Additional Resource Material for this Sunday
Ideal for catechetical and liturgical dramatization of today's gospel.
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Passion
Sunday & Good Friday (Cycle A)
A Man of the People The Lamb and the Unleavened Bread The New Alliance In the Garden of Gethsemane The Supper of the Passover Like a Thief Before the Cock Crows The Verdict of the Sanhedrin The Governor's Interrogation He Descended Into Hell A Crown of Thorns This is the Man The Road to Golgotha Until His Death on the Cross Inside A New Sepulcher |
Until His Death on the Cross(Mt 27:33-50; Mk 15:22-38; Lk 23:33-46: Jn 19:18-30)
Golgotha (an Aramaic word meaning “the skull”) or Calvary (a place of the skull), was a small hill situated outside the walls of Jerusalem. The custom was to conduct all acts of crucifixion in this place. Surrounding it was the cemetery. There were various individual tombs. In one of them Jesus was buried, and the others were common pits for the bodies of the crucified. The gate of Ephraim, which was open in the northeastern part of the walls, was facing Golgotha. Since the place was a little elevated, one could see from the city the crosses and the persons crucified on them. The executions were made public so they would serve as a warning to the people. In the case of Jesus, the authorities tried at all cost to avoid a people’s uprising. In the present-day Jerusalem, the most important place for the Christians is the Basilica of the Holy Tomb, a huge building standing on the place where Golgotha was, with Jesus’ sepulcher right beside it. Today, the basilica’s interior has several altars, images, and chapels where one can see a portion of the authentic rock of Golgotha. Before the altar of the crucifixion, one can even touch this rock which was drenched with the blood of Jesus. This place is full of historical authenticity. Death on the cross was practiced by the Persians, the Carthagenians, and to a lesser extent, the Greeks. This was most of all used by the Romans, who considered it as the most cruel and degrading form of torture ever. They reserved it for foreigners and only on rare occasions were the Romans crucified. This was a death penalty applied to the slaves. Free men could be crucified for crimes of homicide, theft, treason, and above all, for political subversion. It was the practice to strip the crucified naked, to add to their humiliation. Lying on the ground, their arms were nailed on the transverse pole, which the victims themselves carried up to the place of martyrdom. The nails were sunk into the wrists, in between the two bones of the forearm. Having been nailed on the palms of the hands, the body would get crushed from the scaffold for lack of support. When the arms were nailed, the criminals were raised by means of a rope in order to position them on the horizontal pole over the vertical, which was already planted in the ground. Then the feet were nailed, introducing the nail through the anklebones. The pain was indescribable. Finally, the piece of wood indicating the crime committed was placed on the topmost part of the cross to be read by all. The cross was not thin, as ordinarily shown in paintings. It was rather short. The victim’s feet remained a very close distance from the ground. In between the legs was a piece of wood, protruding a little to support the body, which remained in a half sitting position. This was intended to avoid the victim’s collapse downwards, not out of pity, but to prolong his agony as much as possible. Many of those crucified remained agonizing for days on the cross, in the presence of the curious on-lookers, and exposed to the birds of prey. If Jesus died so soon, it was because he was already beaten down from the tortures received before he reached his place of martyrdom. Generally, the death of the crucified was due to asphyxia. The tense and unbearable position of the entire body resulted in the difficulty of breathing and the irregular circulation of blood, immobilizing the dying victim. From the testimonies of the four evangelists, we have the “seven words” of Jesus on the cross, his last words on this earth. The first of them – “Father, forgive them...” – refers to a religious custom of Israel. By understanding that death in any form had an expiatory value (of pardon, of redemption), even the delinquents were exhorted to declare the so-called “expiatory vow” before death in the following manner: “Let my death serve as an atonement for all my sins!” (My God forgive me). Jesus wouldn’t say this. Up to the last minute, he vindicated his innocence, and not out of pride nor obstinacy. That is why he subverted the formula: may God forgive the murderers, they are those who are in sin and they know not what they do. In this episode, the second word reflects the hope sustained by Jesus up to the last moment of his life, that God would intervene in a manner unknown to him, but in a manner so efficacious that it would save him from death. Jesus waited in Golgotha for the liberating hand of the Kingdom of God, for which he had fought during all his life. He was not cowed by disappointment; he did not accept that God could fail him and he hoped against hope. The time frame “today” he was explaining to his campanion of torture, showed the immediacy of the change he was waiting for. Up to his final hour, Jesus was a man who loved life, who believedin life. Such was the life he was claiming and expecting from his Father in the midst of agony. The third word is addressed to Mary his mother and his friend John. It must be pointed out that in the last moment, the women were more faithful to Jesus than the men. They, the “weaker” ones and the more “cowardly” ones, according to the male cliche, stayed put before their agonizing friend, showing their fidelity to Jesus and exposing themselves to the mockery of the authorities who ridiculed Jesus up to his final moment. The fourth word has been preserved by the evangelists in Greek, while they translate it to create greater impact to the reader, that he may stop to ponder on this phrase. Jesus feels abandoned by God. He no longer expects anything; he feels all his life to be a failure. “Eli, Eli, lema sabaktani” is the phrase in Greek. (Mark initiates the Aramaic form, “Eloi, Eloi”). Jesus does not call God the way he ordinarily does: “Father” (Abba). He calls him God. He feels him so distant, so silent. Psalm 22 starts with these same words. The evangelists are showing us that on the cross, Jesus prayed with this touching cry of anguish and abandon in this psalm. Reading it, we can discover the feelings he felt in his heart before succumbing to that brutal torture. Like any other person, Jesus experienced an evolution in his conscience, a growth. His faith likewise underwent some kind of development and he learned more about the meaning of doubts, the vicissitudes of life and fears. This fourth word on the cross is one of the most significant moments through which to appreciate the profound humanity of Jesus, the way of his faith and hopes, which is a difficult and painful way. The fifth word is an indication of the horrifying thirst experienced by the crucified victims. It was one of the major tortures on the cross. The continuous bleeding as a result of the nailing dehydrated the criminal. At that moment, Jesus was given a kind of drug to alleviate his pain. The sixth word – “All is finished” – shows his awareness of his end. Jesus did not lose his consciousness. Although he was extremely exhausted on account of his tortures, he clearly saw his death coming. His last “word” in this world was a loud cry (Mk 15:37), an expression of a supreme pain as well as his ultimate surrender into the hands of God in whom he had put his trust and whom he called his Father. In order to manifest this fidelity up to the end, Luke gave that inarticulate and heartrending cry with which Jesus’ life came to an end, a form of prayer full of trust (Lk 23:46; Ps 32:6). Jesus died. He really did. His life on earth came to an end. When he expired, he did not know, nor did he imagine that God would resurrect him. He could not imagine it because in his frame of ideas about his faith, this belief in an “individual and immediate” resurrection never entered into the picture. Had Jesus died knowing he would resurrect within a few days, then his death would not have been real or human or painful. When he commended his fate in the hands of God, he believed and hoped in God, with the same faith and hope with which we, believers, do in time of death. And we do it blindly, amid terrible pain, to end it all. In death, as in life, Jesus was our brother. In death, as in life, he experienced uncertainty, putting in God a difficult and painful hope at the end of his life. He in whom we believe is a crucified man. Centuries of history, of culture and art have made of the crucified man a gem, an adornment, a decorative motif. And the cross was nothing but a horrendous scaffold. The crucified, a cursed one (Deut 21:23). We ought to see in the cross a cruel instrument of torture. Seeing in Jesus a bloodied tatter hanging on a pole makes God’s revelation scandalous. We should not become accustomed to it, but Jesus must continue to scandalize us always. This means, he must always jolt us, if we want to renew in our own experience the original meaning of Christian faith. In itself, death on the cross meant the exclusion from the community of Israel and the Roman community. Jesus was killed outside of the walls of Jerusalem, cursed by the law of his people, expelled and outcast by the imperial system. The political, religious and economic institutions expelled him from his very bosom. We, Christians, believe in this outcast. Our Messiah is a “curse” of the authorities, and therefore, the unjust powers will always “curse” the true Christian. The true Christian will also be thrown away, like Jesus. (Mt 27:33-50; Mk 15:22-38; Lk 23:33-46: Jn 19:18-30)
Taken
from the book: A Certain Jesus, Vol. 3 (Chapter
122) This book offers a new approach to appreciating the life of Jesus. The first part of the Chapter is in dialogue form in an up-to-date conversational language. This makes the reader realize that Jesus was once a very ordinary guy, a typical man in his time. The last part of each chapter contains an explanation of the biblical references, thus giving one the perspective for reflection. |
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