What Do You Do With a Chocolate Jesus? (17 page)

The story then has Jesus hauled up that night before the Sanhedrin—the Jewish rulers of Jerusalem. The authenticity of this scene is often questioned because it’s unlikely such men would meet so late on the eve of Passover to deal with a rogue preacher. Yet, here they are.

Now the chief of the priests and the whole council sought testimony against Jesus to put him to death; [Mark 14:55]

 

And some stood up and bore false witness against him, [Mark 14:57]

 

Yet again, Mark is reworking Old Testament material:

The wicked watches the righteous and seek to slay him. [Psalms 37:32]

 

Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, [Psalms 27:12]

 

Determined to find him guilty of a punishable crime, the high priest asks directly if Jesus is the Christ, the son of “the Blessed,” meaning God. The response:

And Jesus said, “I am; and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” [Mark 14:62]

 

He’s flat-out claiming to be the messianic “King of the Jews.” Since only the Romans can name a king, Jesus has just committed a death penalty offense. Or so the Gospels would have us believe. I wonder if the Romans actually executed every mad prophet claiming to be royalty? I’ll bet some of them just got slapped around for fun.

Consistently inconsistent, the Gospels of Matthew and Mark say the Sanhedrin tries and sentences Jesus, while Luke has him tried but not sentenced, and John doesn’t mention the scene at all. It’s a good thing these four never had to testify in court.

Elsewhere, Judas is so remorseful for what he’s done that, according to Matthew, he hangs himself. But according to the next book in the Bible,
Acts
(written by the author of Luke), Judas retreats to a field where his guts burst out. The Bible writers can’t even agree on this.

Trial

Jesus is then brought before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor charged with keeping order in the unruly colony of Judea. By most accounts he was a world-class bastard, and even Emperor Tiberius admonished him at one point for his cruelty. Yet, after hearing the Sanhedrin carp about various offenses, Pilate refuses to condemn the maverick preacher. This even after Pilate threatens Jesus with crucifixion and his response is, “You would not have power over me unless it had been given you from above…” [John 19:11] Them’s
fightin’
words to a Roman governor. Yet Pilate demands no punishment.

Wanting nothing to do with the matter, Pilate lets the crowd decide Jesus’ fate. The Gospels assert that a Roman tradition allows the governor of Judea to release one condemned prisoner during the Passover—a dubious claim found in no other ancient record. The crowd cries out for Jesus’ execution and instead chooses to spare a Zealot named Barabbas—a Jewish freedom fighter. To Pilate, he’s a terrorist. The idea that Pilate would free a violent criminal but crucify a peaceful preacher who told everyone to pay their taxes doesn’t ring true.

The mob’s demand that Jesus be put to death is also suspect. Over the past week, they’ve celebrated his arrival and marveled at his wisdom and eloquence. Now they turn on him for no apparent reason. Even Dick Cheney’s popularity didn’t plummet that fast. Nevertheless, the Scripture says Pilate “washed his hands” of the matter and let the crowds make the decision.

The entire story is spin. It’s crafted to make everybody look bad. “The Jews” come off as a nasty lot, and the Romans seem like unthinking proto-Nazis. In reality, the Jewish leaders just wanted to punish a heretic (a hobby Christians would eventually adopt). And the Romans were not mindless fascists. They were the great civilizing force of the age. Sure, they could be merciless in war. But the Roman Empire afforded greater freedom of conscience than any of the theocratic despots or barbarian chieftains surrounding them. They permitted more religious tolerance than the Sanhedrin itself. If any of us were transported to that era, we’d much prefer life under the Caesars to life alongside the priests. Yet, in every Hollywood religious epic, Jews and Christians are the heroes while the Romans are a pack of thugs. Of course, Romans don’t make the movies.

Luke is especially tough on the Jews because that Gospel was intended primarily for Gentiles. Jews who were unwilling to convert to Christianity could be vilified with this account.

While we’re on the subject, we can’t let this part of the story slide by without mentioning Mel Gibson’s hit S&M frolic,
The Passion of the Christ
. Mel has been an outstanding director when he’s not doing monologues on the phone. But judging from his work on
Braveheart
, he’s got a thing for over-long flogging sequences, and the Passion story gave him an excuse to build an entire movie around a spectacle of flesh-shredding savagery. In a twisted way, it was ingenious. It got Family Values voters to bring ten-year-olds to a film packed with homoerotic imagery and pornographic gore. Only Hollywood could pull that off.

For Mel and his particular religious ilk, it’s all about the
suffering.
That’s what will bring us eternal life. The medieval Spanish also focused on this, which is why altars throughout Latin America feature a grisly, bloody crucifix compared with the sanitized icons of the English-speaking world. Critics of Christianity note that there is a certain cult-of-death ethic that pervades the entire religion. Buddhist temples and Hindu shrines aren’t accompanied by graveyards the way Christian churches are, nor do they build countless shrines to martyrs for the faith. Hindu gods are pictured dancing, not dying. The Buddha is usually portrayed as fat and happy, and occasionally having
sex.
Imagine how much cheerier church would be if we saw Jesus turning cartwheels or making out with Mary Magdalene.

So, how do the Gospel accounts of what the Romans did to Jesus compare with the horrid flogging sequences in
The Passion of the Christ
? Let’s start with Mark:

And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him. [Mark 15:20]

 

Huh…No flogging here. Just mocking. What about Matthew?

And they spat upon him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him. [Matt. 27:30–31]

 

A blow to the head, but no flogging here, either. So, what does Luke say they did? Answer: Nothing. That Gospel doesn’t mention any punishment at all. As for John…

Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe… [John 19:1–2]

 

That’s it. He was “scourged,” meaning severely whipped. Horrible enough. But it’s not the relentless torment offered in Mel’s movie. The Gospels make it clear that Jesus suffered, and countless artworks over the centuries illustrate this. But only one Gospel even mentions a beating and it does so with a single word. Everything else is dramatic license.

Another iconic image of the Passion is when Jesus drags his own cross to the hilltop site of his crucifixion as the crowds mock him. Mark
, Matthew and Luke actually have a guy named Simon bearing the cross. The later two Gospels seem to base the scene on Mark’s account:

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, [Mark 15:29]

 

But Mark, yet again, is lifting material from the Hebrew Bible:

All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; [Psalms 22:7]

 

But at my stumbling they gathered in glees, they gathered together against me; cripples whom I knew not slandered me without ceasing; [Psalms 35:15]

 

The only Gospel that has him bearing the cross himself is John, which is the least biographic and the most mythological.

Crucifixion

The Greeks gave us democracy, science, logic, theatre, mathematics, and free debate. Unfortunately, they also gave us crucifixion, which was later adopted by the Romans. It was a showy and degrading method of execution intended as a form of terrorism, like sticking the head of your enemy on a pike to prove you meant business. The victim died slowly and painfully from exposure to the elements, blood loss, and suffocation from his own body weight.

Crucifixion was reserved for the worst of criminals, or for offenses like treason. A slave rebellion led by the gladiator Spartacus ended in 71 B.C. with the crucifixion of 6,000 rebels along the Appian Way—the main road leading into Rome. Slave revolts dropped off quickly after that.

I’ve always thought it the supreme irony that a faith promising eternal life is emblemized by an image of execution. Even back then, skeptics sometimes regarded Christianity as bogus precisely because they thought no real god would die in such a humiliating way. Yet today, a Roman gallows skewers the sky of every city of the western world. Kind of a grim thought. But then, that’s religion. It does things like that. Comedian Lenny Bruce once sniped that if Jesus had been born in the 20
^th
century, Catholic kids would wear little electric chairs around their necks.

Scripture says the crucifixion takes place on a hill outside Jerusalem called Calvary, though there’s no evidence to back this up despite what tour guides in the Holy Land might tell you. The Bible never says Jesus is actually
nailed
to the cross, either. It does say a sign mocking his messianic claims is posted above him. But once again, the four Gospels can’t agree on the details of a critical scene—like what the sign says:

Mark:
The King of the Jews.

Matthew:
This is Jesus the King of the Jews

Luke:
This is the King of the Jews

John:
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews

 

Even more perplexing is that the sign is written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but not Aramaic—the language of the man on the street at the time.

Tradition says that, as Jesus is crucified, his executioners divide up his garments and cast lots for them, and someone offers him a sponge soaked with vinegar to drink. This crucial part of the story seems likely to be fiction, or at least an embellishment of reality, because line after line is lifted directly from
Psalms
.

Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evil doers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet—[Psalms 22:16]

 

…they divided my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots. [Psalms 22:18]

 

They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. [Psalms 69:21]

 

Then come more inconsistencies. All four Gospels say Jesus was crucified between two thieves. Mark and Matthew claim both men reviled him. But John never has them speak at all. In Luke, one thief jeers at Jesus while the other repents. And Jesus responds to the repentant criminal, “…today you will be with me in paradise.” It’s a powerful moment. Here, an innocent man in the middle of being executed is forgiving the guilty. Jesus sacrifices himself for man’s salvation—he takes on the sins of the world and washes them away with his blood. Or so we are told.

Tough Questions

The scene, of course, is iconic. But even here, we can’t back off questioning its credibility or what it’s supposed to mean.

First, why does Jesus tell the thief they’ll be in paradise “today”—Friday—when he isn’t due to rise until Sunday, and he won’t ascend to heaven until forty days after that?

Second, if he
knows
he’ll become the Lord of Heaven the instant he dies, doesn’t this make death a lot easier for him than for you and me?

Third, why was this whole mission by Jesus even necessary? Why did we need a new Gospel from the same old god? Yahweh spent 2,000 years laying down the rules and dishing out justice to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and a dozen more pestering prophets. They even wrote most of it down. So why, suddenly, all the amendments? Why now?
And why does anyone have to die?

This entire saga is billed as renewal of man’s relationship with God. What was wrong with the old relationship? If there was a flaw in the plan, why didn’t God realize it before now? And exactly what are we supposed to think when we see the ghastly image of a dead man on a cross? Even here, the major voices of the faith can’t agree.