People will tend to associate the cross, the crucifixion, with Jesus’ love for the human race, the final sacrifice for those unwitting sons and daughters of the kingdom. Well, I’m nothing like Jesus. When I view the stages of the cross in church all I can see is the vicious cruel insanity of our species, the real mortal danger of doing or saying pretty much anything right. They humiliated, tormented, and killed the best person who had ever been in their company. It’s hard for me to get past this and see the supposed theme of the action.
For Jesus, compassion was big enough to override the nausea he must have felt in our presence, not to mention in his own body. Not only did god have to suffer the stink of sweat and excrement and the gradual rotting flesh on his body, but he had to suffer it alone in the midst of this psychologically rotting species. It must have been existentially terrible for him. Just imagine: a god trapped not just in an animal body, but in the psychosis of an animal society. And still, instead of damning them, he said this: “Forgive them father because they do not know what they are doing.” That is a massive gesture of compassion and understanding.
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now we're getting somewhere!
ReplyDeleteOr, it's just a really cool novel.
ReplyDeleteRemember when The Passion of the Christ came out? A great many religious folk were offended with the violence and cruelity in the film.
Uhhhh..excuse me self-righteous, sanctimonious, saved ones……ITS WAS A FUCKING CRUCIFIXION!
Their surprise and offense validated my belief that many shield or insulate themselves from uncomfortable things.
Quite the theophany you had at the stages I see.
ReplyDeleteI've always tripped over the whole "saving by dying on the cross" thing. God does what God wants, and it seems to me that dying on the cross isn't required for that. I think instead, maybe, it's driving home a point, which is perhaps the one you mention here.
"I am the way, the truth, the light"... I think that refers to how he lived, the way being more used as something like "the tao" as is translated into Chinese, rather than a Roman road and a gate that most take it to mean.