“There they crucified him.”
John 19:18
On one of the Bible reading groups I follow and contribute to, a member posted this today:
I despise violence. Even if I see something on TV and know its being acted i still have to turn away. I always, every year, dread Easter. It feels like there is so much emphasis on Jesus’ beatings and pain and I sometimes feel like I just can’t hear anymore. My attitude SHOULD be in this time period, pure joy and celebration. I know longer have to fear Gods wrath and can spend eternity in paradise. What is wrong with me? I know im an HSP could that be it? How do I get my brain to see this as a great thing instead of a torturous thing? Its just hard. Such a beautiful thing tied to so much suffering. Any thoughts?
I was so thankful for her honesty. She said the quiet part out loud. Honestly. I think a lot of modern depictions of the crucifixion, both in film and in sermons, are close to the edge of glorifying or even fetishizing the violence.
Movies like The Passion of the Christ, while well intentioned, spend so much of their running time on the horrible torture of the crucifixion that you get no sense of the purpose, no sense of the mission of Jesus, and little sense of Jesus’ love. And without that context, one can get a warped view of God the Father (the phrase “Cosmic Child Abuser” gets thrown around a lot). It’s good to remember that the gospels themselves give few details about the scourging and the crucifixion:
- Matthew 26:35: “After crucifying him, they divided his clothes…”
- Mark 15:24: “Then they crucified him and divided his clothes…”
- Luke 23:23: “They crucified him there”
- John 19:18: “There they crucified him.”
None of the gospels mention Jesus being nailed to the cross, although John’s gospel alludes to it when Thomas says he won’t believe Jesus is resurrected until he puts his hands in the nail holes (John 20:24).
The flogging of Jesus gets one verse in John (19:1), one in Mark (15:19), and one in Matthew (27:26). Luke only has Pilate promising to have Jesus whipped without saying He was.
Contrast this with the nearly thirteen minutes Mel Gibson gives to this scene.
I’m not for a moment suggesting that the scourging was somehow milder than what is depicted, or that crucifixion wasn’t an excruciating way to die. For what it’s worth, the word excruciating literally means “from crucifixion.” The pain of crucifixion was so uniquely horrible as to become self-defining.
But I do wonder why many movie producers and preachers think we can’t fully appreciate what Jesus did for us unless they describe every blow of the whip, every prick of every thorn, and every excruciating detail of the crucifixion. Are we so desensitized to pain and suffering that it takes an R-Rated two hour movie for us to “get it?” Think of how many old monster movies get remakes when Hollywood improves their special effects. Will we someday get a remake of The Passion because someone thinks those early 2000’s special effects weren’t realistic enough?
The Four Evangelists were models of restraint. Maybe they assumed everyone knew what a crucifixion entailed so there was no need to go into such detail. Or maybe for them the torture wasn’t actually the main thing. After all, John devotes one quarter of his entire gospel (John 13-17) to what was probably a two to three hour meal with the disciples (the Upper Room discourse). Compare that to the one verse the actual act of putting Jesus on the cross is given. John used the Greek word for “scourge” once. He used the Greek word for “crucifed” six times.
He used the Greek word for “abide” sixty-seven times.
Again, I know many of these graphic sermons and Easter pageants and movies are made with the best of intentions. But I wonder if this isn’t the ultimate example of what Tara-Leigh calls “screaming where Scripture merely whispers.”
In the words of the old hymn, it is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.
Leave a Reply