We had our Tenebrae service on Tuesday, here in Australia, and the Scripture readings struck me with their irony. It’s excruciating, I thought, using an adjective often used to describe irony in its extremest form. Then I realized that the very word “excruciating” comes from “crucify.”
Irony is very difficult to define, but let me take up my literature professor vocation once again and give it a try: Irony involves the tension between two meanings. The tension may arise because the two meanings are contradictory, or because the intended meaning conflicts with an unintentional meaning, or because someone asserts one meaning in conflict with a larger meaning perceived by the observer.
“It is better for you that one man should die for the people,” said Caiaphas, “not that the whole nation should perish.” (John 11:50). His intended meaning was to launch a plot to kill Jesus, so as to avoid a greater retaliation from the Romans. But as St. John comments, what he said meant more than he intended! “He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:51-52). By virtue of his priestly office, Caiaphas’s wicked words were, ironically, also prophetic words of the Gospel!
When Pilate proclaimed Christ’s innocence, the people clamored for His crucifixion, crying, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Those words are claims of responsibility, and though they have been used as a pretext for persecuting the Jews, they underscore that all of us sinners are responsible for Christ’s crucifixion. And, yet, ironically, those very words express the solution to the people’s sinfulness and that of their descendants, including us: “His blood be on us!” Exactly! Being covered with Christ’s blood is exactly what we need!
The Roman soldiers mocked Jesus: “They clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him” (Mark 15:17-19). But, ironically, Jesus is King of the Jews! They clothed Him in purple, crowned Him, and even bowed down to Him. What they meant as mockery was, in reality and against their intention, a testimony to Christ’s true identity.
The mockery continued even after Jesus was nailed to the cross: “‘You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe’ (Mark 15:29-32). The mockers have no inkling that they are alluding to what will happen in three days, that Jesus will rise from the dead (see John 2:18-22).
Reflect on the irony in this: “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” Actually, He can save himself, but if He does, he cannot save others. To save others–that is to say, us–He refuses to save Himself. He makes Himself a sacrifice.
Then there are all of the ironies of the cross: His defeat is His victory. His humiliation is His glory. His powerlessness is His greatest miracle. His suffering is the basis of our eternal joy. His death is our salvation from death.
And then another level of irony is added to all of this on Easter day: After all of these depictions of Christ’s humiliation, suffering, and death and in the midst all of the sadness on the part of His disciples and those of us who read and hear about what happened to Him, He rises from the dead!
Excruciating!
Painting, “The Crowning with Thorns” by Caravaggio – yAGZLO5MaPVjfQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22003449
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