Why So Much Suffering?
Looking at the passion one wonders why the death of Jesus was so slow and so painful. You can buy the logic from scripture that Jesus had to die. The wages of sin is death and all that. Still why could it not have been quicker and easier? I see the same thing in some of the stories of the martyrs. Sometime God miraculously intervenes to save their life but it just means they go through an even longer torture and are killed a few painful hours later than they would have been. So what was the point of that miracle?
It struck me that we have a choice whenever we look at the passion. Both good and evil are so vividly displayed. We need to face the evil we are capable of and we need to face the good we are called to. Both are pretty scary. To look at Jesus tortured and see yourself in the role of executioner. Is my sin really that ugly? Certainly it is just other people who are so depraved. They seem so inhuman. Yet they are human. Humans worry about money like Judas did. Humans worry about self preservation like Peter and the other disciples. Humans get jealous like the Pharisees. They play petty political games like Pilate. They follow ghastly orders like the soldiers. Am I any better? Only by the grace of God am I better than that. That horror is me.
Then there is Jesus. Is that really what I signed up for when I became a christian? To love and forgive in the face of that much evil? To be willing to give up my life in order to follow the will of my God? Could God’s grace really make me capable of facing such struggles? Do I really want such a grace? Am I willing to chose love over hate even when it means I receive the whips rather than give them? It is a stark choice. We can be the one on the cross or we can be the one nailing others to the cross. There is no middle ground.
So why such a long execution? One reason is to make the picture clearer. The longer it goes on the harder it gets to deny the depth of the hatred and the depth of the love being displayed. A quick execution would allow for many excuses that people didn’t think it through. Yet they had 4 trials. They had many hours during the flogging and Crucifixion that could have caused them the reconsider if their spirits were open to it. Their hatred was tested and found to be strong. Yet the love of Jesus was stronger. That was on display as well.
