2 Key Qualities: Christ’s Journey to the Cross
Christ’s journey to the cross is one of isolation. Though surrounded by crowds, he is entirely alone. The only thing he has is the determination God placed within him to walk out what he clearly acknowledges is a predetermined path. And on this path, he exhibits two key qualities that encapsulate both his mission and his identity.
Imbued with Authority
At every single point of his journey to the cross, Jesus operates as one imbued with authority. He is not shaken. Different Gospel readings bring out different aspects of what happened over the course of this three-day period, but in the Gospel of John, the central thing that one sees is who he is as a man of authority. He is in charge; he is threatened by no one. Not the soldiers, even in their folly, as one scholar writes, “They brought torches and lanterns to search for the light of the world. They bring weapons against the Prince of Peace.”
And even when he stands up and he says, “I am he” (John 18:5b), the power of God so flows through him that they fall to the ground. They have to get up. It’s almost comical. Here are the threatening soldiers with their lanterns, torches, and weapons. And all Jesus does is speak who he is and they fall backward in fear.
He waits, patiently. They right themselves, stand up, adjust their armor, and again raise their swords. And Jesus is the one who takes the initiative. “Whom are you looking for?” (John 18:7b).
“Jesus of Nazareth” (John 18:7c).
“I am he” (John 18:8b). And he keeps going. “If I’m the one you’re looking for, then let the disciples go” (cf. John 18:8c). The disciples were not meant to bear the fate that Jesus knew was in front of him, fulfilling (as John describes) the scripture that “not any were lost” (cf. John 18:9).
It continues. When he comes before Annas, the father-in-law of the high priest, he is questioned. It’s about doctrine at this point, and Jesus skillfully avoids any sense of entrapment: “I have said nothing in secret. Every time I have spoken, it’s been in public. Ask the people who have spoken to me” (cf. John 18:20-21).
Annas throws up his hands, as it were, and sends him to Caiaphas, who eventually sends him to Pilate, one of the most feared leaders at that time and in that location. He represented, even embodied, all of the authority of Rome. He could literally do anything with any human being or any piece of property that he chose. And yet, Jesus addresses him (to Pilate’s astonishment, I’m sure) as an equal. Actually, as even less than an equal: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11b).
Pilate was not used to being addressed that way. No wonder that later, he’s afraid. Jesus claims to be the Son of God. And Pilate comes back to ask him a key question, one with a stark meaning in the Greek: “What world do you come from?” (cf. John 19:9).
It’s not a geographic question. It’s a cosmology question: “Who are you? Are you, in fact, deity personified?”
Filled with Tenderness
And all the way through, Jesus voluntarily gives himself up. With determination and with poise, even in the face of unimaginable suffering.
Jürgen Moltmann describes the crucifixion as “profane horror.” “He is one from whom men hid their faces,” it says in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. “A bloody rag of bones,” Rowan Williams says, “strung up on the cross.” Naked to the sun, completely captive to the power of the cross by his voluntary submission, he yields to that authority.
Jesus is never, ever a victim. Instead, he is always someone carrying out the mission for which he was sent by his heavenly Father.
How else, even in the midst of unimaginable suffering, could he constantly turn and look at human beings and address them with love, with tenderness? Any of us in that situation would have been so terrified, because we would have seen other crucifixions. We would have known what awaited, just as Jesus did. And yet even before Pilate, when Pilate asks him, “Are you king of the Jews?” (John 18:33b) he turns and says, in a way that’s quite personal, “Are you asking this for yourself?” (cf. John 18:34), meaning, “Are you actually interested in who I really am?”
In other words, Jesus is, even in that moment, open to a conversation that could have been personal, that could have said something about Pilate’s spiritual life. He embodies not just authority but tenderness as well. He heals the high priest’s slave’s ear after Peter had cut it off. Some scholars say that the reason this slave, Malchus, is named in the Gospel is because he was known. In fact, he may have become a convert through what he saw in this tender, compassionate Jesus.
And strung up before the cross, what does Jesus do? “Woman, here is your son . . . Son, here is your mother” (John 19:26b, 27b).
Both/And
Yet it’s more than just tenderness. It’s more than just a martyr strung up for the sake of love. That’s not the whole story, and especially not so in the Gospel of John. Jesus is never a martyr. Jesus is, in fact, a willing, voluntary sacrifice, who gives himself up for the sins of humanity past, present, and future.
Without authority, all that’s left is a kind of weak and insipid sympathy. This is agnosticism: a god who may exist but can do nothing. But without tenderness, all we see is that, for some reason that escapes us, this man voluntarily yields to the authority of Rome as well as to Israel and to die. But for what?
Authority without tenderness is, in a way, terrifying. Jesus had both tenderness and the authority to impart forgiveness. The authority to always, even in the midst of this unbelievably horrifying situation, make that tender, compassionate turn toward people, the turn that never, ever ends.
I don’t know about you, but I need both authority and tenderness from my God.
The writer of Hebrews says, “Who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame” (Hebrews 12:2b). What is the joy? The joy is, by virtue of what he has done in striking down the power of evil, in reaching out in love to bring forgiveness and healing, Christ is united with the very people of whom it says “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16a).
The joy that is set before him is being united with us. With us.
What the crucifixion shows us, then, is that he has both the authority to unite us and the tenderness to draw us into that union unlike any other. John R.W. Stott writes this:
I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statues of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed. But each time, after a while, I’ve had to turn away. And in my imagination, I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, and tortured figure on the cross, plunged into God-forsaken darkness. This is God, laying aside his immunity to pain, entering into our world of tears and blood and death. Over all human suffering, he boldly stamps another mark, and that is the cross of Christ.
No matter where you are, no matter what you’ve endured or what you know in pain and suffering, in loss, in betrayal, in abuse, here at the foot of the cross, you meet your match. Because he endured the worst to set you free, to bring mercy, to bring healing, to bring release from all of the anger, all of the pain, all of the isolation, all of the sorrow, and to pour into you a life that only the Son of God could give us. A life marked, yes, by power, but also by his mercy and his love. A life where authority and tenderness meet—and change the world.
The Invitation
I invite you to join with him who died on the cross, enduring all that we could ever know and more, that we might be set free, that we might know a love that will not let us go, a companion even in the midst of the worst of suffering. Because at no time, given all that he endured, no matter what happens to us, does he ever step away and say, “That’s too much.”
No. Instead he stands beside us, surrounding us, pouring his grace and his mercy within us. So that no matter what we have to face, he still says to us, “I will never leave you or forsake you. Nothing can take you out of my hand” (cf. Hebrews 13:5, John 10:28).
So come. Ponder what has been done—for you, and for everyone you know. Ponder the authority he wields, the tenderness he extends. And walk away knowing that saying yes to him means you are joined to him forever.
And that no matter what you endure, he will never, ever let you go. Because he loves you.
With which quality do you resonate more: authority or tenderness? Continue the conversation by sharing this blog on Twitter and including my username, @revgregbrewer.
(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on Good Friday, March 25, 2016, at The Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida).
Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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