[Magdalen] Church layouts, was Re: Religion Without God

[Sally Davies]

Indeed.

 And it also says, "You intended it for evil, but God meant it for good,
that many people should be kept alive".

The same could be said about a crucifix I suppose, perhaps with even more
poignancy.

I am with those, however, that have some discomfort. None of us likes to
witness pain and suffering...but to each his or her own burden of pain and
way of getting through/past it. How to compare? Impossible...

Yes, Jesus suffered horribly - but many others in history have too, and
many have had worse (if one could be objective about such things). In
particular from a woman's point of view, one considers the suffering of
women kept in sexual slavery, or those who fall prey to sadistic serial
killers who die alone, violated and in pain. Those forced to kill the ones
they love... Or the awful suffering of small children who have no way to
understand what's happening to them and aren't able to take command and
make choices, as Jesus did even from the cross. Amongst the many things not
to like about Mel Gibson's revolting movie, was this preoccupation with the
physical violence of the crucifixion, depicted with a high degree of
realism...

I see Christ's sufferings as an example in many ways and also a reproach, a
mark of what this world does to whatever is pure and holy and tells the
truth. But for me what is uniquely terrible is not the suffering as such,
but the highlighted fact that humanity could not see and did not know - and
that we continue not to see and not to know what we do. I still struggle
with the tensions inherent in trying to understand the Cross, especially
coming from an Evangelical background in which doctrines of penal
substitution were the only show in town.

As to what Pilate would or would not have done, do we have enough solid
evidence about him, even to make an informed guess? Josephus and Philo
depict him as a ruthless powerful tyrant but that suited their agenda and
reflected a later Jewish view. Gospel writers show him as wavering and
trying to avoid responsibility - which suits their agenda if it were to
placate Rome in some way, and blame instead an already crushed people for
the injustice. Though I'm not clear why the Synoptics would do that.

There again, Pilate was not a high-level Governor, his boss was the Syrian
Legate. He was Prefect of Judea, that's all. And he didn't have legions at
his command, only a relatively small force spread around (wider) Judea,
with limited official powers as a magistrate. With Jerusalem full of what,
to the Romans, must have seemed unstable religious nut-jobs, why antagonise
them? Maybe their God was in fact to be feared...

The Emperor Tiberius didn't want to rouse the Jews to rebellion and is said
to have recalled Pilate when he ended up doing just that. Philo thought
that Pilate didn't want to draw imperial attention to himself because he
was corrupt and had a good thing going. And the spiteful vacillations
depicted in the Gospels (especially Luke) aren't inconsistent with tin-pot
dictators such as Pilate appears in those narratives. He'd been cornered by
the Sanhedrin into doing something he didn't feel like doing - so why not
show the finger to the Jewish leaders by allowing a burial? I don't find it
unbelievable at all, or even unlikely.

It is interesting, though, that the Cross (however represented) so
comprehensively became a Christian symbol, the sign of forgiveness and
freedom, instead of a universal sign of Roman terror.

Sally D





On Friday, 2 January 2015, ME Michaud <michaudme at gmail.com
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','michaudme at gmail.com');>> wrote:

> The empty cross says:
> Look what awaits.
> Trials and suffering,
> Your faith will be tested.
> -M
>