You know the films that don’t make any sense until the final frames? Films like the Usual Suspects, where you know that there’s more going on that at first meets the eye, but until those last moments the whole story can’t be seen. Well, Easter’s a little like that, there’s a whole lot wrong right up until the last moment.
For starters, Jesus is God in human form, so the idea of him being dragged off by a bunch of soldiers just doesn’t fit with a contemporary idea of what a God should be. The story shouldn’t have made it past this point because any real God would have stopped it here.
But events carry on and there’s a trial, if it can be called that. Instead of justice there’s a wild group of people shouting for his execution simply because they didn’t like the words he used or the people he associated with. Wouldn’t a real God have put them all to shame publicly, brought a stop to it there instead of making a mockery of justice?
Instead guilt is proclaimed and Jesus is hoisted on a cross. Held up with nails through his hands and his feet, the weight of his body making it impossible to breath, so much so he physically has to lift himself up to enable him to breathe. A mocking crown, made of thorns tears into his head covering his face in blood and open wounds on his back continue to bleed from the earlier beating. A real God wouldn’t even have let it get this far, would he?
Well, this is where the story changes. Jesus takes charge… and dies.
People could hang for days on crosses before death (usually by suffocation) takes over. But in this case Jesus says, ‘ “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and released his spirit.’ (John 19:30) It was Jesus who determined the time of his death. I guess he could have carried on, but at that point all the Old Testament prophecies regarding his death had been fulfilled, there was no point in carrying on.
However, there was one more important part in the story. Three days later Jesus returns from the dead.
This is the whole point to the story. Up until that point Jesus could just have been a man. Just an ordinary bloke who managed to upset a few people and get punished for it. But, instead he came back to life, and an ordinary man can’t do that.
It’s only these final frames, the coming back to life, that makes the rest of the story makes sense. It shows Jesus for who he really is. Both God and man. Suseptable to death, just like everyone else, but also God and impossible to kill.
Happy Easter
This blog post is my contribution to the EA’s Maunday Thursday Synchro Blog