|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Was Christ's suffering really all that bad?
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
To me, of all the possible outcomes of Holy Week, either being crowned King or being Crucified seem the only two options. The whole thing seems orchestrated to cause a reaction from the Romans as much as the religious authorities in Jerusalem, and AFAIU, crucifixion was the usual punishment for insurrection.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
|
Posted
Boogie quote:
Yes I do. I don't believe in prophesy - it's no different from astrology imo
I see the point you're making, Boogie, though I think you overdo it. I agree with you to the extent that there is usually sufficient variety in earlier scriptures to find material that fit a number of possible outcomes; and the case of Jesus it involves conflating Messianic prophecies with Isaiah's Suffering Servant, which most Jews would, and still do, regard as oxymoronic.
On the other hand, one can predict likely outcomes from previous behaviour, as Jesus did when he placed himself in the tradition of persecuted prophets. In the parable of the Tenants of the Vineyard, for example, Christ predicts that against the wishes of his father the that he will be murdered. Such predicting is sometimes referred to as prophesying, and is far from being an irrationally anticipated or extra-terrestrially determined event, as in astrology.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Well, sorry, that's the fault of those who want to paint the suffering of our Lord as the worst-possible thing that could happen to anyone ever, period.
No, you missed my point. I have no time for weighing suffering, nor do I have time for wallowing in gruesomeness.
Lets try it this way. If you're going through extreme suffering in your own life, do you really think it matters if someone else rates it as top of the list of suffering anyone has experienced, or third, or twentythird? Does this kind of league tabling increase or decrease the empathic connection?
Basically, I think such weighing and weighting is fundamentally useless in coming alongside anyone who is going through the mill. Surely the most important thing is not to trivialise anyone's suffering on the grounds that either they aren't the only ones - or someone else has had it far far worse? What good does that do?
[ 24. March 2016, 18:50: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
|
Posted
Maybe the point of Christ's death, then, was its very ordinariness. He died the death of a common criminal, alongside common criminals, in a peripheral bit of the Roman Empire. Nothing very dramatic - no immolation in the Forum in Rome, with Emperor and Senate looking on, or anything like that.
Or am I still missing the point?
--------------------
A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
Posts: 257 | From: In bed. Mostly. When I can get away with it. | Registered: Dec 2015
| IP: Logged
|
|
Athrawes
Ship's parrot
# 9594
|
Posted
Originally posted by Boogie
[/qb] quote:
I wish a symbol of torture wasn't the symbol of the Christian faith. [/QB]
I used this sentiment as a meditation during the Stations of the Cross this morning, specifically why was it chosen as a symbol of a loving God and new life? To us it is an historical curiosity - we don't crucify people any more. But, If you think about it, to the early believers It was not just a symbol of torture, it was a foreign, degrading and horrendous instrument of torture, used daily by a foreign, degrading and horrendous invading force, who was totally opposed to everything Jewish. And yet, they chose the cross (along with the fish) as a symbol of The Way. There must have been a reason, something that the cross represented about the life and teaching they were following.
I have my ideas about that, but I would be interested in why you think they may have done this, Boogie. It seems to me to be pointing to something vitally important about the life we are called upon to live.
--------------------
Explaining why is going to need a moment, since along the way we must take in the Ancient Greeks, the study of birds, witchcraft, 19thC Vaudeville and the history of baseball. Michael Quinion.
Posts: 2966 | From: somewhere with a book shop | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
|
Posted
....But when did the cross become the predominant Christian symbol? Am I mistaken in thinking that the sign of the fish predated the cross? Am I wrong in thinking that in early Christian art the depiction of Christ as a shepherd was more common than his crucifixion?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Athrawes
Ship's parrot
# 9594
|
Posted
I don't know ( hopefully someone on the ship does!), but given Paul's emphasis on the death and resurrection of Our Lord, I would think it would be fairly early.
--------------------
Explaining why is going to need a moment, since along the way we must take in the Ancient Greeks, the study of birds, witchcraft, 19thC Vaudeville and the history of baseball. Michael Quinion.
Posts: 2966 | From: somewhere with a book shop | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
From Wikipedia
quote:
During the first two centuries of Christianity, the cross may have been rare in Christian iconography, as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution and Christians were reluctant to use it. ... The extensive adoption of the cross as Christian iconographic symbol arose from the 4th century.
The earliest depiction of the Christian Cross may be the Herculaneum Cross which was found in the city of Herculaneum, which was entombed in pyroclastic material along with Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
...
However, the cross symbol was already associated with Christians in the 2nd century, as is indicated in the anti-Christian arguments cited in the Octavius of Minucius Felix, chapters IX and XXIX, written at the end of that century or the beginning of the next, and by the fact that by the early 3rd century the cross had become so closely associated with Christ that Clement of Alexandria, who died between 211 and 216, could without fear of ambiguity use the phrase τὸ κυριακὸν σημεῖον (the Lord's sign) to mean the cross ... and his contemporary Tertullian could designate the body of Christian believers as crucis religiosi, i.e. "devotees of the Cross". In his book De Corona, written in 204, Tertullian tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
....But when did the cross become the predominant Christian symbol? Am I mistaken in thinking that the sign of the fish predated the cross? Am I wrong in thinking that in early Christian art the depiction of Christ as a shepherd was more common than his crucifixion?
Was it the early Roman Church who bigged up the Cross? After all , I think they took on the Christian faith as an appendage to already well tried and tested Roman militarism. Themes of martyrdom and wot not would have been encouraged back then. Maybe not much relevance now, well not to the majority anyway.
The Gnostic gospel of Thomas makes no mention of the Cross at all.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
|
Posted
I think Gethsemane is the vital point in understanding what is going on.
In Gethsemane, Jesus surveys the path that is opening up before him, and prays to be released from it. Ultimately, he embraces it, saying "not my will, but Your will be done".
By doing this, he expresses God's solidarity with all of us, an expression which started with his birth, and comes to its fulfillment in the gift of the holy spirit at Pentecost, having carried our humanity into heaven at the Ascension.
This is all of a piece, a moment in a relationship, and must be put back into that context to be understood. Otherwise, we get stuck in debates about comparative degrees of pain which get nowhere and degrade everyone.
--------------------
Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
|
Posted
Regarding the cross as a symbol, it seems as though almost every culture uses some form of a cross as a symbol. It can represent the sun, the earth, the four cardinal directions, and many other things. Aside from the obvious Christian connections—the sacrificial death of Jesus and his command that we take up our own cross—I think part of the reason that the cross gained prominence as the Christian symbol has to do with the fact that there is something about two lines crossing at perpendicular angles that speaks to something very deep in the human imagination.
--------------------
The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Trickydicky
Shipmate
# 16550
|
Posted
I think the earliest depiction of the cross *may* be an anti-Christian piece of grafitti: 'Alexamenos worships his God'. There's a link to Wikipedia here:
The fact that Thomas doesn't mention the crucifixion just tells us that Thomas's gospel is sub-Christian.
--------------------
If something's worth doing, its worth doing badly. (G K Chesterton)
Posts: 57 | From: Greater Manchester | Registered: Jul 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Trickydicky
Shipmate
# 16550
|
Posted
No longer apprentice! But failed with the link. Lets try again!
here
--------------------
If something's worth doing, its worth doing badly. (G K Chesterton)
Posts: 57 | From: Greater Manchester | Registered: Jul 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Trickydicky
Shipmate
# 16550
|
Posted
No longer apprentice! But failed with the link. Lets try again!
here
--------------------
If something's worth doing, its worth doing badly. (G K Chesterton)
Posts: 57 | From: Greater Manchester | Registered: Jul 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Trickydicky
Shipmate
# 16550
|
Posted
Thank you, Stetson.
--------------------
If something's worth doing, its worth doing badly. (G K Chesterton)
Posts: 57 | From: Greater Manchester | Registered: Jul 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trickydicky:
The fact that Thomas doesn't mention the crucifixion just tells us that Thomas's gospel is sub-Christian.
Of all the 'sub-Christian' offerings since the violent death of an itinerant preacher from Nazareth, I personally wouldn't even add the Gnostic Gospels to that list.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
....But when did the cross become the predominant Christian symbol? Am I mistaken in thinking that the sign of the fish predated the cross? Am I wrong in thinking that in early Christian art the depiction of Christ as a shepherd was more common than his crucifixion?
The fish was certainly an early symbol, and made an easy way for Christians to identify each other - the 2 curved lines, overlapping at one end to form a fish's tail could easily and idly be drawn by a toe in sand or dirt, by a finger dipped in wine, or a myriad other ways. A quick wipe would conceal it from hostile eyes.
Back to the pain. There's no point in weighing up pain. It's too subjective for a start. I have much higher pain levels than my sisters - perhaps being a boy rather than a girl when we were growing up 60 and more years ago contributed. Then the gall stones vs childbirth could reflect the joy of giving birth diminishing the pain level felt.
The crucifixion of Christ has at least 2 elements. The first is the infliction of severe pain before death. If it were only the death that was sought, a comparatively quick beheading would work, or drinking hemlock. Then, it was the punishment for common criminals and so reflect the humility of Christ in going forward.
Boogie your comment about prophesy: you may not accept prophesy from someone wholly human. Would you accept it from someone who was also wholly divine?
--------------------
Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
|
Posted
I don't know why I am sticking up for someone who seems to have forgotten me, but here I go again:
According to the Apostle's Creed, Jesus didn't just suffer and die on the cross. (And yeah, when people refer to crucifixion as "the worst torture imaginable," I just figure they've never read up on what Ted Bundy did to his victims. ) After dying, he descended into Hell. And evidently stayed there till his ressurection.
Forget timelines for a minute, because obviously Hell, if it exists, is outside of time. It is also going to be the end point of all evil, all pain, all terror, all sorrow. By suffering, dying, and submitting to Hell, Jesus wasn't experiencing his own pain, but Pain itself. The generator from which pain comes, and the repository of the pain which evil causes. In a sense, he wasn't just identifying with that abducted child who is tortured for a week before she dies, but creating a way to actually be with her.*
Some people are lucky enough to have a sense of this--"throughout my internment in Dachau, I always knew God was with me"-- and some just don't. IMO this has nothing to do with how close to God the actually person is, just how they are wired.
* by "creating* I don't mean to say God was never able to be with people in suffering before Jesus, I am saying the Passion of Jesus (along with the subsequent narrative of Pentecost) created a narrative which demonstrated that reality- the same way a couple doesn't fall in love because marriage happens, but rather marriage is an acting out of that reality.
[ 26. March 2016, 00:03: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
--------------------
I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
a remarkable thing about the Jesus story is that he didn't get angry and nasty like I do with suffering ...
Except at fig trees.
quote:
Originally posted by Bibaculus:
I guess what I was really questioning is how one is often told, when suffering, that Christ 'understands' because he suffered too.
I'm failing to see why 'understanding' others' suffering requires you to suffer exactly the same amount, in the same way, as they are. If you were in horrible pain and someone came to comfort you, would you say, "No, bugger off, I know you only had the really screaming pain of cancer for about a year, and then you had the surgery and got better, so you can't possibly know my suffering, so get the hell out of here, you charlatan." I don't really think so.
The key thing is that God became a human being -- entered into our vale of tears -- and tasted what our suffering is like first-hand. Which is mind-boggling.
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Can anyone really watch too much Life of Brian?
As long as they're keeping the bathroom clean and the clothes washed, no.
quote:
Originally posted by Bibaculus:
Maybe the point of Christ's death, then, was its very ordinariness. He died the death of a common criminal, alongside common criminals, in a peripheral bit of the Roman Empire. Nothing very dramatic - no immolation in the Forum in Rome, with Emperor and Senate looking on, or anything like that.
Or am I still missing the point?
I'd say this is far closer to the point. He didn't come to be superlative. The best little Jewish kid at spinning the dreidel, the fastest runner in the young carpenters olympics, the most suffering of all sufferers, the best bread and fish chef, the best vintner. He was in all things like us -- not like the most superlative of us. The superlative types aren't very much like us at all, really.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
mousethief - you nearly put me off with your first line. But the rest delivers. Kelly Alves - utterly mad as a box of frogs, but I liked it.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
|
Posted
![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif) I am humbled.
--------------------
I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
I knew you would be. Talitha kum.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
From the ridiculous, to the sublime:
"Right NOW, on this, Resurrection Sunday, Jesus says: "Blessed are you, Stephen Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.… How utterly, sublimely, radically TRUE! THANK YOU Steve. Thank you Father. This is a complete endorsement of the Incarnation. Of the reality of the DIVINE in human, in A human, in humanity - for His Spirit is poured out on ALL flesh. I have lived all my life with the same false teaching. No more. Christ is risen. Nunc dimittis."
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
I was contemplating this during the sermon this morning (what, was I supposed to be listening to the preacher?). We had been looking at Isaiah 53, and my eyes fell on quote:
he has suffered, ...
and he will bear their iniquities.
... For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Now, I came to faith in an evangelical setting and still consider there to be some value in Penal Substitutionary Atonement, and my thoughts this morning were following a chain that (to me) makes sense within that framework. Perhaps there still is some value in these ramblings to others who do not accept that framework. And, no, I am not going to discuss PSA here so don't even go there.
We know the Bible tells us that the wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23 and Proverbs 10:16 - for some reason no one seems to quote Proverbs in this context, I thought I'd remedy that). In taking our sins and iniquities needed to only pay that cost, he only needed to die for us so that we could rise with him. To carry our sins and iniquities he did not need to suffer at all. So why did he accept crucifixion as the will of his father? What was the gain from that suffering?
I know evangelicals often dwell on the suffering of the cross. Even before Mel made that film, I can remember evangelistic events where the evangelist produced a roman nail, and in considerable detail described every blow of the hammer that drove a nail like that through Christ's wrist, the hours hanging on that cross barely able to breath.
As I said, I'm in the context of PSA. And, in that context there is a strong symbolism that Christ died the death of a criminal, despite being innocent of any crime. But, why not come in a society where the death penalty came through a quick chop to remove head from body? Or, through a lethal injection? Even the short agony of hanging. Why did he come to a culture where he would be crucified, one of the most brutal and painful forms of execution ever devised? Indeed, why force the authorities to have him tried under Roman law, why not arrange for a quick stoning or a shove off a clifftop?
So, I'm left with no reason why PSA would require a crucifixion. And, still not understanding why evangelists (from within that understanding of atonement) would consider the suffering, rather than just the death, of Christ to be important - looking back, it was never something that made sense, in my feeble attempts to share the good news it was never something that I felt I could use.
So, the question is there. Why did the death of Christ have to involve suffering at all?
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
As I said first, some years ago, in trepidation: apology. Atonement works BOTH ways.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
PSA is OUR story. Jesus FULL humanity, as in feeling alone on the Cross, embraced, in full, human, weakness and ignorance OUR story.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
