(RNS) — At the beginning of Holy Week, Christianity Today published an article on the crucifixion that caused a firestorm.
In the article, Daniel Silliman described the work of a Bible scholar who has proposed the possibility, based on historical research, that Jesus was fastened to the cross by rope rather than nails. Of course, such a theory must ignore or discount the testimony offered in the Gospel of John (along with a few other Scripture passages), which describes the disciple Thomas asking Jesus if Thomas could touch “nail marks in his hands” before he would believe Jesus was truly resurrected.
Realizing the implications of the scholar’s alternative account for biblical inerrancy, Silliman admitted his error and apologized.
In his apology, Silliman explained that his research into the topic of Christ’s crucifixion was driven by his curiosity about an event that is hard for most of us in the modern world to imagine, and just how such torture was actually carried out.
Many events narrated in the Bible can be accepted as literally true and yet be incredibly difficult to conceive, especially given Scripture’s characteristically minimalist approach to detail. (Clearly, what the Bible’s divine author finds important is not always what inquiring human minds want most to know.)
Yet, while certain details of many of the Bible’s stories are omitted, God gave human beings imaginative powers by which we might better comprehend the truths of his words and the power of the stories therein. Just as doctrines, creeds and systematic theologies are built out from the bare bones of Scripture, so too works of imagination — art, poetry, sculpture, music and drama — help us better comprehend its truths.
Of course, theologies grounded in reason as well as works of art stemming from the imagination can lead us astray, too — reason and imagination are glorious, but fallen. Even so, we must use imagination (no less than reason) to envision biblical teaching and apply it to our lives. Jesus himself demands it in telling parables and delivering provocative aphorisms in the Sermon on the Mount.
A depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus in a stained-glass window. (Image by Thomas Didgeman/Pixabay/Creative Commons)
Christ’s crucifixion is one story that has fascinated many artists and writers throughout history. Countless paintings depict the scene. Some traditional church buildings place sculptures of Christ on the cross in their worship spaces; others, crosses without Christ. Composers write musical scores to portray the scene. The cross and the nails have made their way into beloved hymns marking Christ’s sacrifice. “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson’s 2004 film, depicts the torturous death of Jesus in ways only modern cinematography could do.
Medieval dramas portraying the crucifixion are lesser known, but one in particular shows how every detail in Scripture can resonate with meaning.
The York Play of the Crucifixion is an example of a medieval genre known as the mystery play. These dramas consisted of cycles of pageants depicting major stories from the Bible presented in local towns that hosted the players. In some cases each pageant in the cycle was produced by a particular guild in the host village — often the guild most likely to have the props needed for the story. A play depicting the adoration of the Magi was put on by the goldsmiths, for example, the Last Supper was sponsored by the bakers’ guild, and so on. In York, the story of the crucifixion was produced by the pinners’ guild. Pinners were the craftsmen who made nails.
The play dramatizes the crucifixion from the perspective of the soldiers tasked with fastening Christ to the cross. Almost the entire play consists of these ordinary workers’ talk as they try to complete a job they’ve clearly done countless times before. They have no reason to think this assignment differs from previous ones. The soldiers joke, grumble, jockey for position and labor under the difficulty of their task.
In other words, they are ordinary and human. They do not know that the man they are nailing to the tree is anyone but a common prisoner. They refer to him as a “dolt” and a “traitor,” requesting his cooperation (which he gives) at one turn, mocking him at the next. For those unfamiliar with medieval literature, the language may seem shockingly graphic and violent. But this is fitting of the scene at hand. As the soldiers continue their task — roping Christ to the cross after driving the nails in, lest his flesh be rent in two while they heave the cross up — they note that their work must be done by noon.
Ironies abound. One soldier cries out, “Ow,” as he hurts himself trying to drive a nail through Christ’s “sinews and veins.” His co-worker complains that the heavy labor has put his “shoulder in sunder.” In focusing so intently on their own work, the soldiers are blind to the work being done by Christ on their behalf, on all of our behalf.
The workers doing their work and wanting to do it well points to the larger theme: the work of Christ.
It is brilliant, really.
The word “work” echoes throughout the play in various forms. One soldier says, “Then to this work we must take heed,/So that our working be not wrong.” Getting a nail through Christ’s flesh, a soldier observes with satisfaction, “Through bones and sinews it shall be sought. This work is well done, I warrant.” When the workers finally succeed in hoisting the cross bearing Christ up and into the ground, they ask Jesus, “Say, sir, how lik’st thou now /This work that we have wrought?”
Although silent through most of the play, Jesus responds to them by addressing the crowd. It is both a rhetorical move and a genuine appeal. In the play’s performance, the crowd watching would have been the real villagers who’ve watched the soldiers’ work being done. Now it is the reader who reads Christ say,
All men that walk by path or street,
Take heed ye shall no labor lose,
Behold mine head, mine hands, mine feet,
And fully feel now ere ye stay,
If any mourning may be mete
Or mischief measured unto mine.
My Father that all grief may mend,
Forgive these men that do me pain.
What they do know they not,
Therefore, my Father I crave
Let never their sins be sought,
But see their souls to save.
The point of the play is the point of the crucifixion itself: It is Christ’s work that saves us, not our own.
The central metaphors and symbols of the Bible — the cross, the nails, the spear, the blood, the thorns, the bread, the cup, the work — are best understood both literally and figuratively. They are both real things and transcendent realities. They are both material and spiritual. They reflect both word and image.
God’s gift of imagination can be hemmed in safely by the words of Scripture and yet still expand upward toward heaven toward greater illumination and understanding.