sacrifice

He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:3-5)

* * *

THESE SOMBER, SOBERING WORDS come from the inspired pen of the prophet Isaiah. For seven centuries, they remained pregnant with meaning: an indistinct glimmer of something yet to come, something waiting to happen, sometime, somewhere. One can envision the ancient Hebrews faithfully reading and re-reading the words, generation after generation, for seven hundred years -- until what was once an anguished plea from the soul had become tame and familiar. Until prophecy had become mere poetry. And then, suddenly, at the most unexpected moment, Isaiah's words became neither poetry nor prophesy, but history. Fact. The searing biography of one in whom all the prophecies and promises, all the hopes and dreams of prior generations, found their long-awaited fulfillment.

Imagine, if you will, how heavily Isaiah's words must have weighed on Jesus, every day of His earthly life. His very consciousness of the sacrifice to come is what would have made Him a "man of sorrows." Imagine Him in the synagogue of His boyhood, attending to those well- rehearsed verses, alone in His understanding that they were not a symbolic abstraction, but an all-too-concrete prediction of His own future. And how accurate a prediction it was! We sense it simmering just below the surface of the gospel reports of the Crucifixion, where the same sense of scorn and affliction come heartbreakingly to life: "And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, `Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.' And they cast lots to divide His garments. And the people stood by, watching; but the rulers scoffed at Him, saying, `He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!' The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up and offering Him vinegar, and saying, `If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!'" (Lk 23:33-37) Of course, Jesus was not the only one who understood the terrible significance of this spectacle. In the aftermath of their master's crucifixion, it must have dawned on Christ's followers that Isaiah had been referring, not just to Him, but also to them. Jesus was the suffering servant; but it was His own friends who cravenly "hid their faces" at the decisive hour. What a demoralizing jolt it must have been to the disciples, when they realized at last the full meaning of Isaiah's seven-hundred-year-old words.

Recently, a similar realization seems to have dawned with the film, "The Passion of the Christ." The sufferings of our Lord have been depicted many times -- in film as well as in literature, art, and music -- but not, in recent memory, so vividly, so publicly, and in so focused a way on one aspect of the Christian drama: our Lord's suffering. For many people, viewing the film has opened a new window onto the events surrounding Christ's final hours. What have we seen through that window? In many ways, a reflection of our own times and our own selves. Take away the exotic languages and costumes, and the society depicted in the film (and in the gospels) does not differ so greatly from our own. Careerist politicians; cynical priests; the fickle, roiling mob, which can acclaim you a king one day, and condemn you as a criminal the next -- sadly, these are still recognizable characters in the human drama, down to the present day. Evil still walks with an easy familiarity through our city halls, our religious temples, our public squares and private gardens. And yet -- there is good in the world, too. The steadfastness of John, the penitence of Magdalene, and rarest of all, the precious holiness of Mary, each has its analog in our own time. God sees all these things, as He saw them from the cross. Against the dark voices that tempt us to just give up, He insists that there is hope. In Christ, He showed us that we are worth struggling for, worth sacrificing for -- even worth dying for. Despised and rejected, wounded and bruised, Christ would not relinquish His love for mankind. And not simply mankind at its finest, but also at its worst, its most venal and cruel. That is the meaning -- is it not? -- of Christ's anguished plea for mercy on His persecutors: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." He pleads for us, as well. Perhaps that, finally, is what people have seen in the film -- the reason they have been so affected. It has jolted them into a deeper realization that their own lives are bound to Christ's sacrifice. "With His stripes, we are healed." Of course, Christ did not stop at simply healing us. The story does not end with His sacrificial death, but with His resurrected life. Unknown to His followers on the first Good Friday, unguessed even by the prophet Isaiah, our Lord had something more to offer those He loved. Death on the cross was only the vehicle to give us something greater: the promise of life with Him, for eternity, in God's Kingdom. That is the gift He holds out to us -- the gift that is ours, if we will accept it. These past weeks, people have been deeply moved to reflect on the great debt we owe to Jesus. But, in so doing, let us not fail to respond to the gift He offers, which transformed suffering and death into hope: the gift of Easter Sunday. It is hope born of that gift, and not guilty self-consciousness, which truly distinguishes us as Christians, and inspires our joyous greeting: