A Radical Reading of the Crucifixion Story
I do not belong to one spiritual tradition or religion. My training in scholarship has given me a relativist way of seeing the world that values wisdom from many different traditions. This is because I don’t believe humans can objectively comprehend the totality of the universe, rather we experience it subjectively with limited knowledge. This approach to the world is known as Perennialism.
While I often draw inspiration from stories in traditions such as Yoga, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Shamanism, I less frequently go to my own ancestral religion – Christianity – for comfort. Yet one rarely discussed aspect of the crucifixion story has caught my attention this year thanks to a conversation between Duncan Trussell and Daryl Cooper.
Jesus arrives in Jerusalem a week before his crucifixion and is greeted warmly by crowds of citizens who adore him and seek his help with healing. Yet throughout the 7 days before his death, local religious authorities begin preaching about his criminality and blasphemy, worried that his growing popularity will usurp their power. These authorities also enlist the Romans who also see him as a threat to their stable military rule.
After his betrayal, arrest and torture, Jesus is sent to carry his cross up Golgotha in front of the same crowds of people who greeted him with love a week prior. Yet this time they are jeering and calling for his death. A peaceful man preaching love and liberation from contemporary power structures has his reputation destroyed, ultimately leading to his death. Insecure religious and military leaders looking to shore up their power use propaganda to portray Jesus as dangerous to public safety causing an adoring citizenry, as well as many of his closest disciples, to ignore their initial intuition to become a bloodthirsty mob.
To me this is a perfect story for our time. We have recently become deeply divided by our hatred or love for particular political ideologies and figures. I hear people defending one side or another and suggesting that people who think differently are “stupid”, “misinformed”, “conspiracy theorists”, or “evil”. Yet I can’t get away from the feeling that this is against our best interests as a society.
We are ruled by corrupt gangsters who have the power to determine how we interpret events in the world through their media outlets. But, we have more in common with each other than those crafting the messages that keep us separate. So please, sit in the messy space of not knowing the truth, don’t jump to conclusions, especially at the behest of state or corporate messaging, and keep your heart open to others no matter their beliefs. Remain suspicious of all authority, it has psychopathic aims that the vast majority of us would never support if we were exposed to the full truth.
Peace is a concrete and practical tool for our times. Cultivate it in yourself, seek it in conversation with others, and vote out those who break the peace.
