With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” From the crucifixion account in Mark 15:20b-39
Whether in Korea or in Tierra del Fuego, in Alaska or in New Zealand, the cross on which Jesus had been tortured to death came to serve as the most globally recognised symbol of a god that there has ever been.” Dominion, Tom Holland
The artist (Craigie Aitchison) referred to the crucifixion as ‘the most horrific story I have ever heard’ and so there was no need to highlight the suffering: any depiction was enough to recall all its mystery, terror and wonder. Methodist modern art collection commentary
Mystery, terror and wonder
I look for words or images to be immersed in, to feel their texture inside me. What moves Aitchison here is mystery, terror and wonder. These three words are poignant and deserve some attention in themselves. They perhaps lead to others, worth, I think, being simply laid out and quietly pondered*…
We have slaves drawn from every corner of the world in our households, practising strange customs and foreign cults, or none – and it is only by means of terror that we can hope to coerce such scum. Tacitus, quoted in Dominion by Tom Holland
This is love, going where we go, all of us, when we end. Yeshua is long past trying to show what lies beyond the limits of the world. He is traveling into limit himself, now, deeper and deeper, and the limits are tightening in on him, tightening down to a ribcage that won’t fill, tightening on him as consequences tighten on anyone. He’s going to the place our sorrows lead to at their worst: guilt’s dead-end, panic’s no-exit loop, despair’s junkyard where everything is busted. There’s nothing to keep him company there but the light he’s always felt shining beneath things. Unapologetic, Francis Spufford.
That such a god, of all gods, might have had a son, and that this son, suffering the fate of a slave, might have been tortured to death on a cross, were claims, as stupefying, as they were, to most Jews, repellent. No more shocking a reversal of their most devoutly held assumptions could possibly have been imagined. Not merely, blasphemy, it was madness. Dominion, Tom Holland
I read of the mockery and insults Jesus endured whilst pinned to the cross and read: “God’s healing purposes are not necessarily defeated by unbelief, blindness, and hard-heartedness”. The Gospel of John, a theological commentary, David Ford
Andrew Hook
*So too this video interview: Tom Holland: Why Jesus’ crucifixion changed the world