Reliving The Passion #19

Mark 14:65

And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards received him with blows.

John 3:19–20

And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

Be careful. We humans tend to dehumanize our enemies. We drop them to a species lower than our own, thinking ourselves more highly developed, more complex, intelligent, virtuous, sensitive, etc. They, in our judgment, are beasts—animals in thought and habit and desire.

And since those who spit on Jesus are enemies of ours (since we love Jesus), we accept Mark’s description of their brutish behavior. It’s pretty juvenile stuff, don’t you think? Spitting and hitting? Almost comic-book for nastiness. Yet we don’t question it, because it fits our picture of the foes of Jesus (people different from us; people decidedly worse than us—retarded in morals, retarded in mind). Pigs grunt. Geese honk. Our enemies stink and spit.

Be careful. They may be the enemies of our Lord at the moment when he is arraigned. But they are not different from us. They’re quite as complex as we are now—and we have been what they are, enemies of Jesus. If we diminish them, we diminish ourselves.

Listen: sometimes the smile of a genuinely good man infuriates you. You hate the smile specifically—because it reveals a difference! Because the kindness in him is shining on some unkindness in you. Get it? You hate that sort of light. You want to slap the smile right off his face, right? And if he gives signs of forgiving you, why, then his moral superiority becomes simply insufferable. If he’s that good, think how bad it makes you out to be! Well of course he can’t be that good. So he’s a hypocrite—and you’re right to get rid of him, by gestures of perfect contempt, if not by death.

Get it? We spit on him not because we’re beasts but because he’s not worth spit. It’s a very complex thing after all.

True goodness accuses true evil; the better the good one, the worse the bad one, and the more outraged for being shown so.

To sinners, the mere presence of goodness can feel like an attack. It triggers guilt. Guilt hurts. Guilt forces us to notice ourselves, thereby to question and to second-guess ourselves; and such an internal process destroys the joy of an unconscious life. We are altogether too conscious, suddenly—too self-aware. Doubt destroys the thoughtless satisfactions.

So: who provoked such complications and pain? Him we hate!

Goodness is a spotlight. It shines on our shame, our filth, our deformities; it picks out the parts we hide from the world and even from ourselves. We will strike at that light. We’ll haul it into court, discredit it, and smash it in order to put it out. We’ll spit on it and belittle it. We’ll blindfold it, hit it, and ask it to prophesy—all to prove what a fraud this “prophet” is! (And to dehumanize him! Get it?)

Where patience shines, impatience is revealed and hates the attention. Kindness shows unkindness to be hideous. True joy intensifies true bitterness; gentleness enrages belligerence; and self-control proves the pig to be nothing but a pig.

The real trial in Caiaphas’s house is not of the guilt of Jesus. Rather, Jesus is judging the guilt of the others, not by speaking, but by being perfectly innocent. Innocence accuses its accusers. (This is the great war between secular powers and genuine religion; the trial continues even today.) They hate it. They scream to drown the sweeter truth; they condemn him to death in order to put out the light. They want dearly to put out the light.

Save me, Lord, from blaming anyone but myself:

—not you (whose innocence spotlights my sin),

—not your foes (whose sins are my own),

—not people whose virtues reveal my evil.

I must suffer my guilt, my own guilt; this is the pain of an earnest repentance; and repentance alone can hear your forgiveness. I beg your forgiveness.

Amen.