{"id":2895,"date":"2020-04-08T18:43:18","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T22:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/?p=2895"},"modified":"2022-03-23T18:58:04","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T22:58:04","slug":"the-death-of-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/the-death-of-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Death of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Anthony van Dyck \/ Public domain<\/p><\/div>\n

The Gospel for the Passion (Palm) Sunday for Year A of the three year cycle of Sunday readings is from Matthew. The dramatic proclamation of the Passion Narrative evokes the profound realization in the congregation: our faith emphasizes that Jesus died for our sins and rose for us to be brought into right order with God the Father (see Romans 4:25; Corinthians 15:3-5).<\/p>\n

In the Good Friday service, each Christian is invited to adore Jesus as the crucified Lord, again recalling that he died for our sins. The traditional chant during this ceremony was the \u201cReproaches,\u201d often misinterpreted by the commentators to be an indictment of the Jews. Indeed, the choir sings the verses in biblical terms but the choir\u2019s response to each verse concludes, \u201cHave mercy on us<\/u>.\u201d See my and J.F. Henderson\u2019s essay in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church<\/em> (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2005) p. 187-214<\/a>.\u00a0 The comment of Bishop William Durand (1230-1296) on the Palm Sunday liturgy shows the true Christian approach to the liturgical commemoration of the sufferings of Jesus:<\/p>\n

We must rejoice concerning the fruit of his Passion, and suffer with him, because he suffered for us.\u00a0 We rejoice, therefore, of the love which he showed for us on the cross, and we are sad because of our sins, which are so many, on account of which the Son of God had to suffer. (Rationale Divinorum Officiorum<\/em> VI.37.11)<\/p>\n

Extending the liturgical experience of divine forgiveness, various practices and devotions developed over the centuries to reinforce our sense of gratitude for the Paschal Mystery of Jesus\u2019 death-and-resurrection. However, even here the anti-Jewish prejudices might be asserted. When in Copenhagen overnight in 2006, I was surprised to hear Angelus bells early in the next morning. I found the Sacred Heart church nearby and paid a visit. The Stations of the Cross were painted very nicely with a feature that I hope was never found elsewhere. In the corner of the first station, Jesus being condemned by Pontius Pilate, was a figure with a scroll. The words in Latin were visible: \u201cSanguis eius super nos et super filios nostros – His blood be upon us and upon our children\u201d (Matthew 27:25). A small version of the same person holding the scroll was incorporated into each of the next 13 stations. What a distortion of the pious purpose of this substitute for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem!<\/p>\n

I wish to draw attention to the recent commentary on Matthew\u2019s Gospel by Father Brendan Byrne, S.J.\u00a0 This quotation is taken from the Paulist Biblical Commentary<\/em> (Paulist Press, 2018) p. 967:<\/p>\n

No single verse in Matthew\u2019s Gospel needs more careful consideration than the cry of \u201cthe whole people\u201d in verse 25.\u00a0 There is no need to labor the injury it has caused to Jewish people since the earliest times.\u00a0 Where Matthew has previously referred to the \u201ccrowd(s)\u201d (ochlos <\/em>[oi<\/em>] [27:15, 20, 24]), at this point he writes \u201cthe whole people\u201d (pas ho laos<\/em>), a term principally used in the Gospel (albeit mostly in scriptural quotations) of the nation (of Israel) as a whole (1:21; 2:6; 4:16, 23; 13:15; 15:18), though often in the stock phrases \u201cscribes\/elders of the people\u201d (2:4; 21:23; 26:3, 47; 27:1).\u00a0 It is by no means clear, however, that \u201cpeople\u201d (laos<\/em>) in verse 25 refers to the nation as a whole, let alone Jewish people for all time.\u00a0 Since Jesus\u2019 entry into Jerusalem there has been a distinction between the crowds who accompanied him and the people of Jerusalem itself (see 21:8-11), Jerusalem that he has already characterized as \u201cthe city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it\u201d (23:37).\u00a0 It is likely, then, that \u201cpeople\u201d here refers specifically to the populace of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the final phrase, \u201cand on our children,\u201d is to be interpreted strictly.\u00a0 Along with Luke (23:27-31) and the author of the Fourth Gospel (11:47-48), Matthew sees the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and burning of the temple in 70 CE as divine punishment for the city\u2019s rejection of Jesus as Messiah.\u00a0 The generation that would be alive to suffer these events would be precisely the \u201cchildren\u201d of those who had accepted responsibility for Jesus\u2019 blood some forty years before.\u00a0 It is to this generation, then- and to no other beyond it- that the phrase \u201cand on our children\u201d refers.\u00a0 The text provides no justification for a \u201cblood guilt\u201d passed on down subsequent generations within the whole of Judaism.<\/p>\n

I thank him for this succinct and pertinent interpretation of the passage that has been the basis of accusations against the Jewish people of later times. Rather, we should recall the words of the Second Vatican Council: \u201cThe Church always held and continues to hold that Christ out of infinite love freely underwent suffering and death\u00a0 because of the sins of all people, so that all might attain salvation\u201d (Declaration of the Church\u2019s Relations to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra aetate<\/em> 4).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gospel for the Passion (Palm) Sunday for Year A of the three year cycle of Sunday readings is from Matthew. The dramatic proclamation of the Passion Narrative evokes the profound realization in the congregation: our faith emphasizes that Jesus … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2011,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jewishchristian","category-prayerliturgy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2895"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3438,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895\/revisions\/3438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}