You Would Not Have Understood the Crucifixion Had You Seen It (Because No One Did)
Growing up around the Catholic Church, we kids would walk the Stations of the Cross each year. At one Catholic school I attended, we even acted the Passion out as a kind of play. My fifth grade self was pretty uncomfortable watching a seventh grade boy hover shirtless over a cross as he mispronounced the Aramaic of Mark 15:34. I can’t imagine what some of the adults were thinking. The Stations of the Cross, however, were less awkward; I remember them as powerful and captivating. Icons and carvings depicting the various scenes of Christ’s passion lined the walls of our churches: Jesus is condemned to death, Jesus carries his cross, Jesus falls for the first time, etc. I would stare and stop at these stations in mandatory silent procession as we all contemplated the death of the Son of God.
These practices—done every single year for the ten years I attended Catholic school—produce a lot of thoughts in your mind. I remember thinking one year, before I had become a Christian, what kind of person I would be in the story of Jesus’ final hours. What would have been like to be there?
The skeptical, pre-Christian part of my middle school brain considered that I would have to be there to believe this ever happened. But later faith and a good dose of Richard Bauckham, N.T. Wright, and Peter Williams put that to rest. We can easily think that if we had been there, we would have a particular spiritual response. The haunting old spiritual says it well: “Were you there when they crucified My Lord? O, sometimes it causes me to tremble…tremble…tremble.” The mere mental exercise of contemplating our own witnessing of the crucifixion of the Son of God produces a kind of humility that is so unique, “humility” isn’t quite the right term. Devastation, might be closer to it.
How would you respond if you saw Christ crucified? In some ways, many meditations on Good Friday and throughout Holy Week place us in such circumstances. Would we respond like Judas and betray Jesus (Matthew 26:14–25)? Or like Peter and just deny we knew him (Mark 14:66–72)? Would we be like the women who weep with him as he carries his cross (Luke 23:27, Mark 15:41)? Or maybe we would be like Simon, who helped Jesus carry his cross (Mark 15:21)?
But what if it would not have mattered who we were? What if, no matter what perspective we had, we would not be able to comprehend the cross?
Think for a second (if you know your Bible well): who immediately understood what was happening as Christ was crucified? We are told that all the disciples left him (Mark 14:50), except for John and the two Marys, all of whom express no signs of understanding the event. They are simply “standing by,” presumably weeping (John 19:25–27). Those who are around Jesus are mostly soldiers given orders to kill him slowly, religious rulers making certain of his end, and two other thieves who are executed alongside our Lord. All of these mock him incessantly, seeing his entire ministry as a joke (Mark 15:16–32).
Two exceptions may arise: the thief on the cross in Luke’s gospel and the Roman centurion in Mark. But consider for a second how vague their responses are. The thief pleas in desperation that Jesus would just “remember” him — just think about him as Christ ascends (Luke 23:42). His request lacks any understanding that this cross forgives sins, places humanity in right relationship with God, and defeats the works of Satan, sin, and death forever. Jesus’ response is all the more beautiful when we consider these things: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Without any understanding of the intricacies of the cross’ accomplishments, Christ is able to save. You do not need to understand justification to be justified. Isn’t it wonderful to know that we do not need to know all of the theological mechanics of the cross in order to benefit from every last one? Christ came for the desperate, not the learned (Mark 2:17).
The other is the Roman centurion who cries out after Christ’s death, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39)! But naming the identity of Jesus in no way proves he understands his death. This, again, when understood this way makes the passage all the more beautiful. Mark is obsessed with showing the ways in which the outsiders understood more about Jesus than the insiders. Here, at the end of Jesus’ life, he is abandoned, betrayed, mocked, and killed, and the only one who cries out the truth of who this man was is not a Jew or a Rabbi or a religious “God-fearer” — it’s a Roman. Without any knowledge of scripture or Old Testament laws, this man properly identifies the one the insiders have killed. For all of its beauty, the claim remains: no one understood what was happening on the cross.
This point is underscored as we consider the actions of Jesus’ closest followers before and after his crucifixion. When Jesus explicitly tells his disciples he will be betrayed and killed and will rise again, no one asks why that might be important or what he means. And he’s not being cagey in the way he sometimes is, Mark even says “[Jesus] said this plainly” (Mark 8:32). The disciples who hear this prophecy (usually Peter) are either confused or swear they will avenge his death and die in his place (Matthew 16:21–23, 17:22–23). They’re not exactly hunting for any “meaning” that might be in this supposedly certain death.
And then after Christ’s death, the disciples are afraid and all twelve apostles are absent (John 20:19). It’s Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemas, and the Marys who are present and prepare him for burial (Matthew 20:61, John 19:38–42). Again, all the more touching that they act with such courage and kindness considering we are given zero clues that they had even the slightest idea of what had happened. They simply loved Jesus.
After his resurrection, not one person recognizes the Risen Lord immediately. Mary mistakes him for a gardener (John 20:15), Thomas and other disciples are skeptical it’s actually Jesus (John 20:24–29, Matthew 28:17), and two followers fail to identify him while walking to a nearby city, Emmaus (Luke 24:16).
This seems to be an issue the more you think about how much theology is packed into the crucifixion. Fleming Rutledge spent over 600 brilliant pages on it, John Stott another 400, and countless others have written scores on the numerous doctrines that come from the death of Jesus: the forgiveness of sins, the recapitulation of all things, the righteousness granted to sinners, the “great exchange” of God taking our place in substitution, the defeat of Satan, sin, and death, just to name a few. The cross is packed with meaning — meaning we cannot exhaust nor fully comprehend no matter how long we study.
So, do we have a problem? For all of Jesus’ brilliance, why did none of his followers understand his death? Should we be concerned that nearly all those close to him had no idea the profound nature of the cross as it happened? And where might they have developed such a rich theology for this death act? Did they simply import theological truisms as they thought more and more about the crucifixion? How can we know what they ended up teaching about the truth of the cross is actually, well, the truth of the cross?
The biblical writers were not ignorant to these questions. Instead, they have saturated their texts with both clues and obvious statements about how these disciples ended up understanding the theology of the cross. We can canvas a few of these to see something remarkable and beautiful.
In John’s gospel, when Peter and John are exploring the tomb, and they see the linens without the body, the text says, “Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes” (John 20:8–10).
Earlier, in Matthew’s report, when Peter tries to avenge Jesus and save him from the cross, he cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Jesus rebukes him saying, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so…But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled” (Matthew 26:52–54, 56)?
Mark tells us at this very scene, where Jesus faces his arrest, he tells the religious leaders, “Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be fulfilled” (Mark 14:49).
John gives us a great moment, too, right as Jesus is entering Jerusalem mere days before he would be arrested, we read, “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him” (John 12:16).
Are you noticing a pattern? It must be that the disciples, after having heard of Jesus’ death and resurrection, thought back over his words, “let the Scriptures be fulfilled,” and took to their Old Testaments. Jesus clearly and frequently referred to his life and work as being in accord with scripture. And if you’re keeping count at home, the New Testament has yet to be written yet, and so each of these mentions are talking about Genesis—the prophetic books. These very disciples, then, are suddenly struck with the realization that the answer for why this Jesus had to die this way was not to be found in philosophizing about specific events, but in the exegesis of the biblical text they had received.
Jesus’ own disciples end up saying this very thing, after they realize it. You remember the men on the road to Emmaus whose “eyes were kept from recognizing” Jesus in Luke’s gospel (Luke 24:16)? They come to know that the person with whom they are speaking is, in fact, Jesus risen from the dead, but only after something else happens. How did they know who he was and what he had done? What kind of revelation smacked them in the head?
Luke tells us that in these men’s confusion, Jesus took them on a Bible study: “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). How do we know this lesson landed? Well, these men urge Jesus to stay with him, which he does. And we are told they are at the table and Jesus “took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:30–31).
Then, the men say this to each other: “‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’ And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:32–35).
A study of scripture (“while he opened to us the Scriptures”) and an experience at a bread-based sacramental meal (“he was known to them in the breaking of the bread”) gave these men a window into the meaning of the cross. This is why so many New Testament writers claim the same thing — that the only way they understand what Jesus did on the cross was that he did this action “in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3) and in the bread and the cup (1 Corinthians 11:26). Word and sacrament gave these disciples meaning, perhaps this is where we may find ours? (Forgive me for not pursuing the eucharistic aspect of this, perhaps we’ll do that later).
The theologian John Behr (to whom I am deeply indebted for this whole essay) says it plainly: “In many ways…Scripture, the Old Testament, provided the means by which the disciples began to understand how God was at work in the Passion of Christ” (John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death, pg. 25). It took the disciples time to commit to reading Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Joel, 1 Samuel, Genesis, and Leviticus…all books (and so many more) they quote endlessly and elude to even more. Through their committed exegesis of the Old Testament, suddenly the picture of Jesus became all the clearer. This is why the earliest sermons in the book of Acts include long quotations from the Old Testament (Acts 2:14–41, 3:11–26, 7:1–53)—the disciples were understanding that their Hebrew Bible “foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ” (Acts 2:31). Before, it was dim, now with Christ risen, things are all the more clear — his disciples said this themselves (2 Corinthians 3:18, 1 Peter 1:10, 2 Peter 1:16–19).
The Church Father, St Irenaeus, writing in the second century, said of this, “[E]very prophecy, before its fulfillment, is nothing but an enigma and ambiguity to human beings; but when the time has arrives, and the prediction has come to pass, then it has an exact exposition (exegesis)” (St Irenaeus of Lyons, Against the Heresies, 1.8.1).
This is why, perhaps, a good dose of the Old Testament during Lent and Holy Week would do us well. To sit with the Suffering Servant image in Isaiah 53, to contemplate the blood on the doorposts in Exodus 12–14, to consider the snake lifted up in the wilderness in the book of Numbers 21, to gaze into the prophetic words of Psalm 22. You may not understand it right away, but you’re in good company. Taking in the images of the biblical prophets, laws, and narratives over time — meditating on them and considering their meaning for weeks (years, even) — will shape our understanding of what really happened that Good Friday.
Ah, and isn’t this the very blessing of Christianity? As we spin our wheels about the various historical-critical understandings of if the cross happened and when and in what manner did all the events actually go down (all wonderful questions with great answers, by the way!)…there lies, right alongside all of them, an invitation to explore a sacred text, a holy writ, given to us. Here, in the beauty of the Bible, we actually meet Jesus Christ. He is found all over Scripture—barely a page goes by without a signpost to his coming, cross, and return. Even more, we meet him—the true and living Jesus—on his terms, “according to the Scriptures.” Now we understand we didn’t have to be there—and even if we were, we would not have understood it right away. The mystery of the gospel is illuminated for us as we study and contemplate the pages of this human and divine book. The Bible will always show you Jesus if Jesus is your primary interpretive tool.
It’s almost certain that our hearts we will be moved as we look upon the Son of God hanging on the cross. Staring at his image, reading a gospel passage, or contemplating the violence and betrayal he endured will move us to tears, if we let it. As was said, staring at any crucifix will cause us to tremble. But until we commit ourselves to search the very Scriptures to which Christ told us to go, we’ll never know why.
