by Dominik Slusarczyk
In this painting Jesus is bound and his eyes are covered. Someone is about to punchy Jesus and someone else is about to whip him with a rope. Jesus is bound and blindfolded and he is getting beaten up by a group of men.
[Matthias Grünewald]
There are many men. They could have beaten Jesus in a fair fight but they tied him up anyway. Maybe they believe Jesus’ stories. If Jesus truly is the son of God then he might use his magical powers to beat them. It is better to play it safe. It is better to just tie him up before they beat him up.
This painting is called ‘The Mocking of Christ’. When I think about mocking I think about words. I think about people making fun of someone. They call the person names. And the people in the painting are bullying Jesus, but they are bullying Jesus physically rather than with their words.
The time for talking is over. Now is the time for action.
And they are acting against Jesus. They have taken him prisoner. They say he committed a crime when he said he was the son of God. Their God does not like blasphemy. Their courts do not like blasphemy. The courts sentenced Jesus to death.
It seems so extreme. Killing someone because they have different beliefs to you. Yet that is what a lot of killing is over. We have wars because some people believe one person should be in charge and other people believe another person should be in charge. There are wars because some people believe land is part of one country and other people believe that same land is part of a different country. There are wars because some people believe they really own the land that other people believe they own.
But the ultimate war over beliefs is the war between religions. When there is a war between religions it is one God going up against another God. And all the soldiers think their god is on their side so whoever wins the war must have a more powerful god. And the men in the painting have tied Jesus up. Jesus’ God has been humbled, defeated, beaten up. Jesus is about to get murdered and his god is doing nothing to stop it. There is a war going on in this painting. The war is between the men’s god and Jesus’ god. And right now the men’s god is winning.
But this is all part of Jesus’ god plan. Jesus’ god wants Jesus to get murdered. He has to die for our sins. He has to die or we won’t be allowed to go to Heaven when we die. So Jesus’ god knows that Jesus is going to die. He knows he is going to die and he is not planning to do anything to stop it.
And Jesus is God so he knows God isn’t going to save him. He knows that God, his father, is just going to sit there and watch him die. God could stop it. He could stop it anytime he wanted. He just doesn’t want to stop it.
Jesus got abused. He got abused by his captors, abused by his father. This is massive neglect. God chose not to stop his son’s suffering. He chose to sit there and watch them beat up his son. Then after he has let them beat up Jesus he will let them kill him. And he will just sit in Heaven watching it and do nothing to stop it.
Is that really love?
But this is not a normal father-son relationship here because the father and the son are not normal fathers and sons. But why should we not hold God up to the standards we hold every other man up to? If any human man let their son die we would say that man was evil. If any human man let their son be beaten up we would say they were evil. If you have the power to stop something evil happening and you do not stop it then you are evil yourself.
If you do not stop it you are supporting it. By letting it happen you become responsible for it happening. If I see a baby deer in the middle of the road and I do not slow down I murdered that baby deer. If I see a baby deer in the middle of the road and I drive around it but I do nothing to get the baby deer out of the road again I am a murderer. The baby deer gets hit by the next car that comes along and I murdered it at the same time that the other driver murdered it.
There are regularly multiple people responsible for a murder. Imagine a don. The don leads a huge gang. He tells one of his gangsters to go out and kill his rival. The gangster goes and kills his rival. He shoots him right in the head. Who murdered this rival?
The answer is multiple people murdered the rival gangster. Obviously the person who pulled the trigger murdered him but the don also murdered him by giving the order for him to be murdered. The don murders the man even though he does not pull the trigger himself. You can murder people without pulling the trigger yourself if you are in some way responsible for that trigger being pulled. So the don kills the rival gangster even if he doesn’t pull the trigger himself.
And there are other ways you can be responsible for other people’s actions. If you have a positive affect on that action, if you order or encourage the action, then you become responsible for that action. But you can also become responsible for the action if you could have negatively affected the action but you chose not to. If you can stop someone doing something yet you choose not to stop them then that thing they did only happened because you didn’t stop them doing it so you are responsible for that action.
So God killed his own son because he could have stopped him getting murdered but he chose not to. God beat up his own son because he could have stopped them beating him up but he chose not to. And in this way God, if he exists, is responsible for every bad thing that happens. He is responsible for every bad thing that ever happened. He could have stopped every single murder that has ever happened but he chose not to stop those murders so he is responsible for those murders. He could have stopped every single rape. He could have stopped every single punch, every single stab, every single shot.
Then God is surely evil. I don’t care about this free will nonsense God could stop every murder from happening and he chooses not to stop those murders. He chooses not to step in. Everyone who has ever been murdered was murdered by God even though he didn’t pull the trigger himself.
So Jesus sits on the ground. He sits on the ground and punches rain down on him. The punches rain down and he knows what is coming. He knows what is coming because he is all knowing. He knows they are going to murder him. They are going to murder him in a horrific way. And his father will do nothing to stop it. His own father. His own father is going to watch him get murdered and he isn’t going to step in to stop it.
This painting means ‘we ask too much of people’, and Jesus is the ultimate example of someone who someone else asked too much of. God asked Jesus to die a horrific death so he could achieve other aims. He asked Jesus to get beaten up. He asked Jesus to be mocked. He asked Jesus to be embarrassed.
But doesn’t every father embarrass their children?