CALVARY (2): THE CRUCIFIXION

Lk 23:32-38

In the preaching of the early Church the crucifixion was declared to be the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies about the sufferings of the righteous Servant of the Lord, and this belief has been allowed to colour the traditional form and language of the Passion narrative. All the Gospels at this point have allusions to Psalms 22 and 69. The parting of the clothes and the scoffing are described in words drawn from Ps. 22:7,18 and the gift of the vinegar in words drawn from Ps. 69:21. Luke treats the offer of vinegar, not as an act of compassion, but as part of the mockery. With restraint and economy he portrays the different attitudes of the spectators: the vulgar curiosity of the crowd, the contemptuous derisions of the rulers, the callous frivolity of the guard, the bitter invective of the criminal.

34
The prayer of Jesus is omitted by Codex Vaticanus, Codex Bezae, and other important manuscripts, but it is well attested in other manuscripts, and most modern textual critics accept it as a genuine part of the text. It could be taken to refer either to the Roman soldiers or to all those responsible for the crucifixion. In the light of Acts 3:17, 19, 7:59ff. it is probable that the sentence stood in the original text of Luke and that Luke himself took it to refer to the Jews. It has been suggested that the prayer may have been excised from an early copy of the Gospel by a second-century scribe who thought it incredible that God should pardon the Jews and, in view of the double destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and 135, certain that he had not in fact done so.

CALVARY (3): THE TWO CRIMINALS

Lk 23:39-43

The one criminal, lacking any sense of guilt, was ready to blame anyone for what he regarded as a vindictive twist of fate. The other, whatever else may be said of him, at least knew that he was guilty and Jesus innocent. But did he really believe that, beyond the present travesty of justice, the future held for Jesus the royal triumph of the Messiah? If so, then the approach of death must have given him an acuteness of vision denied as yet to Jesus’ closest friends. Perhaps he simply wanted to be kind to this innocent enthusiast who had fallen victim to passion and intrigue, and seized upon the words of the placard over his head as a means of saying something to offset the taunts of his companion. In this case, his was the cup of cold water that did not go without its reward. Whatever he expected, the promise of Jesus was out of all proportion to his request. Not in some far-off assize but now he is acquitted before the divine tribunal, and his reward is not in some age to come but today and in Paradise.

43
Paradise is a Persian word, meaning park or garden, which was taken over, first into Greek, then into Hebrew. In the Septuagint it was used to translate ‘the garden of Eden’. Then, because of the belief that the day of God would bring a restoration of primeval bliss, Paradise became the name of the future home of the righteous. Finally, this earthly Paradise was distinguished from the heavenly one, of which the garden of Eden was only an earthly copy. Jewish beliefs about the afterlife were too multifarious to be reduced to a single consistent pattern. At first it was, held that the dead waited in the sleep of death in Sheol, the universal graveyard, until the general resurrection and judgement. But later, alongside of this earlier hope, and never quite replacing it, there grew up another belief that the souls of the righteous went at death immediately to heaven. It is this assumption that lies behind the promise of Jesus.