Easter time has rolled around again. (Wasn't Christmas just last week?) With it, we have all the usual traditions associated with this time of year. The shelves are stocked with Hot-cross buns. Our bellies are about to be filled with more chocolate than is healthy. And, of course, the story of Jesus's death and resurrection might catch our attention briefly over the weekend.
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If the Easter story were made into a Hollywood movie, it would have all the makings of a blockbuster. Jesus, our lonely hero, finds himself pitted against the world. Powerful enemies scheme to have him killed. One of his own, Judas, betrays him into their hands. His nearest friends desert him in his hour of greatest need. And, of course, there is the unimaginable physical pain inflicted upon him as the Roman soldiers nail him to a cross.
We don't need to imagine what the movie might be like because in 2004, Mel Gibson turned the Easter Story into just such a film, and huge crowds flocked to see it. If you have seen it, you will know how hard the film is to watch. Not because it is poorly made. Quite the opposite! What makes it so hard to watch is just how vividly the physical suffering of Jesus is portrayed.
However, if we imagine that the physical pain of the Cross is what Easter is all about, we'll miss the point of Easter.
Yes, the physical pain was horrific. Rome had so perfected the art of deterring would-be troublemakers in the colonies through these public examples of the long, painful and shameful death that came to Rome's enemies that we refer to the worst of pain as being 'excruciating.' A word derived from the Latin word for the cross.
However, Jesus's physical sufferings are hardly unique in human history. What makes Jesus unique is not the physical brutality of what he suffered but why he willingly suffered it.
In his death and resurrection, Jesus took our place so that we might take his.
Do you fall short of what God demands? Jesus suffered the judgement of God for those failings. Do you suffer in this life? Jesus submitted to the curse of a broken world for your sake. Do you fear decay, rejection and death in this life? Jesus joined you in all these things to free you from their power. Have you been rejected, hurt, or betrayed by others? Jesus experienced these things to be your help.
But equally.
Do you grieve decay and death in the world around you? Jesus rose to dry your tears and unwind your every infirmity. Do you fear that this world is all there is? Jesus rose to offer you a future. Do you fear that God might reject you in the end? Jesus rose to prove that his death has purchased your forgiveness.
The true suffering of the cross was that the perfectly innocent Jesus experienced what was rightly ours. The true joy and beauty of the resurrection is that we can now enjoy the hope of a perfectly restored world that is rightly Christ's.
Intrigue, betrayal and blood and guts might sell movie tickets, but only the story of Jesus in our place can earn heaven.
All of that is much harder to put onto the silver screen. It's a story that can only be truly told when it is written on the hearts of the individuals who turn to Jesus in trust and learn to make his story their own.
