The Brutality of the Passion

I would like to continue the conversation we had in class yesterday about the potentially pornographic nature of meditating on the crucifixion. The Passion of Christ (the event, not the movie) has always been fascinating to me throughout the oscillations in my Christian faith because of its historicity. In other words, no matter how much science seemed to explain away, or skeptics called into question, there was still more or less a historical consensus that a man named Jesus started a religious movement and was executed by the Romans [1]. Even in my most extreme moments of doubt, I could cling to the event of the crucifixion. Combined with the wisdom in the teachings of Christ I could believe that even if Christ was not divine, he existed and was worth following. While these struggles are my own and probably not appropriate to litigate in a university course, I do think they point to some value in meditating on the full terror of the Passion.

If the goal of Christianity, especially medieval Christianity, is to see and know Christ, then understanding His sacrifice should be paramount. While I understand the concern that showing and considering Christ as beaten and humiliated and disgusting could make Christ seem ridiculous and thus be blasphemous, it also may be the best way to meditate on His dual nature. God became a man—is that not a form of degradation and humiliation? Compared to the perfection of God, men are vile and disgusting. We cannot truly comprehend this sacrifice because we cannot truly comprehend the splendor and glory of the Lord. This act of love, however, is mirrored in Christ the man’s degradation from perfect and beautiful to unrecognizable at the hands of his torturers. Meditating on the physical brutality helps understand the spiritual brutality at the core of the incarnation. How else can we understand the fact that a perfect God was brought so low? As the first meditation on The Passion asks, “How can we even think about the fact that this Lord of ours, the blessed God of all (Rom 9:5), from the time he was arrested that night, right up to the next noontime, which was the hour of his crucifixion, was caught up in ongoing warfare, replete with piercing pains, insults, mocking, and torments?” [2] We have talked in class before about what precisely is the moment of our salvation. Mary’s consent or the incarnation are both candidates, but to me it seems that in the Passion Christ’s sacrifice becomes fully realized and we become truly saved and understanding the true extent of that sacrifice is a key act of worship to be capable of full gratitude. In some sense, then, the more brutal we consider the passion, the better.

I still think there is a point at which artistic depictions can go too far. I started to think after class yesterday that a meditation is different than a movie or a painting. Meditation is a literary and emotional exercise wherein the practitioner is supposed to empathetically contemplate the pain of Christ. A movie or a painting can seem voyeuristic at some level—it does not require the same level of engagement. So, in the case of the Passion of the Christ (the movie, not the event) I can understand it seeming grotesque. I’d like to propose my own cinematic depiction of crucifixion: Monty Python’s the Life of Bryan. It does not depict Christ’s death, but Bryan's, in a tragic case of mistaken identity. It ends with Eric Idle and Graham Chapman’s Bryan on the cross singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” For Christians, Christ’s execution is good news; it is a reason to look on the bright side of life. Even in the meditations we read for class, I think the good news of the gospel may get lost in all the blood and gore. I do not find them too pornographic, but I find them awfully pessimistic. Its hard to get into the weeds of something so horrible as the death of a loving God and find joy; Monty Python finds joy in the big picture. 

--CHM

[1]  Tacitus, Annals 15.44, cited in Strobel, The Case for Christ, 82.

[2] John of Caulibus, Taney, F. Miller, A, and Stallings-Taney, C. Meditations on the Life of                      Christ. Asheville: Pegasus 200. 237

[3] Image found at https://cinema1544.wordpress.com/cinema-1544/life-of-brian/