A Fresh Perspective

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When Mother Teresa’s private journals were published after her death, the startling revelation to so many was that her writings spoke of long periods where the absence of God was more real to her than God’s presence. In these extended dry periods, she did not sense nor feel God’s presence. The only word that Mark’s Gospel tells us Jesus uttered from the cross was this word of abandonment: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It’s a question, not a declaration and it reflects the sense of God’s absence that overtook Jesus when he was hanging on the cross. Jesus is echoing the cry of the Psalmist in Psalm 22, who is looking for God’s deliverance, but God does not act. Jesus was not expecting deliverance. He had already conceded to his fate. He wrestled with t...

"After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), 'I am thirsty.'" The Gospel of John is characterized by a very high Christology that is often read back into the stories of Jesus. This is undoubtedly at least one of the factors that guides the way the author (John’s community) shapes and reformulates the sayings of Jesus into lengthy dialogues and monologues. Sometimes in John’s narrative the divinity of Jesus trumps his humanity. This brief word of Jesus from the cross found exclusively in John’s Gospel is a case in point. Jesus’s expression, “I am thirsty,” on the surface seems to reflect a very human Jesus, but in introducing these words, John presents Jesus as being in complete control, intentionally fulfilling Scripture. (All the Gospels emphasize the fulfillment of Scripture in the passion story, but John does this more than the others. The reference here seems to be to Psalm 69:22, which in the LXX (t...

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus makes three statements from the cross. The first we considered  in the last blog : “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The second word above is also a word of lavish grace uttered to a criminal hanging on the cross next to Jesus. Only Luke has this promise of Jesus to the criminal. In Mark and Matthew both criminals ridicule Jesus. It’s possible that Luke’s version was part of the oral tradition passed down to him, though I think it is more likely that Luke intentionally altered Mark’s account to give us a snapshot of the gospel as he understood it. According to Luke this criminal exonerates Jesus: “We are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Three times in Luke’s passion narrative Jesus is exonerated. First by Pilate, then by this criminal hanging with Jesus, and finally by the centurion at the end of the crucifixion scene ...

“Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” Can the spiral of violence that plagues our planet and fractures relationships, ravaging families, communities, and whole societies, ever be neutralized and overcome? Are we caught in a web from which we cannot tear loose? Jesus refuses to get sucked into the spiral of violence. On the night of his betrayal and arrest, one of his disciples draws his sword and strikes the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Jesus exclaims, “No more of this!” And to make his point, he touches the man’s ear and restores it. Violence never brings healing. Never. It may, on some occasions, bring an end to overt violence, but it often causes the violence to escalate. It cannot heal or redeem. There is no redemptive violence. Only forgiveness can exhaust the constantly spinning spiral of violence and offer redemptive possibilities. But we rarely do it, because it is so costly. Look at Jesus on the cross, bearing the viol...