Collision course: Jesus' final week

IF, AS JOHN'S GOSPEL suggests, Jesus went regularly to the annual festivals of his people in Jerusalem, what was so different that last time that it resulted in his execution? If, as Mark's Gospel suggests, he only went there once, why did he do it then? What, in other words, was Jesus' intention in making what proved to be his final, fatal visit to Jerusalem and its Temple that Passover of 30 CE?

One answer was given in Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ. Jesus' intention, according to that film, was to sacrifice his life as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of the world and thereby obtain vicarious forgiveness for us all. Since God was offended by human sin, and since human beings were an inadequate subject for divine punishment, only a divine victim, the Son of God, was fully appropriate to suffer in our place.

What makes Gibson's film important is that it expressed a common Christian understanding. Assiduously courted by Gibson's marketing campaign, many conservative Christians strongly supported the film because it expressed their understanding of the meaning of Jesus' death as a substitutionary sacrifice for sin. Even Pope John Paul II is reported to have said about the film, "It is as it was." In this theology, the punitive suffering deserved by all of us was laid by God upon Jesus.

But this widespread Christian understanding of Jesus' death is misleading and impoverished. As we listened to our fellow Christians discussing the film, we realized that vast numbers of them simply did not know the gospel story. They knew how Jesus' last week ended but not how it began, how it continued day by day, and why it finally went the way that it did. For Christians to recover the whole story of Holy Week is crucially important.

To say the obvious: Holy Week is at the center of the Christian life. In the Gospels, it is the climax of the story of Jesus. So also in Paul: "Christ crucified" and "Jesus is Lord" are the center of his proclamation. Liturgically, Lent and Holy Week are the most sacred time of the Christian year, rivaled only by Advent and Christmas. Their importance relative to each other is clear: Jesus' last week, death and resurrection were commemorated centuries before Advent and Christmas were observed.

For more than one reason, the story of Holy Week--the whole week from Palm Sunday onward--is not as well known as it could and should be among Christians. One reason is a recent liturgical and lectionary change. In many churches, the story of Jesus' death has replaced Palm Sunday on the Sunday before Easter. The change was made largely because Good Friday has ceased to be a public holiday. Most of us over 50 recall a time when in many places there was no school on Good Friday. Many businesses closed. Good Friday was a day for going to church, and some of us can remember services from noon to 3 o'clock with sermons on "the seven last words."

Now the world doesn't stop on Good Friday, and fewer Christians are able to attend services that day. So the Good Friday story needs to be told on the Sunday before Easter--otherwise Christians would go from one triumph to another, from "the triumphal entry" on Palm Sunday and singing "Crown Him with Many Crowns" and "Lead on, O King Eternal" to the triumphant celebration of Easter: "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today." Well, what happened in between?

But the loss of Palm Sunday and the fuller story of Holy Week has unfortunate consequences. To remember and observe Good Friday without the framework provided by Palm Sunday and the rest of Holy Week risks missing the significance of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. When Jesus' death is isolated from the events leading up to it, several crucial things result:

* No answer is given to the crucial question, "Why was Jesus killed?" Jesus didn't simply die; he was executed by the authorities who ruled his world. If we hear only the Good Friday story, we hear the authorities condemning him to death for "blasphemy" but we get no idea of why they acted against him. Jesus' passion--in the sense of what he was passionate about--remains largely invisible.

* People are encouraged to believe that the primary purpose of Jesus' death was to die for the sins of the world by offering his life as a substitutionary atonement. For many Christians, this is the real meaning of Good Friday. For some, seeing Jesus' death as a substitutionary sacrifice is a litmus test of Christian orthodoxy. It also leads to the notion that his death had to happen, that it was part of God's plan of salvation--indeed, required by God.

* People are encouraged to accept the widespread notion that Jesus was rejected by his own people--that "the Jews" crucified him. The authorities are seen as representatives of the Jewish people. There is little or no awareness that throughout the week "the crowd" is with Jesus, and indeed prevents the authorities from taking action. It is a different and much smaller crowd that calls for his crucifixion on Good Friday--that crowd is gathered in Pilate's courtyard, and ordinary people had no access to it. Heard in isolation, the Good Friday texts have been a major factor in the long and often brutal history of Christian anti-Semitism.