Thoughts About the Passion

(taken from Andrew's monthly section in the February 2010 magazine)

In his introduction, Richard Kidd, the author of the study course, writes, ‘ “How do you want to be remembered?” is the classic TV interview question.  Some want to be remembered for their record-breaking achievements, some for their outlandish behaviour, some for their wealth, others for their power.

‘In the earliest years of the Church, the apostles were determined that Jesus should be remembered for the way he died, and they were convinced that Jesus himself wanted it that way.  In 1 Corinthians 11, 23 – 26, Paul describes how Christians can remind themselves about Jesus’ death by celebrating the Lord’s Supper.  WE are reminded by the symbolism of the bread and the wine, and also by the telling of the gospel story.

‘Many New Testament scholars think that it was just this repeated telling of the story, especially at gatherings for the Lord’s Supper, which helped the early Christians remember the final days before Jesus’ death.  When they came to write it down it became, in each of the gospels, the section we now like to call the passion narrative.

‘ “Passion” is a tricky word because it suggests different things to different people.  Some think of  romantic stories; others may think of a preacher with a passion for the gospel.  When we talk about the passion of Jesus, Jesus’ passion is his suffering, and the passion narrative is the story which tells of his pain.

‘Not just any suffering, though, for the apostles make another connection:  one which took them back to the old days, the days when they had celebrated the Jewish festivals with Jesus in Jerusalem.

‘The gospels tell us when Jesus first spoke about a link between his death and the breaking of bread.  It was at the time of the Passover, when paschal lambs were slaughtered and everyone remembered the sufferings of their ancestors in the days of Moses.  In the passion narrative we hear the way in which Jesus, the new paschal lamb, is prepared for a new passover sacrifice at the cross, and we begin to appreciate why Christians longed for a new king of celebration based on the story of his dying.

‘All this was so important to the gospel writers that each devoted a large part of their work to it.  It also looks as if there was so much agreement about it that Matthew, Mark and Luke were all content to tell it in much the same way.

‘In this book we can follow only one gospel, Mark, and we must set limits between the time of Jesus’ arrest and the point at which he is carefully secured in the tomb.  You may want to make cross-checks to the other gospels, for each has a special way of making its meaning plain.

‘Some readers may be disappointed that these studies stop short of the resurrection, but that need not be the case.  Christians are often too quick to rush to the empty tomb before they have wrestled with the real impact of Jesus’ suffering and dying.  Say with the hard stories of the passion a little longer, and it is likely that the accounts of the resurrection will, like the tomb, open up as never before.  After all, it is not until the seed is buried in the ground that a story of new life begins to be told.’