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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion Friday, March 26, 2004 |
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Frontline Devotion for Friday, March 26, 2004 By Mike Martine
Scripture:
Psalm 22:1-21
There is little doubt that Mel Gibson’s stark portrayal of the passion of our
Lord has affected us deeply. It has made, for many of us, Lent more real, more
meaningful this year.
Gibson’s film, as we are constantly reminded, focuses on the physical reality
of Christ’s beating and crucifixion. Audience members emerge from the
experience feeling almost beaten themselves, struck by the reality of how much
suffering our savior endured for our sins.
As my father-in-law, Fritz Foltz mentioned in an Ash Wednesday sermon at my
church, it’s unlikely that this film could be “too violent.” The
crucifixion of Jesus simply doesn’t follow the course of a normal crucifixion.
He dies far too quickly. Crucifixion is essentially a death caused by
asphyxiation. The body, with the arms extended, cannot support respiration, and
eventually, when the person’s legs give out, the weight of the body holds the
rib cage in an extended position, breathing cannot be supported, and death
occurs.
Jesus is too weak to carry his cross the short distance to the sight of his
crucifixion. He dies in hours, not days. He is passed over when the Romans
decide to break the legs of the others being crucified. He is already far, far
gone.
Jesus was, in other words, already beaten within an inch of his life. He went to
the cross very nearly dead.
In the horror of watching all this, it’s hard to remember that the passion
also had a gut-wrenching emotional, mental aspect. That Christ, in enduring the
physical pain, endured mental torture as well.
In college, one of my friends had a philosophy professor who liked to compare
the way Socrates died with the way Jesus died. Socrates, he said, was braver in
death. On the surface, this seems true. Socrates freely drank the poison the
state demanded he drink, waited for death to come while comforting his friends
and students, and passed into death confident of the afterlife, saying to those
gathered, “I owe the god of health a debt, do not neglect to pay it.”
Jesus, on the other hand, cries out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” The
professor would point out the difference, and in the process, put down Jesus.
But of course the comparison was largely artificial. Socrates is given the
benefit of a quick, gentle death. A death where he can recline in bed, talk to
friends, and comfort them. Jesus went to death with his mind on fire, carrying
the sting of each whip, the crush of each blow, the knowledge that his friends,
the ones he loved and nurtured, had run away in fear.
He was beaten within an inch of his life. And when that occurs the damage is as
emotional as it is physical. We know what abuse does to a person’s self
esteem, their ability to trust, even their will to live. Jesus endured that same
abuse, and because he was human as well as God, came to the time when he simply
wanted it to be over. “Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit.”
In the passion Jesus did more than simply die for us. He became one with
humanity by enduring the evil human beings dish out on one another. He knew more
than simply death: he took on the pain of rejection; the pain of
marginalization; the pain of racism; the pain of abuse and the pain of feeling
that life was no longer worth living. He became a savior who knows our pain,
because he became one with our pain.
And your pain is not beyond his experience. As we continue our course to the
cross, if you have pain, take it to him. Don’t just give up chocolate—give
up your pain. Allow Jesus to carry your pain on his shoulders. For he came to
show us that God understands, that God is with us in our suffering. He came to
show us that there is, also, life beyond the suffering. He came to show us and
to promise that one day, no matter what our pain, we too will experience
redemption. AMEN
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