I accidentally watched part of Bach's St John Passion, this being Easter weekend. I switched the TV on and came in at this part; unfortunately the damn thing was in English. Half spoken, half sung - recitative - it's bad enough in the original language that I don't understand - it's not even music - but in English it's horrible
But the Jews,
because it was the day of preparation,
so that the corpses
should not remain on the cross over the sabbath,
(for the sabbath day was very solemn)
asked Pilate that their legs should be broken and they should be taken away .
Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and the other
who were crucified with him.
But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead,
and they did not break his legs;
but one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear
and at once blood and water came out.
and the one who saw it has testified this,
and his testimony is true,
and he knows that he speaks the truth
so that you may believe.
This happened
so that the Scripture might be fulfilled:
“You shall break none of his bones”.
And elsewhere another scripture says:
“They will look on him whom they have pierced”.
It made me bloody angry, I had to leave the room. This Christian obsession with and mass glorification of torture made me squirm.
I remember a whole class in school about "The Passion of Christ" aka the detailed torturing to death of a man over several days. The teacher described in medical detail what was happening. Breaking legs meant that they could no longer support the body on the cross forcing the lungs to collapse. It was supposed to be humane as it quickened death.
Jesus though was found to be already dead so the soldier pierced his side with a spear. The fact that a mixture of blood and water left the body is some sort of post-mortem effect.
This description of awful suffering went on for an hour, I was barely a teenager. It was meant to show how much god loves us, to sacrifice his only son in the horrendous ways is some sort of weird proof. It had the opposite effect on me - I thought the teacher was a mad woman and that god was a psychopath.
The Catholics really go to town on this, they have a ritual called the Stations of the Cross and if you perform them every Friday in succession you get a plenary indulgence - essential a get out of jail card; the forgiveness of all your previous sins. If you die immediately after this you go straight to heaven, do not pass go, no time in purgatory. Job done.
quote:
The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, are a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers. The stations grew out of imitations of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which is a traditional processional route symbolising the path Jesus walked to Mount Calvary. The objective of the stations is to help the Christian faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage through contemplation of the Passion of Christ. It has become one of the most popular devotions and the stations can be found in many Western Christian churches, including those in the Roman Catholic,[1] Lutheran,[2][3] Anglican,[4] and Methodist traditions.[5][6]
Stations of the Cross - Wikipedia
This is medieval thinking carried forward and normalised in the 21st century. In Bach's Passion it's promoted as high art, if in popular culture it would likely be banned.
Still angry.
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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