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Jesus' Fifteen Minutes What are we looking at when we watch the suffering of Christ? by Michael Spencer
Romans 3:24-25 the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood In a few days from the time I am writing these words, millions of Americans will pour into cinemas all over the country to watch, among other things, fifteen uninterrupted minutes of a man being brutally beaten, flayed and whipped until he is a bloody shell of a human being. Some have said that never before in the history of film has the camera focused so closely on this kind of violence done to one person. There have been scenes of rape and dismemberment and torture in modern film, but nothing that focused upon a single act of brutality for this long or in this detail. It has been called the most violent, brutally torturous scene in the history of movies. The victim of this torture is not a criminal, but one of the most notable innocent sufferers in all of history. He is not a soldier charging the beach in Saving Private Ryan. He is not a Jew being killed in Schindler's List. He is not someone being tortured by a sadistic criminal in Red Dragon. His suffering is completely inappropriate by any ordinary justification of suffering. It is suffering he has chosen so deliberately, with so many possible escapes from it, that one might even call it suicidal. Yet, amazingly, millions of Americans are being encouraged by their pastors to go see this "R"-rated film. In all likelihood, the movie will have one of the largest openings in film history, and many of those who go to see it will return multiple times to see this suffering. It is apparent that there is an eagerness to see the suffering that will be portrayed on the screen, and that it is this suffering that appeals to many in the audience. The reason, of course, is that the suffering person is Jesus. In the recent ABC special on "Mel Gibson's Passion," Roman Catholic theologian Paul Cunningham recounted an incident from an interfaith gathering of Christians and Jews. Each group was asked what they thought and felt when they saw a crucifix. The Christians said they thought of the love of God, forgiveness, and God's gracious offer of heaven in the Gospel. The Jews present, however, said they felt fear, blame and undeserved guilt. In the same program, Jesus Seminar scholar J. D. Crossan said that a Martian watching Gibson's movie would be totally confused, because it appears to be a movie about the brutal torture and murder of a kind and innocent person- for no reason. Crossan said that Gibson's decision to show the last 12 hours only makes the suffering incomprehensible to those outside of any knowledge of the Christian meaning of these events. Such examples are a gentle reminder that the suffering of Jesus is interpreted in different ways. Mohamed was so put off by the idea of Jesus' suffering, that he removed them from Muslim doctrines about Jesus. Someone else suffers, but not a true prophet from God. Not Jesus. Allah would have nothing to do with such a blasphemous thing. Many Jews feel blamed, some to the point they are afraid the film will ignite violence toward Jews. Christians see redemption, hope, love, grace; in short, their Gospel. With all this focus on the suffering of Jesus, it would be wise to consider for a moment exactly what it is that Christians believe about Jesus' suffering, and why they feel such an act of violence is the center of the "Good News?" The Gospels, without a doubt, emphasize the suffering of Jesus that preceded his death. In this movie, this includes a beating from the mob before and after the trial before Caiaphas, torment and humiliation by the soldiers, a scourging ordered by Pilate, the abuses of the crowd on the way to the execution, and the crucifixion itself. No matter what one believes occurs at any of these points- and I believe there is some evidence that Christians tend to be sensational and portray the worst about any component of this suffering- the suffering is considerable. It is brutal. It is undeserved, cruel, even monstrous. We are not, however,
invited by the Gospels to exaggerate the physical sufferings of Jesus.
The Gospels are matter-of-fact about these events. The New Testament
epistles say
nothing beyond the fact that Christ suffered. Paul details his own
suffering far more than he details the suffering of Jesus. The sermons
of the early Christians recorded in Acts do not amplify or detail the
suffering of Jesus for impact. The death of Jesus is announced, and its
meaning clearly applied. He suffered and died for our salvation and
forgiveness. He died in our place, judged by God. In Acts 3, instead of
detailing the indignities foced upon Jesus, the early church forgives
those who condemned the savior and arranged for
his execution as acting in ignorance. I cannot help but
think, based on the New Testament, that if the early Christians could
have shown a movie at Pentecost to the gathered crowd, it would not be
the same kind of movie Christians will be seeing this Lenten season.
It would not have a fifteen minute brutalizing of Jesus. Not because it
didn't happen, or there is anything significantly wrong or incorrect,
but
simply because the emphasis of the Gospels and the epistles is not
strongly, visually set on the brutal physical torment of Jesus, or on
making an emotional impact with that suffering. This is particularly
significant when we realize that two passages that seem to dominate the
Gospel writer's understanding are passages with a fair amount of "gory"
detail: Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. The New Testament seems content to
identify Jesus as the one who suffered, and to note that his sufferings
are part of his sacrifice and our salvation. But the New Testament
writers seems to agree with J.D. Crossan's observation that the
sacrifice of
two firemen killed in rescuing a child is not made greater or less by
what they suffered beforehand, though obviously that suffering may play
a significant role in understanding the love, or courage, or commitment
demonstrated in the sacrifice. If they gave their lives, that is the
greatest sacrifice possible. Is it because the ancient audience was intimately familiar with this kind of torture, and didn't need the details rehearsed? This seems unlikely. Look at Acts 17. Paul does not detail the suffering of Christ at all to the Athenian philosophers. He mentions the resurrection and the final judgment. Is it because these Greeks would have been turned off by the notion of an incarnate, suffering God? Or was it because the physical beating and scourging were not central to their understanding of the significance of Jesus' death? Does the New
Testament tell us enough about the death of Jesus to be clear how much
emphasis should be put on the actual physical brutality? Are their
dangers in over-emphasizing the physical torture; dangers that might
obscure more important aspects of his sacrifice for us? Will The Passion help people understand
the Christian significance of the death of Jesus, or will it simply
shock? Let's start with Mark 10, and Jesus' first explanation of why he is dying. (I have a prejudice toward first mentions of any subject, and I freely admit it. So take this for what it is.)
The power of a ransom
to bring a person out of bondage and debt and into freedom is the value and worth of the payment.
This is not just a casual choice of words. Jesus could have said many
things that his disciples would understand. The word "ransom," does not
imply that an amount of suffering will pay, but that the value of the one paying the
ransom is sufficient. If we understand Jesus as our
substitutionary atonement, it is clearly his life paying for our sins,
and his willingness to endure the wrath of God for us that saves. How
Jesus experienced the torture of men is not as significant as the fact
that he was an offering sufficient to satisfy the wrath of God for our
sin-debt. His worth covers our debt. Paul's statement that
Jesus was put forward as a propitiation
(Romans 3:25) is also not a
statement of maximum human suffering, but of the ability of Jesus to
assuage and exhaust the wrath of God toward us. It would be possible to
think of Jesus dying in any number of contexts and he would still be
the one who became sin for us, suffered the Father's wrath for us, and
died in our place. Even contexts without the amount or kinds of
suffering that Jesus experienced. Propitiation is sacrifice that
removes the wrath of a God. What the sacrifice is put through before
its life is taken is inconsequential. Paul seems to understand this when he says, "Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us- for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree" It is Christ- the uncursed, becoming the cursed- that saves us. Whether it is on a tree, a cross, in an electric chair or shot point blank is really inconsequential as long as the Father accepts the life of his Son as the payment for our sins. It is apparent that
many Christians are unaware of what Paul means when he writes
that (1 Timothy 2:5-6) "For there is one
God, and there is one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all..." In the Gospel, the ransom is the mediator,
and the power of the ransom is the mediator. Gibson's approach
does not detract and distract from this fact, at all, but the fact
remains that Jesus in the mediator. He is the ransom. He is the
atonement, and the suffering of Christ reveals to us his character,
love and grace toward us. But those qualities could be revealed in any
historical context in which Jesus died condemned. If, in a science fiction scenario, Jesus was born on a hundred fallen worlds and died as a ransom, a curse and a substitute on all those worlds, the varying amounts of physical suffering he endured would be inconsequential to the salvation he manifested in each situation. In each case, as mediator and savior, Jesus would be manifesting who he is and what his life and death do for us. He is, in every case, the Savior who who comes from the grace of God and takes away our sins. There is, I believe, a real need to look at the Gospel accounts and remember that the center of the story is the wrath of the Father poured out on the Son. If the millions who see The Passion come away convinced that the worst thing that happened to Jesus was a scourging and crucifixion, they will have missed the heart of the Gospel.
What is Jesus looking at with such dread? What is the cup that he asks- as a human being- to have removed? What is the agony in the Garden- agony that comes before the tortures of his enemies- all about? It is about the wrath of God that is about to be poured out on Jesus. It is not only the cup of physical suffering, but the hell he will endure and absorb for us. On the cross, Jesus again opens a window for us to see that much more is going on than simple physical rejection. There is great irony in this passage, as the detractors mock Jesus with words that indicate the truth of what is happening. By not coming down from the cross, he saves others. It is by seeing and believing Christ on the cross that we are saved. Out of the mouths of Jesus' enemies comes the very Gospel itself. The Gospels tell us of three hours
of darkness, and a single statement from Jesus that reveals all we can
see of the heart of the Gospel. In the quote from Psalm 22, Jesus is
expressing the cry of one who feels abandoned. Is the Gospel telling us
that at this moment, Jesus is coming out of the darkness of God's
wrath? Is it telling us that for a moment unique in all eternity, the
Father has turned his back on the Son, and the Son is in the darkness
of the wrath of God? Romans
5:6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ
died for the ungodly. 7 For one
will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good
person one would dare even to die— 8 but
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us. 9 Since, therefore,
we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by
him from the wrath of God. 10 For
if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his
Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his
life. 11 More than that, we also
rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received reconciliation.
Christ's death justified. It saved us from wrath by enduring that wrath. It reconciled us to the God who previously had his wrath justifiably aimed at us. Our ultimate salvation, in the end, is by his life. His mediatorial, died-for-us, raised-for-us life. John's Gospel reminds us of Jesus' freedom in our salvation. He laid down his life and he took it up again. In other words, it was not the attacks on his flesh, or the torment of his body, but the laying down of his life under the wrath of God for us, that is the center of our salvation. John
10:17 For this reason the Father loves
me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No
one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have
authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
This charge I have received from my Father.”
What is the significance of the physical suffering of Jesus? Am I saying those sufferings are unimportant? Ultimately, we cannot see how we are saved. The inner-workings of the Trinity are unseen to us. What we do see is Jesus crucified for us. We do not see God the Father. We do not see his wrath and judgment. We do not see our sins, or our ransom. We see Jesus. Like the serpent on the pole, we look at him, and are healed. The Christ we look at is the Christ of the Bible and the Gospels. A significant part of his story is his suffering. Now we need to know that Christ suffered throughout his incarnation. Every day, as God in human flesh, he suffered with us, and for us. He suffered with his family. He suffered with his people. He suffered with the poor, the old, the rejected and the diseased. He suffered with the afflicted and the ostracized. He suffered while experiencing human life in all its fallen dimensions. He suffered evil and abuse. Every day, in everything he saw, felt and took into himself, Jesus suffered to be with us and to be one of us. Now, this suffering redeems us, in every way that we can be redeemed, and it redeems all of human life and every dimension of human life. As the incarnate Word that reconciles God to the world, Jesus is the redemption of this world. The suffering of Jesus is not always visible to us, and the results of his work of reconciliation and redemption were only visible in history flashes of miraculous change until the glory of the resurrection was revealed. The scripture says: Hebrews 2:9 But we see
him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely
Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death,
so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 10 For
it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in
bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation
perfect through suffering.
In his suffering Jesus was being made "perfect." The word here is a word that means fulfilling all potential, or achieving a desired end or purpose. Jesus' trajectory in his incarnation was through suffering- all kinds of suffering, to a final suffering and death. In this, Jesus is tasting death for every person.He is answering the death knell of Romans 3:23, 6:23 and elsewhere. His suffering and death will redeem and conquer death and suffering. This is his end; his purpose in his incarnation. In the suffering of Jesus we see all human suffering redeemed and conquered. We see Jesus choosing suffering, rather than avoiding suffering, as an expression of his freely offered love and life, given to God, fand offered for us and for our salvation. His suffering insures that all human suffering and death is now an entering into Christ, who has bore our suffering and created our salvation in his body. It is the person, and the offered life, of Jesus Christ that reconciles and saves us. But for Jesus, the walk to that death, in his time, was a walk through intense suffering, and a walk to a terrible death on the cross. We see the suffering of Jesus, and we understand in a human way, what the love and grace of God will do for us. So Christ suffering and crucified is what we can see and understand, in an eternal work among the Godhead that we cannot see or understand. Just as the offering of animal sacrifices was a picture of Christ, so Christ's suffering and death are a picture of the wrath of God and the Judgment of God poured out fully on the Son of God. Christ's sufferings are our healing, our redemption and our salvation, but all we see are the sufferings, and then only seeing with eyes of faith really sees. We cannot truly understand these things. But we can look at the suffering and the crucified one, and believe. The Cross and the suffering of Jesus are the visual, emotional center of our contact with the God who has saved us. The Lord's Supper is a participation in this death and suffering. Baptism is entering into the death and life of Jesus. When we live the Christian life, we are called to live a life that knows Christ crucified. We need to meditate upon the suffering of Jesus because we are in desperate need of the fruit of the Spirit that comes from the Passion of Jesus. Michael Dubruiel, a Roman Catholic writer, said it this way in a recent column on why the passion and the cross needs to once again be at the center of church life and Christian living. While the Catholics were taking Christ off of the cross, other Christians were preaching a gospel of affluence, not unlike the hypnotic message of infomercials that run endlessly on early morning television. The message varied but it essentially promised that if you make a down payment in faith, Christ would bless you beyond your wildest dreams. Ironically, many of the great preachers of this Gospel were publicly humiliated and suffered their own public crucifixions. Perhaps that is one reason why evangelicals seem so ready to embrace a very graphic meditation on the Passion of Our Lord. We need the cross, because in it- in what we do see and can see- there is much that we need to see and embrace.In all my "Passion" reading, I came across a statement that said something like this: "If you watch The Passion, you will understand what Jesus did to forgive your sins." I understand this quote, and I appreciate what it's saying. It betrays, however, that many Christians do not understand any of the theology that stands behind their forgiveness. Their pastors have not preached it or taught it. They are, indeed, clueless about how they are fogiven. I think the statement is very much backwards. Scripture- not a movie- tells us the Gospel. Without scripture, there is no movie. Without the epistles, there is no explanation of what happens in the Gospels, and why it is significant. John Piper has a book of 50 things that were accomplished through the death of Jesus, and the vast majority are explained in the epistles. So let me offer another way to view the movie: If you understand what the Bible says about how our sins are forgiven, you will understand what you see in "The Passion." Understand the atonement, the wrath of God, the judgment of God on his Son for our sins, and you will understand the suffering and death portrayed in the movie. |
Hebrews 2:9-10 But we see him who for a
little while was
made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor
because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might
taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by
whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the
founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.