on the cross is the center of all Christian theology.  The meaning of this is that this is God, and God is like this.  God is not greater than Jesus is in this humiliation.  God is not more glorious than Jesus is in this self-surrender.  God is not more powerful than Jesus is in this helplessness. God is not more divine than Jesus is in this humanity.”  Our Presbyterian Confession of ’67 says much the same thing: “God reveals his love in Jesus Christ by showing power in the form of a servant, wisdom in the folly of the cross, and goodness in receiving sinful folk.”  We journey to the Cross because we desire to speak truthfully about the nature and character of God and God’s life among us.

 

            The Jewish author, philosopher and concentration camp survivor Elie Weisel was a 14 year old in Auschwitz.  He once wrote about the time when he returned to camp from a work detail to see three gallows: “SS all around, machine guns trained, the traditional ceremony.  Three victims in chains – and one of them a little servant, a sad-eyed angel.  The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual.  To hang a young boy in front of thousands…was no light matter.  The head of the camp read the verdict.  All eyes were on the child.  He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips.  The gallows threw its shadow over him….

 

            “The three victims mounted together on to the chairs.  The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.  ‘Long live liberty!’ cried the two adults.  But the child was silent.  ‘Where is God?  Where is He?’ someone behind me asked.  At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over…And I heard a voice within me answer, ‘Where is He?  He is here – He is hanging on this gallows.’”

 

            Perhaps we may quibble with Weisel’s theology, for the boy was only a little servant not the Suffering Servant, only an angel not God incarnate.  But we should not quibble with the power and the passion and the purity of Weisel’s encounter with God.  He was not the first outsider to come to such a conclusion.

 

            Another man from another time stood before a different set of gallows.  This man is the only one, man or woman, who gives a full, unequivocal confession of faith in all of Mark’s Gospel, the only one who understands who Jesus truly is, without denial, without deceit, without doubt.  I am talking of course of the centurion who stood at the foot of Jesus’ cross – the one who witnessed perfect, innocent suffering and was led to confess, “Surely this man was the Son of God.”

 

            How is it that this man, this Roman centurion, was able to confess Jesus when all those closest to Jesus turned away?  Perhaps the answer to this question will forever remain a mystery.  But perhaps also we know how and we know why: while all the others were running away the centurion was deep into the depths of death’s dark shadow.  While the others were running west, the centurion stayed his course in the east.

 

            Don’t go west, my friends, go east.  Let us prepare ourselves for the journey of a lifetime, a journey to the Cross, a plunge into the darkness and through the darkness until we encounter the rising Son.

 

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