In Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, Jesus says of his torment, “I make all things new.” And given that it’s a quote from the book of Revelation (21:5), these words seems oddly placed. In the Passion, Jesus is beaten to a bloody pulp. How could this make anything new? The Passion shows how in its beginning and end.
In the beginning, Jesus is praying in the Garden. And yet its not just Gethsamene. It’s the Garden of Eden. The serpent is found in Genesis, tempting the first humans, as the Devil does Jesus here. Jesus is Eve and Adam, undergoing their temptation. This is important because Adam and Eve aren’t just people in the Bible, as the first humans, they stand for all humanity. In their failure the world failed. And in their expulsion from paradise the whole world was expelled.
But in the Passion, Jesus seeks to do something no human has ever done; overcome all temptation, to crush the serpent’s head, and in doing that replace the failure of the first couple as humanities new representative. He therefore suffers to identify with us and not for his own sin.
This is why the Passion so focuses on Jesus’ suffering. This isn’t just Jesus who is suffering, This is humanity suffering: the child bloodied by the attack of ISIS and the one mistreated by their parent. The list examples on and on. Jesus is suffering with every person. And in righteously sharing in that suffering shares with us his resurrection and victory over sin. That;s why in the resurrection, he stands naked as the first humans did before the fall. He’s returning humanity to the garden.
Just think about Jesus’ suffering as you listen to this song. https://youtu.be/gpOPkzplHRw
