Anti-Semitism is the most sizable debate that raging around the movie, The Passion of the Christ. Is it a movie implicating the Jews to arouse feelings of hatred against them? That is a legitimate concern, but it only deals with the issue of cause. Who caused Jesus’ death? After seeing the movie and pondering the scope of national debate and the Scriptural Jesus on the cross, I think it misses the point. If we only think at the level of cause: who caused Jesus death, then the danger in the Church is that we become self-righteousness and vent our hatred towards the Jewish people rather than looking at the part we played.

When we start placing blame, we are somewhat moral and nice, we tend to cast stones at people out there and become smug and self-righteous—we begin to think we are really good folk. Years ago the London Times asked people to write essays on the topic, “What’s Wrong with the World?” All the nice, moral people had a chance to write about all the bad people and feel rather smug by casting stones at them. Only one man got the answer right. It was the shortest essay the paper received. It read:

Dear Sirs:
I am.

Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton

No, the cause question of who killed Jesus is not the place to start. It misses the more important question, not who killed Jesus, but why did he have to die? The main question is not cause but the question of purpose. My concern is that even here, we see Jesus as just a good man who was misunderstood by his culture and put to death. Just another one who Billy Joel sings about, “Only the good die young.” Or perhaps we can view Jesus like Socrates who was given the fatal hemlock for corrupting the youth of his day. The one thing the Bible will not allow us to do is view Jesus as just another prophet or teacher that ran afoul of the powerful people and was then crushed. If that is your understanding of the passion of Christ it will cause you sympathy, but it will never electrify or change you. No, it is only when the purpose of Jesus’ passion is considered that we are moved into unfathomable mystery, wonder and awe.

Everywhere the Bible tells us ultimately it is “God’s will to crush him.” Jesus willingly goes to the cross, “No man takes my life from me, I lay it down willingly.” What is going on here? Is God a monster or is Jesus a masochist? The Bible says sin is the human cause of the suffering and death of Jesus, but the ultimate cause of Jesus’ death is that God commanded it. In Acts 4:27-28 we read, “Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you appointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” Human hands were instrumental in Jesus’ death, but ultimately God pulled the lever to electrocute his own son. If this is true you have to conclude God is a monster or there is a larger purpose at work, some mystery forged in the recesses of eternity past that once understood will explain many of the mysteries of living in a planet so arrayed in splendor and majesty but which is obviously bent and broken. I admit it is horrible to think of God causing the death of his son, who willingly undertakes this horror. But when you begin to understand the purpose you understand something else. A thing can be horrible and good at the same time.

People asked me if I enjoyed the movie, The Passion of The Christ. That is like asking, would you like to see your lover beaten for two hours. No. Did it move me? Yes. Was I overwhelmed by the depth of God’s love for sinners? Yes. Is this horrible? Yes. Is it good? Yes, a thousand times yes. So good in fact to think of the purpose of Jesus’ passion is the one thing that has changed my life and continues to change my life.

So what was the purpose of his passion, why was it so bad? Why did Jesus hang from the cross willingly? Let me put it like this and here is what you have to ask yourself and this is the question that confronted God as he ponders humanity’s cosmic treason and rebellion: “How will I separate sin from the sinner without destroying the sinner in the process?” God is so just he must punish sin and so loving he seeks pardon for sinners. Don’t you think if there was another way God would have done it? No, it is God’s character to demand the cross. Basically Jesus says, “I will take their place. Punish me for their sin, so that they can go free and be free.”

What kind of God will unmake, and I speak reverently, his own person? When Jesus is on the cross the Holy Trinity, which has existed in light and laughter from all eternity, pouring life and communion into one another, is literally smashed. God abandons his own son when he is blackened with the sins of his people. Yet wonder of wonders, when Jesus says, “It is finished,” IT IS FINISHED. There is nothing left for broken people to do or become to return to God’s communion, but receive in gratitude the wonder of what he did for sinners on the cross. He died saving us. If someone died saving my child from a burning house and was killed in the process, it would be horrible and good. That is the cross. That is the passion of Christ. When you understand the purpose it changes everything—now and forever.