There’s no doubt that Mel Gibson’s film, "The Passion of the Christ" has been widely criticised in the media and elsewhere. But what’s surprising is the issue that most of the criticism has been about. It isn’t that it’s anti-Semitic, although that was the accusation before it was released. No, the greatest criticism seems to be that it’s too violent. Someone writing in The Melbourne Anglican suggested that it was just an extension of Mel’s past roles. It was the "Mad Max" version of Jesus Christ.
Others have suggested that maybe the fact that the film so emphasises the physical suffering of Christ prior to the actual crucifixion means that we lose something of the spiritual significance of the crucifixion, of the atonement for sin that was the result of Jesus dying.
Well, if you’ve seen the film you probably have a firm view on whether it was too violent or not. I, like many others, think the flogging scene was too drawn out. But I want to suggest that the idea behind its portrayal of suffering was right at both an apologetic and a theological level.
It was right to emphasise Jesus’ suffering at an apologetic level, because it makes us ask the question, "If he suffered like that, if he died for me, then what sort of response should I make to him?" And if I decide to ignore what he’s done for me how much does that compound his suffering, since it was to no avail in my case? I went to the dentist this week. Now I don’t think anyone likes going to the dentist and certainly not me! Not that my dentist isn’t a very pleasant chap. I had a very pleasant one sided conversation with him as he drilled my teeth. No, it isn’t the dentist that’s the problem, it’s the pain involved. But I’m willing to go through that small amount of suffering because I know it’ll result in the removal of pain later. But if I got home and found that my tooth was hurting just as much after he’d finished I’d be pretty upset wouldn’t I? Well I guess that’s a bit of a picture of how Jesus must weep as he watches human beings, for whom he suffered and died, ignore the gift he offers them.
But in fact there’s more to it than that. Jesus’ suffering before the cross as well as his death on the cross are both vital to our theological understanding of how he brings us back to God. So each week we repeat these familiar words: Jesus suffered; He died; and he descended to the dead.
At the start of "The Passion" it’s made clear that the premise on which the film is based is the passage from Isaiah 53:3-5 "He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. 4Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed."
It’s interesting isn’t it, how that passage from Isaiah speaks of his suffering, his bruises, as the things that heal us. I think we evangelicals have mostly understood the atonement as resulting from Jesus’ death, from his descent into hell, and certainly we’ll see in a moment that that’s a big part of it. But how do his bruises heal us, if that’s what God meant Isaiah to say to us? How do the wounds he received help us with our sins?
Well, let me first ask you a question. What was the result of the sin of Adam and Eve? Think about that for a moment? There are in fact several consequences of that single act aren’t there? The overall result was death. From that moment on they and their offspring were spiritually dead. Eph 2:1-3 says this: "You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else." So death is the worst result of that first sin. But that wasn’t all, was it? As well as death came suffering. Women in childbirth and in their relationships with their husbands; men in their daily work; the earth in its loss of fruitfulness. So here’s the thing: if Jesus was to overcome the effects of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, he needed to enter into the suffering that we endure. He needed to be so identified with suffering humanity that he could truly be our representative. And he needed to endure that suffering in an extreme way. It’s almost as if all the suffering that we experience was focused on him at that moment in a particular way.
Now that doesn’t take anything away from his death on the cross. His suffering under Pontius Pilate was simply a precursor to the suffering of hell that he was about to experience on the cross. But nevertheless it was an important identification with us who still suffer every day from the effects of sin.
By the way, you do realise that the suffering we undergo as part of our normal human experience comes about because of humanity’s rebellion against God don’t you? This is not the way God intended the world to be. But of course the corollary to that idea is that neither are we the way God meant us to be. I heard the story of a man who used to go into prisons in America to share the gospel with the men there. Apparently they used to be very open to the idea that they needed the salvation that God was offering them. But over the last 10 or 20 years that attitude has changed. Now he says that so many of the men and women in prison have been "psycholigised" out of their guilt. They’re not offenders, they’re victims. They had a terrible home environment that’s left them with a great inner rage. They have a learning disorder that’s left them frustrated. They may have done some bad things but deep down they’re really nice people.
But the reality is that deep down we’re dead in our trespasses and sins. We continue to suffer in a host of ways, because we live in a sin tainted world. And the only hope for us is if God can undo the effects of the fall. And so it’s important, when Jesus comes among us, that he’s identified in every way with us, even to the point of enduring suffering the way he did.
But as he suffers, notice how that suffering is administered. What do we say? He suffered under Pontius Pilate.
So does that mean that Pilate is particularly responsible for Jesus’ death? Or is there some other significance to him being mentioned? Well, let’s think about what Pilate represents here?
First of all, Pilate represents a moment in history. Jesus died on a particular Friday in a particular year. This isn’t a fairy tale that happened long, long ago in a far away land. Jesus’ death is firmly planted in time and space. History matters. Time is moving to a conclusion and Jesus death under Pilate is part of that movement of history.
But secondly, Pilate represents the authority of the Gentile world. Jesus’ suffering under Pontius Pilate is significant because it takes place metaphorically "outside the camp". In the Old Testament when a sin offering was to be made the priests would sacrifice a bull. The blood was poured out on the altar and its liver and kidneys and the fat around them was burnt on the altar, but the rest of the bull was to be taken outside the camp to be burnt as a sin offering. On the day of atonement there was both a sin offering of a bull and a goat first, then the high priest would lay his hands on the head of a second goat as a sign that the sins of the whole nation were being laid on its head. Then it would be sent out of the camp, bearing the people’s sins with it. "Outside the camp," you see, was the region beyond the blessing of God. It was the place of the unclean, the cursed. Of course by Jesus’ day the camp had become the city. Jerusalem was the city of God. So when Jesus is delivered into the hands of Pilate, when he’s taken outside the city to Calvary, it’s again a sign that he’s being cast out, delivered up to the Gentiles, removed from the place of God’s blessing. He’s taking on himself the curse, the condemnation, that the world outside deserves.
And the sign of that curse is the mode of his death. He’s crucified. Deut 21:23 makes it clear that anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. All the good things that God has promised to his people have been taken from him. He’s cut off from the blessings of God. And as such, he’s unclean. So much so that he’s not even allowed to be left hanging on the tree overnight. Paul takes up this idea in Gal 3 (our second reading today) "13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us -- for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" -- 14in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Do you get that? He’s saying that Jesus is taken outside the camp, to the place of curse, in order that we might be brought in to the place of blessing. Jesus has swapped places with us. Those people who question the notion of substitutionary atonement either haven’t thought enough about it, or they haven’t really read their Bibles. Jesus is handed over to the Gentiles as a sign that he’s taking our place, taking the judgement that we deserve and in turn giving us the blessing that he deserves. He takes our place so that we can be reconciled to God. "upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed."
Which brings us to the death of Jesus. Not only does Jesus identify with us in his suffering, he also enters with us into death. Yet his dying is so different from ours. When Adam and Eve died, their death was the natural consequence of their refusal to obey God. And every one of their offspring since has continued that refusal, that rebellion. We die as the natural consequence of being rebellious human beings. But when Jesus dies it’s as a sinless human being. He dies without deserving it. He dies a real death in our place. And then just to emphasise that he was really dead, we add ’he was buried’. The disciples who took his body to bury it no doubt wished it weren’t true. Had there been any hope that he was still alive they would have done something about it. But no. He was dead, and so they buried him.
Yet even at that point there’s an enigma. Jesus is cursed. He’s one who has died on a tree as a sign of God’s curse. He should have been thrown on the rubbish heap outside the city. There was a place called Gehenna where the refuse from the city, including bodies of criminals like him, were thrown and slowly burned. In fact it was used as a common metaphor for hell.
But that’s not what happened was it? Rather he was taken and placed in the grave of a wealthy Jew, Joseph, a member of the Jewish council. Instead of the humiliation he might have expected, he was given the honour of being buried with the rich and powerful. Just as Isaiah had predicted: "They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich". So his work is shown to be complete. He’s fulfilled his task of providing purification for sins and is again raised to the place of honour.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves aren’t we?
Because first he has to descend to the dead or descend into hell, depending on the version of the creed you’re using. Not only does Jesus die but he suffers the punishment of those whose place he’s taken. He suffers the horrors of hell. How do we know? We know because as he hangs on the cross he cries out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This is the essence of hell isn’t it?
We have this strange picture of hell that’s as much derived from medieval art as it is from any sort of Biblical evidence. Too often we picture hell in concrete terms as a lake of fire with people crying out in agony as the evil spirits torment them. Now sure there are pictures of that sort of suffering in various parts of the Bible, but lets not forget that that’s what they are. They’re pictures that are meant to help us get some sort of sense of what hell is like. They’re not literal descriptions. They’re pictures of horror and suffering that no-one in their right mind would want to face. But the reality they point to is this: a world where God’s presence and all that goes with it is removed from us. A world where we can remember all the good things we used to enjoy but realise that we’ll never experience them again.
I remember someone Di worked with a few years ago had a car accident and as a result lost her sense of taste. Now I can’t really imagine what that was like but I know I’d hate to experience it. Imagine having an Indian meal and not being able to taste the cumin. Or an Italian meal and not being able to taste the garlic and the basil and the oregano. Well, now take that idea and remove everything that’s good in this world. Everything that gives you pleasure. Now you’re beginning to understand something of what it would be like to be removed from God’s presence eternally. Because God is the source of everything good in this world. He’s the giver of every good and perfect gift according to James. And as he hung on the cross Jesus experienced what that was like. At that moment he descended to the place of the dead where he experienced what they were experiencing, the absence of God. And at that moment he took on himself the punishment of the whole world. The sinless Son of God suffered an infinite separation from God so that we might no longer be subject to that same judgement. "Upon him was the punishment that made us whole."
So how are we going to respond to this idea of Jesus as our substitute, Jesus as the one who suffered, died and was buried for us? Let me suggest two responses: first let’s make sure we’ve asked Jesus to take our sinfulness away from us. Let’s make sure we’ve committed ourselves to him as our Lord and Saviour. Then, when we feel like we’re undeserving of God’s love, when we feel like we’re too sinful for God to accept us, we can remember that although those feelings may have some truth to them, that unworthiness, that sinfulness has been taken over by Jesus Christ.
Luther used the illustration of a wedding ring. You see when 2 people exchange rings at a wedding it’s a sign that they’re not just committing themselves to each other, they’re exchanging everything they own, handing it over to the other person. So too, when we become a Christian Jesus hands us his righteousness in exchange for our sinfulness. So although you may be right in acknowledging your sinfulness, your unworthiness before God, he says, It’s OK, Jesus has taken that away. And in exchange he’s given you his righteousness, his purity.
But the second response is to realise, as Heb 13 says, that just as Jesus was taken outside the camp because he was an outcast, so we too no longer belong in this world. Our city is a heavenly city, the new Jerusalem. So let’s not get too tied up with the things of this world. Just as Jesus has died to overcome the sinfulness of our world, so a time is coming when he’ll destroy this world altogether and bring us into his new creation. So let’s hold lightly to the things of this world, but hold tightly to our Lord and Saviour, who suffered, died, was buried and descended to the dead.
Well, that’s all for now. Next time Michael will talk about the other side of the cross, Jesus’ resurrection.
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