Scholars reflect on Passion (the real, not reel, version)

Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" has taken American theaters by storm in the past few weeks. The teaching of the Catholic Church about Christ's Passion, however, is a little different from the Hollywood version.

To explore some of the story of the Passion, The Evangelist spoke with three scholars:

* Dr. John Dwyer, an adjunct theology professor at St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry, the Albany Diocese's graduate school for those fields;

* Dr. Mary Meany, a professor of religious studies at Siena College in Loudonville; and

* Rev. Roger Karban, a priest of the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, who writes The Evangelist's weekly "Word of Faith" Scripture column (see page 14).

Incarnation

The story of the Passion, the trio agreed, begins before the birth of Jesus. He was incarnated -- came into the world as a human being -- because people had become estranged from God, and God the Father wanted to change that.

"People were strangers to God, and to the world and themselves," Dr. Dwyer explained. Dr. Meany saw the time before Jesus' coming as a period when people had become servants of God, rather than God's sons and daughters.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes that through Jesus' presence, God was "reconciling the world to Himself" (5:19). In order to accomplish that reconciliation, said Dr. Dwyer, God the Father "involved Jesus in the pain and suffering that is the human condition" by sending Him into the world.

Dr. Meany put it this way: "The reason God became human was to save the world from sin and death."

Life of Christ

Jesus lived a life of teaching and example, bringing many people closer to God through His message.

Dr. Dwyer described Christ as "accepting the Father's will to make real in His life a heretofore unknown God: a God who loves us, sustains us, accepts us without bounds or limits."

In becoming human, he continued, Jesus was agreeing to share the destiny of all humans: Eventually, He would have to die -- the final step in sharing everything it means to be human (except sin), "involving and implicating God in all the dark corners of human existence."

Death of Christ

Father Karban pointed out that the Gospels say Jesus "came to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:28), not that He came into the world to be killed. Jesus, the scholar said, came to teach people how to live their lives in a better way.

However, in doing so, Jesus angered the religious and civil authorities of that time. The leaders did not want a God who was merciful to sinners, said Dr. Dwyer, but a God who punished them. One of the chief complaints of Jesus' enemies was, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them" (Luke 15:2).

Dr. Dwyer believes Jesus must have realized that, as a result, He was going to be killed. This is mentioned in the Gospels: "[Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days" (Mark 8:31).

Acceptance

Father Karban said that Jesus used this time of awaiting His execution to teach His followers what it means to die. For example, in Mark's Gospel, Peter objects to Jesus' predictions of His Passion, and Jesus snaps, "You are thinking not as God does, but as people do" (8:33).

The theologians noted that Jesus' acceptance of suffering and death when He could conceivably have avoided it doesn't mean that the individuals involved were automatons.

"The actual individuals who put Jesus to death didn't have to do it," Dr. Meany explained. They had free will and could have chosen to do otherwise.

"Some Jews and some Romans acted in a very base way; there's no justifying it," said Dr. Dwyer. But "God was able to take the hostility of the Jewish and Roman leadership, and turn that into a way of Jesus' being with us in pain, even unto suffering and death."

Dr. Meany asserted that if the particular people involved in Jesus' death had not had Him killed, someone else would have.

"Jesus chose to die, accepted His death, to redeem the world," she added, citing St. Francis of Assisi, who wrote that Jesus' suffering and death was a great act of humility: "He did it out of love, and His death is a triumph. He made it possible for us to have eternal life."

Redemption

On the cross, in His most desperate moments of suffering, Jesus most realized how human beings experience separation from God. In a 1984 apostolic letter titled, "Salvifici Doloris," Pope John Paul II wrote that Jesus understood the "horrible weight" of "the turning away from God which is contained in sin," and expressed it by saying, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" (Mt 27:46).

Soon afterward, the Pope wrote, Jesus "through this suffering...accomplishes the Redemption, and can say as He breathes His last: `It is finished'" (John 19:30).

When Jesus died, Dr. Dwyer said, His death completed humanity's reconciliation with God. God had now "been with us in all places," and human beings were invited to "let God be the one who loves sinners, no strings attached," because God had experienced all of human existence.

All to blame

The Church teaches that all human beings play a part in Jesus' death because all are sinners.

"Jesus of Nazareth really did suffer and die because of human sins. I don't think it's important whose sins did what," Dr. Meany said. "I'm part of a sinful humanity."

She called it a "moral metaphor" to say that when people sin today, they are re-crucifying Christ. Although "if Christ died for our sins, when I sin, I add to His suffering," she said, "Jesus doesn't suffer any more."

Resurrection

When He rose from the dead after three days, said Dr. Meany, "Jesus conquered death and sin, and offers us the opportunity to participate in that Resurrection. Easter has happened."

Father Karban believes that the reason the Gospels don't give many details about the physical part of Jesus' suffering and death is that people are supposed to focus more on imitating His psychological death -- His giving of Himself to others.

Though remembering that Christ's suffering is vital to our faith, Dr. Meany said that people must also examine how their sins cause other human beings to suffer.

(4/8/04) [[In-content Ad]]