FACING the CROSS...Thoughts for Holy Week

Where were the men?  Where were the men disciples at the cross?  John’s gospel tells us (as does parallel texts in Matthew and Mark): ‘standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene’. We know from the next verse in John’s Gospel that one male was there, the disciple whom Jesus loved.  But where are the rest?  At the arrest of Jesus we read, ‘then all the disciples forsook him and fled’.  Yes there was a young man who tried to follow him but when seized by the guards he too ran away.  Peter also tried to follow later but it led to his thrice denial.  Where are we as disciples?  Can we bear to face the cross which the others could not face?

        This holy week we journey from Palm Sunday to Good Friday to Easter.  What begins as celebration with waving palms and hosanna’s collapses into tragedy with crowds crying, ‘crucify him’, and emerges as a comedy, the great reversal, death undone.  Our theme this week is facing the cross.  As disciples we are being asked to not hide or turn away as we face the cross upon which Jesus hung.

        Crucifixion was a most brutal form of torture and execution.  It began with whipping, leather strips with metal pieces in them flogged the back not only stinging, but ripping the flesh.  It was followed by being forced to carry the cross beam to the place of execution outside the city walls.  Then one was placed on the cross.  The feet were nailed then the wrists were either pierced by nails or tied to the cross bean.  You were then hoisted up right, naked.  The key problem besides the pain from the whipping and feet and wrists was getting your breath.   Hanging in such a way meant you had to push up from your feet to force your chest up so you could get your breath.  And every time you pushed up from our feet the pain of the nail through them became worse.  Eventually you would suffocate, lungs filling with fluid.  A strong man could live for some time.  Hence the practice of breaking the leg bones to hurry along the slide to death.

        It was not only brutal, but a public spectacle.  Crowds would gather to watch.  There is in all of us a bit of voyeurism that wants to see the exhibition of gore and the mystery of suffering and death played out before us.  What is it like to die?  Let me watch and see.  Mocking and abuse hurled from the crowd was permitted.  Besides the pain and slow suffocation you endured the shame from the mob.

        The hanging on a cross, the pain and shame.  No wonder we as disciples turn away. In the events of the passion, at the cross, the majority of the disciples, especially the men, hid.  They could not face it, mostly probably because of fear that they too would be arrested as collaborators with this accused rabble-rouser.  But there was also probably great emotional turmoil: dejection and bewilderment at his arrest and crucifixion; confusion as to their future; doubt in their God because this Rabbi who they believed was their Messiah seems to have got it all gone terribly wrong.  And it was all too agonizing as the man they had come to follow and to love is now suffering in a most horrendous way.  It was all too much, better to hide away and wait for all to be over.

        But the women were there.  They are in the gospel exemplary disciples of loving and faithful devotion, not just at the cross but throughout Jesus’ life and ministry.  Perhaps it is more in a woman’s maternal nature to extend care to others besides her children and family, setting aside reasoned reflection to go the extra mile.  There the women stand, facing the cross, unable to do anything but be there, alongside, showing their love and devotion by not leaving Jesus alone in his hour of suffering.  It is out of unbridled loyalty they stand facing the cross.  They may not have understood all that was happening or the significance of it all, but they were there in faith and devotion.

        Then there are the crowds.  They too stand facing the cross.  For some their presence is more a warped desire for pleasure at watching this gruesome exhibition.  For others, it is indifference, a way to pass boredom because there is nothing else to do.  For others, there is a distorted sense of colluding with seeing justice done, watching the criminals getting their comeuppance.  

Matthew and Mark tell us that those who passed by mocked him because he could not save himself.  In and amongst the crowd were the religious leaders, the chief priests, scribes and elders.  As they stood facing the cross they too mocked Jesus. Also facing the cross were the soldiers, they divided the special coat someone had made for Jesus and they too ridiculed him, offering vinegar for his thirst.  We are told that those who were crucified with him also reviled him. In the face of the cross a crowd of persons respond with derision and ridicule.  They had no desire to understand.  They had made their mind up.  Perhaps where they were deluded was in the sense that they had won; that they were in control; that they were right in putting this ‘pretence’ to an end.

Where does that leave us?  Where do we stand? With whom do we stand?  Jesus on the cross is one of the most profound acts of God, powerful in its simplicity and in its deep complexity.  Who can full fathom all that was being transacted in that dark and mysterious event, accompanied by clouds, earthquake, and curtains ripping.

But Mark’s gospel makes it profoundly clear that one cannot understand who Jesus is unless you see him on the cross.  Mark’s gospel begins with a brief prologue that tells us that what we are about to read is good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.  Mark’s gospel then uses a literary device in his story, what is known as the Messianic secret to reveal Jesus’ identity as Messiah and son of God.  In Mark’s gospel, whenever any human recognises Jesus for who he is Jesus tells them to tell no one.  In Mark’s gospel the demons and evil spirits know who he is and they are silenced.  The disciples constantly fail to understand.  At one point, Jesus asks them and Peter gets it half right.  He confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. And Jesus charged the disciples to tell no one.  Jesus then begins to teach them that he must suffer many things, be rejected by the Jewish authorities, be killed, and after three days rise again.  At this Peter rebukes Jesus, because Peter, a good Jew, knows that is not what is supposed to happen to a Messiah.

But events unfold as Jesus said.  There he is on the cross as he said he would be.  The male disciples are hiding; the women disciples stand facing from afar weeping; the crowds, the leaders and the soldiers mock.  But in Mark’s Gospel something profound happens as Jesus breathes his last.  Let me quote, ‘Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was God's Son!"’  At the death of Christ, facing the Cross, the centurion, a gentile recognises Jesus for who he is.  In Mark’s Gospel, you can only know Jesus for who he truly is when you see him on the cross and discover that he is risen from the grave.

Facing the cross we see a new vision of God.  Isaiah saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and sang, holy, holy, holy.  We see God nailed to a cross, abandoned, suffering, bleeding, crowned with thorns: the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Each Holy Week we return to the events of Christ’s passion and participate in them so that we can understand afresh and more deeply who God is.