What Do You Do With a Chocolate Jesus? (18 page)

Generally speaking, the Catholic Church takes a corporate view. The crucifix is the ultimate public relations device. You don’t have to know much about Jesus himself, only that he represents God’s love for man and the conquest of death through belief in his son. The crucifix is a symbol around which the Church can rally the faithful, like a flag. It’s a recruiting tool; a lightning rod of power and authority. All you need do is clean up your act, endure all the sacraments and church services, and you’ll attain grace—God’s eternal insurance policy. It’s an institutional approach to salvation and Christ on the cross is the company logo.

For Protestants, however, it’s personal. Jesus didn’t sacrifice himself for humankind. He sacrificed himself for you. Yeah,
you!
His blood washes away
your
own miserable little sins and, through him, you can achieve salvation. You don’t simply believe and go through the rituals. You convert. And for many evangelicals, this means a psychological high dive off the deep end. It’s a profoundly new state of mind. Or state of being. Or state of something. You’re born again. You’re internally rearranged, and you begin an ongoing, 24/7, personal relationship with Jesus. He’s your walking, talking B.F.F. Your wise neighbor. You can lean over the fence whenever you want and ask his advice on anything from lawn care to group sex…though, I’d hold off on the group sex questions until you get to know him real well.

But the whole notion of one man dying to take on the sins of the world doesn’t entirely add up. Theologians call it “substitutionary atonement.” It’s the bizarre idea of getting
me
off the hook for my screw-ups by punishing someone else. Jesus is the ultimate whipping boy, taking the rap for everyone else’s wrong-doing. So, how exactly does this work? How does all
my
sinful mojo get transferred to some other guy just because he threw himself into a volcano or something? What is remotely just about that? If it’s such a good idea, why doesn’t our justice system work this way? You could pay someone else to serve out your prison sentence. Washington would love this.

Furthermore, why am I obligated to obey someone just because he decided to sacrifice himself for me? If some guru in Mongolia jumps off a cliff to atone for my sins, does that mean I’m obligated to live by his rules and preach to the world that he survived the fall? I never asked him to do this and, frankly, there’s nothing I’ve ever done that warrants anyone’s
death.
A few kicks in the ass maybe. But crucifixion? I don’t think so.

On top of all this, there’s a bigger question. Jesus is saving mankind, but who is he saving mankind from? Who’s demanding this sacrifice in exchange for salvation? God? Isn’t
he
God? He comes to earth and lets himself be killed to save us from his own wrath? Isn’t this like cutting off his own hand so he won’t punch us in the mouth?

Now, if you insist he is saving us from Satan, I’m afraid you go to the back of the class. Satan is God’s creation, just like the law of gravity or head lice. God can crush the devil like a bug if he wants. And he will. Satan rebelled against the Lord and the Lord will have his vengeance. So why wait so long? And why drag
us
into it?

If God wants to save us from our sins, why did he make us sinful in the first place? Because he gave us free will? Why does free will automatically lead to sin? Couldn’t God make beings that freely chose to be nice all the time? Like bunny rabbits? Of course he could. He’s God! So why didn’t he give us all a natural impulse to be goody two-shoes? Or would that be like spending an eternity watching
Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood
? Personal theory: We’re God’s home entertainment system and he likes action flicks.

Last Words

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’ final words on the cross are tough to figure given that he’s supposed to be the Son of God, if not God himself.

E’lo-i, E’lo-i, lama sabach-thani?” which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” [Mark 15:34]

 

This cry of doubt at the last minute jibes with the picture Mark paints of him as a country healer whose ministry takes a bad turn and ends in tragedy. But it doesn’t sound like the all-powerful Jesus we think of today. Why would he say such words after claiming he and the Father are one? Is he complaining to himself?

What’s that, you say? God is a Trinity? Maybe, but what do we usually say about someone who talks to himself as three separate people?

These last words are actually Mark making another direct lift from the Hebrew Bible, specifically the
22
^nd
Psalm
. Because the Psalm was written centuries before the crucifixion, we’re supposed to think it’s an astounding prophecy of the coming of Jesus. This is silly, of course. If I’m on my death bed and decide to quote Shakespeare, does that mean he prophesized the coming of
me?

Mark quotes the
Psalms
because they’re quotable. They’re supposed to be. Let’s read more of the passage:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

 

O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by night, but find no rest. [Psalm 22:1–2]

 

This doesn’t sound like a man being crucified, and it isn’t. It’s called
A Psalm of King David
. It was David bemoaning his own tribulations a thousand years earlier. The quote is used out of context. So much for prophecy.

While Mark and Matthew’s authors agree on Jesus’ dying words, the other two Gospel writers disagree:

“…Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” [Luke 23:46]

 

“It is finished…” [John 19:30]

 

This is what happens when you write about an event you haven’t seen, fifty years after you haven’t seen it. That’s what the Gospel writers did. You’ll notice the earliest of them, Mark, portrays a messiah in distress. By the time we get to John, written about thirty years later, Jesus is calm and deliberate. Nothing ruffles him, not even death. Rewrites have a tendency to smooth over things like this.

Just before Jesus breathes his last, Mark and Matthew report that a darkness comes over the land from the sixth hour of crucifixion to the ninth. Luke says the darkness covers the entire earth, though I’m not sure how the author knew this. John doesn’t mention it at all. As for any evidence outside the Bible of darkness at noon on that Friday, or any Friday, there is none. Nobody in India or China or even Egypt recorded such an event. It’s more of that dramatic license.

Day of the Dead

Once Jesus expires, Matthew describes an extraordinary event:

And behold…the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. [Matt. 27:51–54]

 

Awesome! Not only is there a great earthquake that nobody’s ever documented, but the deceased climb out of their graves and head for town! A kosher version of
Night of the Living Dead
. Yet, absolutely nowhere but in Matthew is this event reported. Hundreds of corpses stalking the streets is the sort of thing people remember. But no other writer, Christian, Jew, Greek, or Roman, ever does. Nor does Matthew tell us what becomes of these folks. Did they rise to heaven? Return to the grave? Go trick-or-treating? What about the graveyards they climbed out of? Who’s gonna fill in all those holes?

So why does Matthew tell this story? Because the writer wants to tie his Gospel to Old Testament prophesy, and the Old Testament says:

Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise, O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

[Isaiah 26:19]

 

Of course, when Isaiah wrote this he was referring to the resurrection of the dead at the End of Time, after the Apocalypse. Matthew, however, is never shy about taking quotes out of context to make a point. Sure, the author may have
believed
the end was near, but it wasn’t, so the zombies he describes here were not the same ones Isaiah foresaw. This means that either Matthew is making it up, or this sort of thing happens more often than we think.

Saturday at the Tomb

Everyone remembers Good Friday and, of course, Easter Sunday. But what about the forgotten Saturday in between? Does anything interesting happen then? Actually, a critical meeting takes place. After the body is taken down from the cross on Friday, it’s wrapped in cloth and taken to a tomb. Then, on Saturday, the chief priests ask Pontius Pilate to post a guard at the entrance; they want to ensure that someone doesn’t fake a resurrection by swiping the body under dark of night. So, Pilate has a stone rolled in front of the tomb and a guard is posted.

But wait a second! All this takes place the day
after
Jesus dies on the cross and is taken to the tomb. The body spends the first night in the tomb unguarded. So much for security. The Gospel leaves open the easy possibility that the body is indeed taken. Maybe there was nothing but a roll of linens in the tomb by the time it was sealed. Or maybe someone just invented the whole episode.

In any event, the priests’ plan doesn’t work. On Sunday morning the body is missing. The guards say they fell asleep while on post, which sounds pretty lame. But it doesn’t matter.

A legend is born.

Rise and Shine

According to the Gospel of Mark, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Mary Salome, all come to the tomb and discover the stone has already been rolled away. A young man dressed in white is inside, but he’s not Jesus. He’s never identified, but he tells them that the Lord has already risen, and to inform the others. The women flee in fear.

So who is this guy and how did he move the stone without the guards seeing him? Matthew’s version of the tale clears this up with a simple miracle—an
angel
moves the stone when the women drop by, and the guards pass out from fear like a couple of southern belles who get the vapors. In a third version of the episode, Luke has the women finding
two
men at the tomb. And while Matthew has the women running into Jesus as they flee the scene, Luke has him approaching them later that day. At first, they don’t recognize him. It’s not until they all break bread later that night that they suddenly realize who he is—and then he
vanishes!
It sounds like an episode of
The Twilight Zone.

In a completely different fourth account, John claims Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb alone on Sunday morning and finds it empty—no angel. Mary immediately tells Peter and another disciple about the empty tomb, and they both see for themselves. It’s only when they leave and Mary stays behind, crying, that two angels show up and ask, “Woman, why are you weeping?” As if they didn’t know. Then she turns around, and there’s Jesus! But at first, she thinks he’s just the gardener. (Did everyone’s eyesight go bad that morning?) Later on, she tells the others that Jesus has risen.

Go figure. This is the single most important event in the entire Christian religion—the resurrection of Jesus Christ—and his biographers
still
can’t get their stories straight. Yet everyone is supposed to accept these accounts as word-for-word sacred truth. Conveniently, we have four sacred truths to choose from.

Later, when Jesus is with his disciples, the one named Thomas says he finds this whole resurrection claim hard to believe. So Jesus allows him to stick his hand into the holes in his body.
Bleeech.
The doubting Thomas is convinced, and probably grossed out as well.

Then comes my favorite part: Luke says that Jesus asks if they have anything to
eat
—and they give him a piece of broiled fish. No kidding. He just rose from death and now he wants lunch. This incident is meant to drive home the point that he was raised up in body as well as spirit, which was a major theological issue in the early centuries. Apparently resurrection works up a roarin’ appetite.

Interestingly, none of the four Gospels report Jesus actually ascending to heaven. Mark’s story ends with the discovery of the empty tomb, though an extended version of that Gospel includes a few post-resurrection moments. Matthew ends with Jesus asking his disciples to preach to all nations. Luke concludes with Jesus blessing his followers, and then simply departing. Lastly, John has him saying “follow me,” but that’s it. No glorious exit scene. To tell you the truth, it’s kind of anticlimactic.

Luke, by the way, also has Jesus misquoting the Old Testament:

“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” [Luke 24:46]

 

Unfortunately, this was
not
written. Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible is there a prediction of The Messiah’s resurrection on the third day. There’s no prophecy of his death and resurrection at all. Yet later, in the New Testament, Paul makes this same bogus claim in his letter to the Corinthians. [1 Corinth. 15:3–4] Kind of a major point to get wrong.