This is the only Sunday in which we come close
to hearing a Gospel the way its authors intended it to be heard. Usually, were given
only a few verses at a time, removed from the original setting in which the sacred authors
placed them.
The evangelists never could have foreseen a time when their
Gospels would be chopped into "liturgical hunks." Like parts of our body, parts
of Gospels make sense only when we know how they relate to the whole.
As the Gospel is being proclaimed this week, relax and
concentrate on the words. Create images of the events just as Luke presents them (Lk 22:
14-23: 56). Forget about the Stations of the Cross and especially Mel Gibsons movie.
Experience the message as Luke originally put it.
Suffering
Notice, first of all, how Jesus suffers. His pain is rarely
physical. The narrative is almost half over before Luke mentions anything about physical
suffering: "The men who held Jesus in custody were ridiculing and beating Him."
Lukes only other reference to bodily pain comes in the
middle of the next chapter: "When they came to the place called the Skull, they
crucified Him." No wonder Gibson depended on private visions for his two-hour movie.
At most, he could have gotten only two minutes of his material from all four Gospel
passion narratives combined.
Luke is not concerned with people leaving his narrative
saying, "Thank you, Jesus! Thank you! Thank you!" He wants us to leave church
saying, "Now I know what I have to do to die with Jesus." Thats why, in
verse after verse, passage after passage, Luke emphasizes Jesus psychological
suffering.
From the Last Supper to the ridiculing on Golgotha, Jesus is
in pain, a pain which comes from the giving of Himself to others. Hes misunderstood,
betrayed, used. Yet, in the midst of all this, hes still concerned for those around
Him. "I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back,
you must strengthen your brothers....Get up and pray that you may not undergo the
test....And the Lord turned and looked at Peter....Do not weep for me; weep instead for
yourselves and for your children....Father, forgive them, they know not what they
do....Today, you will be with me in Paradise."
Luke seems to believe Jesus would have risen from the dead
and saved us even had He died a natural death with His family and disciples gathered round
His bed. How He physically died was irrelevant. That He died was the key. The
psychological death He daily endured by giving Himself to others epitomized by
but not restricted to His passion was essential. Its that death which
"other Christs" are expected to imitate.
Dying like Christ
We hear about that kind of death in Pauls oft-quoted
Philippians hymn (Phil 2: 6-11). "He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, He humbled Himself, becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
Each step Jesus takes contains an "emptying" of
Himself. He leaves Himself behind for the sake of others. And because Hes willing to
do this, "God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name [Yahweh] which is
above every name."
Though Deutero-Isaiah mentions in his third song of the
suffering servant that he suffered physical pain (Is 50: 4-7), his real pain comes from
his openness to Yahwehs word. "Morning after morning," he says,
"Yahweh opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned
back."
For followers of God, physical pain is incidental;
psychological pain is essential. As soon as we pull Gods word into the center of our
being, we begin to hurt, because that word also forces us to pull others into the center
of our lives.
Thats real death!