Pondering The Passion

This was a reflection written for the Vine and Fig community for Good Friday (10 April 2020). 

The passion narrative, the suffering and death of Jesus, is a central story in our Christian tradition. I offer here some reflections from my pondering on this narrative, it is not a comprehensive reflection nor conclusive; rather a point in the pondering process I suspect will be lifelong. As I offer my own thoughts, I invite you to share yours, and hopefully we can ponder such a central event in our faith together and learn from each other.

Being a cradle Catholic, I was exposed to the passion of Jesus from my earliest days, it permeates all aspects of our Catholic culture. Artwork, statues, songs, rituals etc. all form us in this Catholic Tradition. The passion of Jesus is central to our identity and faith.

My own childhood memories of Good Friday are of processions, Church services, prayer, lit candles, fasting and a mother barefoot as a form of penance. Long before I was old enough to understand the story and its significance, I was exposed to it with all its gruesome imagery of suffering and death. Like many Christians, the crucifixion is a significant part of my own spirituality and sitting before a crucifix in prayer can be a powerful experience. Such a familiar story, it can often be a challenge to read the narrative and experience Good Friday with fresh eyes.

One way of coming to the narrative with fresh eyes is to ponder it, look at the story from various perspectives; visualise the narrative and walk around the scene, looking from different angles. Allow the story to engage our experience. Some helpful questions might be:

• What do I learn about Jesus and about God?
• What is my image/understanding of God and how does this influence my reading?
• Does God punish us? Does God demand retribution for our sins?
• Why did Jesus have to suffer?
• Why do we experience suffering?
• What is my understanding of “being saved”?
• What in my life experience helps me engage with the passion of Jesus? With the various characters and events?
• How does the passion narrative help me understand the human experience?
• What is it exactly that I believe?

Let me attempt to share some of my own insights, incomplete as they are.

THE PASSION AS HUMAN EXPERIENCE

First and foremost, the passion narrative is part of a wider story; namely the birth, life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus; and part of the whole story of salvation, the Bible. I believe the whole story reveals Jesus as redeemer and saver. I don’t believe that Jesus came just to die and it is only his death that is redemptive. Redemption is intertwined with the whole life of Jesus. I believe that God became human in Jesus, that God sent Jesus to proclaim the Good News, to reveal God to us. This mission of Jesus is redemptive.

I confess that I don’t believe that God sent Jesus to die for our sins. That would mean that God demands retribution. This is not the God of Hosea or the prodigal son or many of the bible texts that speak of God as all loving, “slow to anger and rich in mercy” as the psalmist asserts. God sent Jesus to reveal God to us, and Jesus reveals a God who is all inclusive with unconditional love and a desire for relationship with each one of us.

Hence, I see the passion of Jesus as a consequence of his mission. Love, inclusion, forgiveness freely given are dangerous messages that many reject. Jesus’ commitment to his mission led to conflict with “the authorities” and eventually to his passion and death. While the life and death of Jesus was unique and redemptive of itself, it is also a familiar human dynamic. Think of people such as Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero, to name just two, who were so committed to their mission, they accepted the danger and continued to speak the truth even to the point of death. They too were killed because, like Jesus, their message was a radical truth that many could not accept. Their deaths, contribute to the redemption of the world because they continue the mission of Jesus. Jesus’ death reminds us that salvation needs sacrifice.

Tolkien captured this human dynamic in his classic tale Lord of the Rings. Frodo becomes the Christ figure who takes on the quest to save “middle earth” from evil. He eventually comes to realise that his quest will lead to death, it is a sacrifice he is willing to make for others. Interestingly Frodo is saved. Sacrifice and death are never the end, life always overcomes death.

The question that I am left with is why does salvation need sacrifice or more precisely why do we suffer. I have no adequate answer, just the awareness that suffering is a part of the experience of every living thing, we humans are no exception. To live, to love is to suffer. But while I have no answer, I reject the idea that God gives us suffering to atone for our sins. I reject the notion that God punishes and wants us to suffer as retribution. This conviction came into focus recently when I contributed to an online post, and ensuing discussion, claiming that the coronavirus was God’s punishment for the sins of the world — the sins of accepting gay people, abortion, free sex and so on. Interestingly, these posts never claim God punishes the sin of capitalism, consumerism, the arms race, war and violence.

One thing the crucifixion teaches me is that God is repulsed by suffering in all its forms. But the reality is that we suffer and we die, and many die violent deaths because of the actions of others. Buddhism teaches that suffering comes from desire, or want. I suspect that we suffer because we want and are rarely satisfied. Based on my very limited understanding of Rene Girard, and probably not doing him justice; there is suffering because our human understanding cannot comprehend a God who freely and willingly forgives us without demanding retribution, so we demand retribution and we look for scapegoats to sacrifice. Unfortunately, these scapegoats are often people from marginalised groups, as history demonstrates: the adulterous woman they wanted to stone, the pogroms against the Jews, genocide against the Armenians in Turkey or the Tutsi in Rwanda, gay people, the poor, the migrant, the one that doesn’t conform, or simply the other. The passion of Jesus, if we truly believe, should convince us that scapegoating is not necessary. However, we crucify Jesus, we burn witches, commit genocide, “stone the sinner”, we demonise the other. In short, we crucify Christ each day.

PASSION AS ACCOMPANIMENT

I believe that God became human in Jesus, entered into the human experience, proclaimed a radical truth that the “authorities” rejected. Having rejected Jesus, the “authorities” used him as a scapegoat and crucified him. Jesus took on the sins of the world and allowed the dynamic to play out rather than deny the truth he preached. As I read the passion narrative, I see a God who chooses to accompany me in my life. A God who so loved the world that God became human even to death. In every aspect of my life I trust that Jesus walks with me; and never am I so sure of this, or comforted by this, as in times of trial and suffering. When I weep, God weeps with me; when I feel vulnerable and rejected, a vulnerable and rejected God sits with me. When I rage against a perceived injustice broken hearted, God is right there. Not as a bystander but knowing my pain and holding my hand. I have to admit there a plenty of times I want to give Jesus a kick and argue for him to do something, take away the pain, pulls us out of this. But Jesus just gives me a knowing and loving smile. The tradition of accompaniment is an intimate relationship of healing, of being present to the other. It reminds us that we are good and worthwhile in our humanness. God desires relationship with us, welcomes us into a loving embrace as Jesus stretches out his arms. I have saved you; you are mine. And all we need to do is open our arms and enter into that embrace.

The disciples mostly disappeared, Peter denied knowing Jesus, Thomas doubted. And Jesus forgave them. The challenge the disciples faced was accepting that forgiveness. In all our human frailty and vulnerability Jesus invites us to be fully human, with all that this entails. The God who loved us into being and became one of us out of love, invites us to be fully human and to celebrate our humanity. For when the suffering is done, when the hate is over, when the discrimination and scapegoating has ceased, we will understand that life is greater than all the suffering and hate and death. The last word is LIFE.