It is no ordinary cry of abandonment. Jesus is praying the great psalm of suffering Israel, and so he is taking upon himself all the tribulation, not just of Israel, but of all those in this world who suffer from God’s concealment. He brings the world’s anguished cry at God’s absence before the heart of God himself. He identifies himself with suffering Israel, with all who suffer under “God’s darkness”; he takes their cry, their anguish, all their helplessness upon himself—and in so doing he transforms it.
As we have seen, Psalm 22 pervades the whole Passion story and points beyond it. The public humiliation, the mockery and shaking of heads by the scoffers, the pain, the terrible thirst, the piercing of Jesus’ hands and feet, the casting of lots for his garments—the whole Passion is, as it were, anticipated in the psalm. Yet when Jesus utters the opening words of the psalm, the whole of this great prayer is essentially already present—including the certainty of an answer to prayer, to be revealed in the Resurrection, in the gathering of the “great assembly”, and in the poor having their fill (cf. vv. 24-26). The cry of extreme anguish is at the same time the certainty of an answer from God, the certainty of salvation—not only for Jesus himself, but for “many”.
In recent theology, there have been many serious attempts, based on Jesus’ cry of anguish, to gaze into the depths of his soul and to understand the mystery of his person in his final agony. Ultimately, all these efforts are hampered by too narrowly individualistic an approach.
I think that the Church Fathers’ way of understanding Jesus’ prayer was much closer to the truth. Even in the days of the Old Covenant, those who prayed the Psalms were not just individual subjects, closed in on themselves. To be sure, the Psalms are deeply personal prayers, formed while wrestling with God, yet at the same time they are uttered in union with all who suffer unjustly, with the whole of Israel, indeed with the whole of struggling humanity, and so these Psalms always span past, present, and future. They are prayed in the presence of suffering, and yet they already contain within themselves the gift of an answer to prayer, the gift of transformation.
On the basis of their belief in Christ, the Fathers took up and developed this fundamental theme, which modern scholarship calls “corporate personality”: in the Psalms, so Augustine tells us, Christ prays both as head and as body (cf., for example, En. in Ps. 60:1-2; 61:4; 85:1, 5). He prays as “head”, as the one who unites us all into a single common subject and incorporates us all into himself. And he prays as “body”, that is to say, all of our struggles, our voices, our anguish, and our hope are present in his praying. We ourselves are the ones praying this psalm, but now in a new way, in fellowship with Christ. And in him, past, present, and future are always united.
Again and again we find ourselves caught up in the unfathomable depths of suffering “here and now”. Yet the Resurrection and the poor having their fill are also always “here and now”. This perspective takes nothing away from the horror of Jesus’ Passion. On the contrary: it increases it, because now it is not merely individual, but truly bears within itself the anguish of us all. Yet at the same time, Jesus’ suffering is a Messianic Passion. It is suffering in fellowship with us and for us, in a solidarity—born of love—that already includes redemption, the victory of love.
The casting of lots for Jesus’ garments
The evangelists tell us that the execution squad, consisting of four soldiers, divided Jesus’ garments among them by casting lots. This was following Roman custom, according to which the clothing of those who had been executed fell to the executioners. John quotes Psalm 22:18 in this regard: “This was to fulfil the Scripture, ‘They parted my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots’ ” (19:24).
In keeping with the parallelism typical of Hebrew poetry, by which a single idea is expressed in two ways, John presents two distinct elements: first the soldiers sorted Jesus’ clothes into four bundles and distributed them among themselves. Then they also took his tunic, which “was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be’ ” (19:23-24).
The reference to the seamless tunic (chiton) is formulated in this precise way because John evidently wanted to highlight something more than a casual detail. Some exegetes make a connection here with a piece of information provided by Flavius Josephus, who points out that the high priest’s garment (chiton) was woven from a single thread (cf. Antiquitates Judaicae III, 7, 4). Thus we may detect in the evangelist’s passing reference an allusion to Jesus’ high-priestly dignity, which John had expounded theologically in the high-priestly prayer of chapter 17. Not only is this dying man Israel’s true king: he is also the high priest who accomplishes his high-priestly ministry precisely in this hour of his most extreme dishonor.
The Church Fathers drew out a different aspect in their consideration of this passage: in the seamless garment, which even the soldiers were reluctant to tear, they saw an image of the indestructible unity of the Church. The seamless garment is an expression of the unity that Jesus the high priest implored for his followers on the evening before he suffered. Indeed, Jesus’ priesthood and the unity of his followers are inseparably linked together in the high-priestly prayer. At the foot of the Cross we hear once more the poignant message that Jesus had held up before us and inscribed on our souls in the prayer that he uttered before setting out on that final journey.
“I thirst”
At the beginning of the crucifixion, Jesus was offered the customary anaesthetizing drink to deaden the unbearable pain. Jesus declined to drink it—he wanted to endure his suffering consciously (Mk 15:23). At the climax of the Passion under the burning midday sun, stretched out on the Cross, Jesus called out: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28). According to custom, he was offered sour wine, which was commonly found among the poor and could also be described as vinegar: it was considered thirst-quenching.
Here we find a further example of the interweaving of events and scriptural allusions on which we reflected at the beginning of this chapter. On the one hand, the account is quite factual—we have the thirst of the crucified Jesus and the sour drink that the soldiers customarily administered in such cases. On the other hand, we hear a direct echo of the “Passion Psalm” 69, in which the victim laments: “for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (v. 21). Jesus is the just man exposed to suffering. The Passion of the just, as presented in Scripture through the great experiences of praying amid suffering, is fulfilled in him.
This scene can hardly fail to remind us also of the song of the vineyard in the fifth chapter of the Prophet Isaiah, which we considered in connection with the parable of the vine (cf. Part One, pp. 254-57). Here God brings his lament before Israel. He had planted a vineyard on a fruitful height and had taken every possible care over it. “He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (Is 5:2). The vineyard of Israel fails to yield for God the noble fruit of justice, which is grounded in love. It yields the sour grapes of man, who is concerned only for himself. It yields vinegar instead of wine. God’s lament, which we hear in the song of the Prophet, is brought to fulfillment as the vinegar is proffered to the thirsting Savior.
Just as Isaiah’s song portrays God’s suffering over his people in a way that far transcends the historical moment, so too the scene at the Cross far transcends the hour of Jesus’ death. It is not only Israel, but the Church, it is we ourselves who repeatedly respond to God’s bountiful love with vinegar—with a sour heart that is unable to perceive God’s love. “I thirst”: this cry of Jesus is addressed to every single one of us.
The women at the foot of the Cross—the Mother of Jesus
All four evangelists, in their different ways, speak of the presence of women at the foot of the Cross. Mark puts it like this: “There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome, who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered to him; and also m
any other women who came up with him to Jerusalem” (15:40-41). Even if the evangelists do not mention it explicitly, one can sense the shock and grief of these women over what had happened simply from the reference to their presence.
At the end of his crucifixion account, John quotes a line from the Prophet Zechariah: “They shall look on him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37; Zech 12:10). At the beginning of the Book of Revelation, he will return to this same expression, here referring to the crucifixion scene, and he will apply it prophetically to the end time, to the moment when the Lord comes again, when all will look upon the one coming on the clouds—the Pierced One—and beat their breasts (cf. Rev 1:7).
Now it is the women who look upon the Pierced One. We may also reflect on the words of the Prophet Zechariah that follow immediately afterward: “They shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn” (12:10). While up to the moment of Jesus’ death, the suffering Lord had been surrounded by nothing but mockery and cruelty, the Passion narratives end on a conciliatory note, which leads into the burial and the Resurrection. The faithful women are there. Their compassion and their love are held out to the dead Savior.
We need not hesitate to add the concluding words of Zechariah’s text: “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness” (13:1). Gazing upon the Pierced One and suffering with him have now become a fount of purification. The transforming power of Jesus’ Passion has begun.
John not only tells us that there were women at the foot of the Cross—“his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (19:25)—but he continues: “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (19:26-27). This is one of Jesus’ final acts, an adoption arrangement, as it were. He is the only son of his mother, who will be left alone in the world after his death. He now assigns the beloved disciple to accompany her and, as it were, makes him her son in his place; from that time onward, John is responsible for her—he takes her to himself. The literal translation is stronger still; it could be rendered like this: he took her into his own—received her into his inner life-setting. In the first instance, then, this is an entirely human gesture on the part of the dying Savior. He does not leave his mother alone; he places her in the custody of the disciple who was especially close to him. And so a new home is also given to the disciple—a mother to care for him, a mother for him to look after.
If John takes the trouble to record such human concerns, it is because he wants to set down what really happened. But his concern always goes deeper than mere facts of the past. The event points beyond itself to that which endures. What is he trying to say?
The first clue comes from his form of address to Mary: “Woman”. Jesus had used this same form of address at the marriage feast of Cana (Jn 2:4). The two scenes are thus linked together. Cana had been an anticipation of the definitive marriage feast—of the new wine that the Lord wanted to bestow. What had then been merely a prophetic sign now becomes a reality.
The name “Woman” points back in the first instance to the account of creation, when the Creator presents the woman to Adam. In response to this new creation, Adam says: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman. . .” (Gen 2:23). Saint Paul in his letters interprets Jesus as the new Adam, with whom mankind begins afresh. In the figure of Mary, Saint John shows us “the Woman” who belongs now to this new Adam. In the Gospel the allusion is a hidden one, but it was gradually explored in the context of the Church’s faith.
When the Book of Revelation speaks of the great sign of a Woman appearing in heaven, she is understood to represent all Israel, indeed, the whole Church. The Church must continually give birth to Christ in pain (cf. Rev 12:1-6). Another stage in the evolution of this idea is found in the Letter to the Ephesians, where the saying about the man who leaves his father and mother to become one flesh with his wife is applied to Christ and the Church (cf. 5:31-32). On the basis of the “corporate personality” model—in keeping with biblical thought—the early Church had no difficulty recognizing in the Woman, on the one hand, Mary herself and, on the other hand, transcending time, the Church, bride and mother, in which the mystery of Mary spreads out into history.
Just like Mary, the Woman, so too the beloved disciple is both a historical figure and a type for discipleship as it will always exist and must always exist. It is to the disciple, a true disciple in loving communion with the Lord, that the Woman is entrusted: Mary—the Church.
These words spoken by Jesus as he hung upon the Cross continue to be fulfilled in many concrete ways. They are constantly repeated to both mother and disciple, and each person is called to relive them in his own life, as the Lord has allotted. Again and again the disciple is asked to take Mary as an individual and as the Church into his own home and, thus, to carry out Jesus’ final instruction.
Jesus dies on the Cross
According to the account of the evangelists, Jesus died, praying, at the ninth hour, that is to say, around 3:00 P.M. Luke gives his final prayer as a line from Psalm 31: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23:46; Ps 31:5). In John’s account, Jesus’ last words are: “It is finished!” (19:30). In the Greek text, this word (tetélestai) points back to the very beginning of the Passion narrative, to the episode of the washing of the feet, which the evangelist introduces by observing that Jesus loved his own “to the end (télos)” (13:1). This “end”, this ne plus ultra of loving, is now attained in the moment of death. He has truly gone right to the end, to the very limit and even beyond that limit. He has accomplished the utter fullness of love—he has given himself.
In our reflection on Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives in chapter 6, we encountered a further meaning of this same word (teleioũn) in connection with Hebrews 5:9: in the Torah it means consecration, bestowal of priestly dignity, in other words, total dedication to God. I think we may detect this same meaning here, on the basis of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer. Jesus has accomplished the act of consecration—the priestly handing-over of himself and the world to God—right to the end (cf. Jn 17:19). So in this final word, the great mystery of the Cross shines forth. The new cosmic liturgy is accomplished. The Cross of Jesus replaces all other acts of worship as the one true glorification of God, in which God glorifies himself through him in whom he grants us his love, thereby drawing us to himself.
The Synoptic Gospels explicitly portray Jesus’ death on the Cross as a cosmic and liturgical event: the sun is darkened, the veil of the Temple is torn in two, the earth quakes, the dead rise again.
Even more important than the cosmic sign is an act of faith: the Roman centurion—the commander of the execution squad—in his consternation over all that he sees taking place, acknowledges Jesus as God’s Son: “Truly, this man was the Son of God” (Mk 15:39). At the foot of the Cross, the Church of the Gentiles comes into being. Through the Cross, the Lord gathers people together to form the new community of the worldwide Church. Through the suffering Son, they recognize the true God.
While the Romans, as a deterrent, deliberately left victims of crucifixion hanging on the cross after they had died, Jewish law required them to be taken down on the same day (cf. Deut 21:22-23). Hence the execution squad had to hasten the victims’ death by breaking their legs. This applied also in the case of the crucifixion on Golgotha. The legs of the two “thieves” are broken. But then the soldiers see that Jesus is already dead. So they do not break his legs. Instead, one of them pierces Jesus’ right side—his heart—and “at once there came out blood and water” (Jn 19:34). It is the hour when the paschal lambs are being slaughtered. It was laid down that no bone of these lambs was to be broken (cf. Ex 12:46). Jesus appears here
as the true Paschal Lamb, pure and whole.
So in this passage we may detect a tacit reference to the very beginning of Jesus’ story—to the hour when John the Baptist said: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29). Those words, which were inevitably obscure at the time as a mysterious prophecy of things to come, are now a reality. Jesus is the Lamb chosen by God himself. On the Cross he takes upon himself the sins of the world, and he wipes them away.
Yet at the same time, there are echoes of Psalm 34, which says: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken” (vv. 19-20). The Lord, the just man, has suffered much, he has suffered everything, and yet God has kept guard over him: no bone of his has been broken.
Blood and water flowed from the pierced heart of Jesus. True to Zechariah’s prophecy, the Church in every century has looked upon this pierced heart and recognized therein the source of the blessings that are symbolized in blood and water. The prophecy prompts a search for a deeper understanding of what really happened there.
An initial step toward this understanding can be found in the First Letter of Saint John, which emphatically takes up the theme of the blood and water flowing from Jesus’ side: “This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth. There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree” (5:6-8).
What does the author mean by this insistence that Jesus came not with water only but also with blood? We may assume that he is alluding to a tendency to place all the emphasis on Jesus’ baptism while setting the Cross aside. And this probably also meant that only the word, the doctrine, the message was held to be important, but not “the flesh”, the living body of Christ that bled on the Cross; it probably meant an attempt to create a Christianity of thoughts and ideas, divorced from the reality of the flesh—sacrifice and sacrament.
Jesus of Nazareth: From His Transfiguration Through His Death and Resurrection Page 19
