The Passion of Jesus

I’m now inviting readers of Living Mark’s Story to reflect more deeply on Mark’s gospel, using ‘The Last Week,’ by Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, as a springboard for our reflections.* In this small but powerful book, the authors examine Mark’s story of Jesus to help us understand his passion for God's justice – his commitment to what he called ‘the Kingdom of God.’

In the preface to their book, Borg and Crossan begin by reflecting on a movie produced by Mel Gibson in 2006:

The movie... reinforced a widespread but much too narrow understanding of the ‘passion’ of Jesus. Mel Gibson called his film “The Passion of the Christ”... understanding the term ‘passion’ in the context of its traditional Roman Catholic and broader Christian background. ‘Passion’ is from the Latin noun passio, meaning ‘suffering.’ But in everyday English we also use ‘passion’ for any consuming interest, dedicated enthusiasm, or concentrated commitment. In this sense, a person’s passion is what she or he is passionate about. In this book we are deliberately playing those two meanings against one another.

The first passion of Jesus was the kingdom of God, namely, to incarnate the justice of God by demanding for all a fair share of a world belonging to and ruled by the covenantal God of Israel. It was that first passion for God’s justice that led inevitably to the second passion by Pilate’s justice. Before Jesus, after Jesus, and, for Christians, archetypically in Jesus, those who live for nonviolent justice die all too often from violent injustice. To narrow the passion of Jesus to his last twelve hours – arrest, trial, torture, and crucifixion – is to ignore the connection between his life and his death.

For many centuries, Christians around the world have participated in Holy Week liturgies and prayers designed to help them experience the second passion of Jesus – his suffering and death. Christian pilgrims still travel to Jerusalem to walk the Way of the Cross, to cathedrals and holy places in their own countries, and to their own local parishes to share in the liturgies of Holy Week.

Those of us who participate in Holy Week liturgies today know that our observance helps us identify with Jesus in his suffering; and our prayerful participation also helps us understand that the Living Christ, still alive, is present with us and shares our sufferings with us.

But what about the first passion of Jesus? How do we identify with his greatest passion?

How could we more fully understand what Jesus meant when he said, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near’ (Mark 1:15)?

How could we so fully understand Jesus’ passion that we might be moved not just to sorrow but to take up his cause? (‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ Mark 8:34)

The first passion of Jesus has called many Christians to take up his cause, and to draw others to join them in their ministries. It is no accident that those acknowledged as the most influential of Jesus’ followers through the centuries – from the first disciples to Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others – were men and women who understood Jesus’ passion for the Kingdom. They shared his passion by taking up his cause – working with the poor and the dispossessed, the enslaved and the imprisoned, and the outcasts and oppressed, serving people everywhere who yearned for justice.

Can we, like them, be so filled with Jesus’ first passion that we, too, can move beyond understanding to sharing his ministry? As we do this together, may we all learn more from Mark about living in – and living for – the Kingdom of God.

As I have before, I’ll post my comments here early each week at http://livingmarksstory.blogspot.com/. And, as before, I hope you’ll add your own thoughts and reflections to the blog as we go along.

* A note on the book: Marcus Borg, who grew up Lutheran, and Dominic Crossan, who grew up Catholic, both taught in separate universities for many years. Twenty years ago, they met as participants in the ‘Jesus Seminar,’ and have grown in friendship ever since. As co-authors of a number of books, they write, Our passion for Jesus has always been more than academic. We have been, and are, passionate about the meaning of Jesus (and of the Bible as a whole) for Christian life today. Our involvement with the sacred texts of our tradition has always been about, “What does then have to do with now?

If you want to have your own copy of ‘The Last Week’ go to Amazon.com – copies are available there for under $5.