By Focusing on the Pathos, Gibson Missed the Passion

In my entire life, I’ve only been present at a single spectacle of death. More than 35 years ago, while I was visiting Spain, my host suggested we see a bullfight. I remember leaving the bull ring sick to my stomach, not because of the death itself, but because of the cheering bloodlust of the crowds, the obscene and even prurient glee as this huge, powerful beast was turned into a 2000 pound mound of hamburger. I was reminded of that experience this past weekend when one of my theology students commented that outside of its theological context, Gibson’s film, The Passion, leaves us with “two hours of brutality in which we simply watch this human being be turned into hamburger.”

The student’s comment is subtle, rather than brash. What she was pointing out was that what viewers take away from the theater very much depends upon what they bring to the viewing. Gibson’s nod to the legend of Veronica and her cloth made sense to most Catholic viewers, but it baffled most of the Protestants. Not everyone caught the visual allusions to Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio, a somewhat smaller group got the Aramaic pun on Jesus’ lips in the Garden of Gethsemane, and nobody at all understood the demonic baby.

This is telling, not so much for what it says about the content of the film, but for what it says about the film’s various publics, and what they do not understand about each other. This in turn provides an opportunity for clearer communication. The fact that some Jewish viewers, watching this spectacle of death, see only the seeds of another pogrom, tells us something important about the shameful ways we Christians have treated them in the past; this is sinful, something for which we must repent and seek forgiveness. It is among the sins for which Christ died. But as a Christian theologian, I would ask the Jewish viewer to notice that the overwhelming response among Christians has not been, “The Jews did this,” but, “I did this.” This is Gibson’s own response to the question, “who killed Jesus?” The secular viewer, who perhaps does not bring a theological frame of reference, might well see only bloodlust, a senseless spectacle of death that does nothing more than transform our local theaters into amphitheaters. I would ask them to notice that among the Christians who view the film, the chief reaction is not cheering, but stunned silence.

Anger. Fear. Silence. I did this. What we bring to the viewing shapes what we see, and what we carry away.

While it is probably the most graphic, and certainly the most savage, Gibson’s film is only the latest in a long history of attempts to come to terms with this tragic event. No single episode in history has occasioned such extensive comment as the story of the Crucifixion. Whole libraries have been written in an effort to understand its meaning. The approaches have been almost as widely ranging as the number of commentators. Some interpreters have focused attention on the historical reconstruction of what actually happened, evaluating the similarities and differences between the canonical and non-canonical accounts, and then discussing the details in terms of historical probability. Other interpreters have focused on the sheer physical brutality of death by crucifixion - the size and shape of the cross, the placement of the nails through the bones of the wrist, the manner in which the body shuts down, the agonizing gasping for breath, the terror and anguish of a death by asphyxiation that can linger for days. Other interpreters have focused on the legal issues surrounding the story - the legalities of the trial, the rights of Roman prefects, the relationship of the story to Roman habits of jurisprudence, or the uses of crucifixion as an instrument of government-endorsed terrorism. Other interpreters have focused on the political issues here - the shifting of the charge, the hidden motives, the subterfuge, Pilate’s refusal to be bullied, the horrible consequences of a political stratagem gone awry. Still other interpreters have focused in the theological nuances of the story, including its connections with biblical prophecy or the Jewish sacrificial system, the significance other NT writers found here, or the meaning of the story within the New Testament’s own theological frames of reference.

By contrast, back before all that, at the very beginning, the earliest records are stunningly simple. The Gospel of Mark, which most scholars take to be the earliest written account, tells the story of the crucifixion in just 233 Greek words. The bull-fight took an hour and twenty minutes. Gibson’s film takes two hours and five minutes. Two hundred and thirty-three Greek words take perhaps three minutes to read aloud. Three minutes to hear. Why such a lean account?

No doubt Mark can tell this part of his story in 233 words because the savagery of crucifixion was well known to the readers for whom he wrote. Crucifixion was developed by the Persians, and imported to the Mediterranean by Alexander the Great. Alexander crucified the male population of Tyre — 2,000 men of military age — after a seven-month siege in 332 BCE. The Romans crucified 6,000 rebels after the Spartacus slave revolt in 71 BCE. In 61 CE, 400 slaves of Lucius Pedanius Secundus were crucified in the Circus Maximus, after one of their number murdered their owner.

Crucifixion was only one of a variety of ways the Romans devised for dealing with deviants and troublemakers. One could also be strangled, thrown to the lions, forced to fight in the arena, burned at the stake, decapitated, or thrown off a high bluff called the Tarpeian Rock. Of these, crucifixion was the worst. According to their own historian, Tacitus, the Romans perfected the art of mass executions to “the utmost refinement of cruelty,” and turned it on the Christians, whom Nero had blamed for setting fire to the city in 64 CE. Some interpreters dispute Tacitus’ claim, but even if there were no Neronian persecution, Mark still would not have needed to remind his readers of the gruesome details of this most dreaded way to die.

Perhaps in that light, there may be a place for a depiction such as the one Gibson gives, not to remind us, but to inform us. That horrific personal knowledge may well be part of what Mark expected his reader to bring to the reading.

Theologians suspect Mark had another reason for not dwelling on the gruesome details of Jesus’ death. Out of a nearly infinite range of elements he might have chosen, the ones he did include all have this in common: every single detail is theologically meaningful; there is no gratuitous violence. There is no gratuitous anything. Here all of Mark’s loose threads are finally woven into the fabric of the plot. Put one way, the Crucifixion of Jesus is the point at which the meanings and anticipations generated throughout the gospel are realized within the plot itself, woven into three minutes of densely textured narrative tapestry. Put another way, Mark has used all of the loose ends and anticipations, all of the foregrounded images and prophecies, to prepare the reader to understand the Crucifixion in a particular way. Mark can tell the Crucifixion story in three minutes, but only because of the entire Gospel story that goes before.

For those who have two hours to view Gibson’s film, but have not read the story on which it is based, I offer the following thumbnail sketch. In Mark’s 233 words, at least seven major themes finally meet and intersect.

Jesus dies as King of the Jews

The first and most immediately evident emphasis here is that when Jesus dies he does so with the title, “King of the Jews” placarded above him (Mark 15:26). This is the charge brought before Pilate (vv. 1f), and repeated over and over in the immediately preceding verses (vv. 2, 9, 12). The crown of thorns, the purple robe, the spittle, the “acclamation” – “Hail! King of the Jews” (v. 19) – the homage, all deepen the impression of a kind of parody, a comic farce played out by brutal men intent on a ruthless joke. The details of the Crucifixion carry the farce forward to include the execution of two lestai, “robbers” (NIV), or - more correctly - “brigands, revolutionaries.” Perhaps having been denied Barabbas, they have consigned two of his cohorts to the gallows for no reason other than to complete the image of a king and his court.

Anticipations generated earlier in Mark’s gospel make it clear that it is important that this “King” should come to his throne in just this way. Throughout the story Mark has prepared the reader to see the Crucifixion as the single warrant for leadership among Jesus’ followers. Indeed, this theme was the major thrust of the central section (8:22-10:45). Perhaps most striking is the closing injunction of that major section (10:42-45), which epitomizes Christian leadership in terms of servanthood, self-sacrifice and powerlessness. Those verses are now called to mind as an overcoded commentary on the meaning of the cross:

You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The taunts are ironic

The second major emphasis in the story is picked up in vv. 29-32. Like the mockery of the soldiers in the previous paragraph, the taunts here are ironic. The passersby deride Jesus in two forms. The first - “You who would destroy the Temple and build it in three days…” (v. 29) - appears to have been carried over from the Sanhedrin trial (see 14:58), a detail that at least suggests that they were aware of what had gone on in the chief priest’s private residence the night before. Christians believe that Jesus did indeed “build another, not made with hands.” The readers of Mark’s gospel - members of that Temple! - will later listen to the taunt and hear theological nuances that the authorities cannot have intended, indeed, that they cannot even have fathomed! For Mark’s readers, the reference to the “three days” that ends the taunt recalls three moments earlier in the narrative when Jesus predicted both the passion and the resurrection (“after three days”; 8:31-33, 9:30-32 and 10:32-34). For Mark’s reader, the taunt of the passersby unwittingly and ironically points ahead to the resurrection they cannot have known about.

The second taunt, “come down from the cross and save yourself” is also ironic, but it is a theological dead-end. To “save himself” by coming down from the cross is precisely the thing Jesus cannot or will not do. Their stipulation in v. 52 - “… that we may see and believe” is as ironically outrageous as the taunt of the passersby in v. 29. In Mark’s theology, the very Truth that brings belief hangs there before them and they cannot see it.

The Crucifixion comes in fulfillment of prophecy

Mark has also prepared his reader to recognize a third emphasis of the Crucifixion scene: The Crucifixion occurs in fulfillment of prophecy. Three times Jesus has made this clear explicitly (8:31-33, 9:30-32; 10:32-34), and it is suggested implicitly throughout Mark’s gospel. For Christian interpreters, the passion predictions evoke two overlapping layers of meaning.

First, they mean that Jesus went to Jerusalem with his eyes wide open, that his death was the result of a free, deliberate choice, that he could have chosen another course of action. Why did he not? Mark suggests that he did not because only in this way could he fulfill his vocation of “giving his life a ransom for many” (10:45), and only in this way could he model for his followers the kind of radical self-sacrifice he knew would be demanded of them later on. In an earlier passage, he had stated this explicitly: “If anyone would be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me” (8:34).

The predictions evoke a second layer of meaning for Christians, though this is more subtle: It is not that the death of Jesus replicates in detail the prophecies, but that the prophecies anticipate in detail the death of Jesus. The reality lies here. The prophecies anticipate in language what Jesus’ death accomplishes in fact. It is the brutal reality of the Crucifixion that establishes the meaning of the prophecies that had gone before.

When Jesus dies, he dies alone

Fourth, when Jesus dies, he dies alone. Throughout the gospel the narrator has systematically distanced Jesus from the other characters. In Mark’s telling of the story, Jesus’ family had tried to take him in hand, “for people were saying ‘He is beside himself’” (3:21), and his hometown was scandalized by him (6:1-6). Mark takes great pains to point out that he was betrayed to the authorities by an insider (“one of the twelve!” [3 times! See 14:10, 20, 43], one who is dipping bread with me” [14:20]). In the garden, when the chips are down, all of Jesus’ followers “forsook him and fled” (14:50). Later, his closest disciple Peter denied that he had ever known him (14:66-72). In Mark’s telling of the story, the only ones among his followers who were present at the Crucifixion were the women, and they viewed the event “from afar” (v. 40).

Why is it important that Jesus dies alone? All of these mini-rejections are finally epitomized in Jesus’ words from the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (15:34). The cry of dereliction from the cross makes the isolation complete. This is arguably the most strikingly candid detail of the entire Early Christian tradition, and efforts are often made to ease its harsh reality. Jesus’ words themselves are the opening words of Psalm 22. Perhaps he is directing the on-lookers - and the readers - to that Psalm as a fitting Old Testament commentary on the agonies he now faces. But this strains the evidence, and to the extent that it diminishes the reality of Jesus’ agony on the cross it sounds like special pleading. The reader hears Jesus’ cry of dereliction as a real cry, just as the prayers in Gethsemane were real prayers. At the same time, the narrative has also prepared the reader to provide the answer to Jesus’ agonizing question: God has forsaken him, not because of his sins, but because only in this way can he bear the sins of fallen humanity. As Jesus himself had said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (10:45). Jesus’ cry of dereliction holds in synecdoche all the nuances of a sacrificial offering. With a final outburst Jesus spends the last of his strength. In v. 37, he “breathes his last.”

The temple is torn in two from top to bottom

Thus far we have reviewed four major themes woven through Mark’s tapestry of the Crucifixion - 1) Jesus dies as “King of the Jews,” and thus implicitly as Messiah, 2) the taunts of the on-lookers are ironic comments on the meaning of the scene unfolding before them, 3) Jesus’ death occurs in fulfillment of prophecy, and 4) when Jesus dies he dies alone. It is important to remember not only that these themes overlap and deepen one another, but that they unfold for the reader in sequence, as the details of the plot unfold during the reading. That is, the overlapping nuances here are cumulative, like fireworks going off in the reader’s head, so that the narrative reaches a kind of climax with the rending of the Temple curtain in v. 38 - “top to bottom!” - and the “confession” of the centurion in v. 39 - “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

Christians take the rending of the temple curtain to mean that the estrangement between God and humanity is ended, the old sacrificial system is brought to a close, and access to God is now opened up to everyone. The statement that the curtain was torn “from top to bottom” indicates that this was a supernatural event, and therefore a portent, like the darkness that fell over the earth in v. 33. Even the term Mark uses here — esxisthe, from which we get the English word, schism – is foregrounded with the remark that at his baptism Jesus “saw the heavens torn open (sxidzomenos)” and heard the voice of God: “Thou art my beloved son” (1:10f).

Jesus dies as Son of God

In the Crucifixion scene, it is the centurion who recognizes this truth. The confession that Jesus was the Son of God in v. 39 forms the sixth major emphasis in Mark’s story of the Crucifixion. This confession has been heard before in Mark’s narrative, but always on the lips of a supernatural being. In the Baptism (1:11), and then again in the Transfiguration (9:7) it came from God himself, speaking both times from a cloud. Jesus has also been identified as “the Son of God” (3:11) and “Son of the Most High God” (5:7), but these “confessions” are found on the lips of demons. Here for the first time, the “confession” comes on the lips of a human being, not coincidentally a Gentile: “Surely this man was the Son of God!” It may be important that in the First Century, relations between Jews and Gentiles were often extremely strained, especially during the years of the Jewish War (66-72 CE). Perhaps Mark is telling his reader that even a gentile, a man as opposed to Jewish messianic ideas as it is possible to be, the overseer of Jesus’ death, may still not be beyond the reach of redemption. The centurion’s confession brings Mark’s narrative to its highest point by returning the plot to the point at which it was launched in 1:1: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Jesus gives his life a ransom for many

Everything comes down to this: By his wounds we are healed. This final nuance is the one most frequently stated by Christians when asked about Gibson’s film: Jesus “gives his life a ransom for many.” This is the claim behind the often repeated response to the question about who crucified Jesus: “I put him there.”

Tellingly, Mark does not weave this nuance directly into the Crucifixion story. Instead, he drops it earlier, in several places, as part of the foregrounding. In 10:45 Jesus tells his disciples that “the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” In that context, the words have an important additional nuance: So also should the disciples give their lives in service to one another.

This message is also foregrounded in Jesus’ words at his last meal, which Protestants call the Last Supper, and Catholics call the Eucharist: “Take, this is my body. . . . This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many” (14:22-24).

Those who have seen the Gospel of Mark told as a dramatic narrative often report that the audience reaction is much like the reaction Christians seem to be having to Gibson’s film – stunned silence. That silence tells the observer that for Christians at least, the historical questions are secondary to the theological ones. The gruesome details of the Crucifixion can only be properly understood within their theological context. This is the reason that so many Christians report that in their experience, Gibson’s film does not turn the theater into an amphitheater, but into a church.