IN FAITH
4Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:4 through Isaiah 53:5 (RSV)
The season of Lent began on Wednesday, February 25 with the observance of Ash Wednesday, a day where Christians remember their mortality, and reflect on the sin which clings so closely (Hebrews 12:1c) to all of us and each of us. Lent, which comes from a word, which means “springtime,” has come to mean the season in which Christians remember how Jesus left his ministry in the north of Israel (Galilee) and traveled to Jerusalem, where he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death.
As things stand now, we are in the midst of a controversy sparked by the release of Mel Gibson’s new movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” which depicts the 12 hours of Jesus of Nazareth’s life, prior to his crucifixion and death at the hands of the Romans. On Monday, February 16, an interview with Mel Gibson by Diane Sawyer of ABC News aired at 10:00 p.m. our time. I would encourage persons of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths, and others who might be interested in the life of Jesus, to watch a copy of this interview, or read about it through the various media.
I would like to take a few moments, to perhaps shed some light on not just the movie, which is supposedly very intense in its depiction of Jesus’ suffering, and rates an “R” rating, because of the level of violence, and also on the New Testament’s view of the mission of the Christ as well.
The Christian Church as a whole, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, has believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the “suffering servant,” spoken of in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and in the other “servant songs” found in that prophet. We believe that Jesus is also the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and the second person of the Trinity. The suffering that Jesus of Nazareth underwent, i.e., the crucifixion, was accepted by him in order to make atonement for the sins of the world, which means all of us and each of us. This is the Church’s viewpoint, again, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.
The trial that Christ underwent at the hands of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, composed of Sadducees and Pharisees, where Jesus was condemned of the charge of blasphemy (according to the gospels), did not result in his immediate death. It was the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, who ordered Jesus’ death.
And while in the gospel according to Matthew chapter 27, when the crowd of people who had gathered before Pontius Pilate chose Barabbas, a robber or an insurrectionist, i.e., a person committed to the overthrow of the Roman government to set free, rather than Jesus of Nazareth, Pilate challenged them on this point and washed his hands of the matter. Matthew records the crowd as saying, “His blood be on us and on our children.” There are those who rationalize their hatred for Jews by this and other verses from the New Testament. But, we know that Jesus said, while dying on the Cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” One cannot place blame on an entire group, for the decisions made by a few (Annas and Caiaphas, and others on the Sanhedrin, and Pilate, who gave in to the desires of a few). Not all of the Sanhedrin was opposed to Jesus. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were not. And there were probably others.
It is clear, though, that one cannot blame the Jewish religion or race, for the death of Jesus. The gospels make it plain that Jesus died for the world’s sins, and that means the sins of the entire human race. The gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s letters, John’s letters, and the Letter to the Hebrews, also state very clearly, that Jesus’ death on the Cross, was an atoning sacrifice for our sins, in order that we might inherit eternal life.
My hope for all of us who read this column, is that we will reflect on Jesus’ suffering and death even more closely this Lent, and be open to the true message of the gospel, a message often displayed at many public events across this land:
16For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16 through John 3:17 (RSV)
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