Thursday, April 1, 2010

Cheapening Jesus' Death

St Matthew's in the City is at it again poster wise. You can read about it here and see an image of its latest poster/billboard.

Apparently some think it is not as bad as the Christmas poster. I think it could be worse. It focuses attention on a Jesus who is a pale imitation of who he really was as Son of God. The goal of our mission is to draw people to the reality of God met in Christ, not away from it.

Whatever went on in Jesus Christ's mind, the gospels give absolutely no hint, no reason to think that Jesus was feeling slightly depressed about whether people had listened to him. A battle over good and evil was being waged on the cross, the sins of the whole world were being borne by Jesus, the weight of glory was stripped from him and fellowship with the Father was severed. But we have a poster focusing on Jesus the teacher wondering if anyone had really listened to him.

Come on, St Matthew's. If stimulating conversation about the truth of Good Friday and Easter is the aim, there are other ways. It is not necessary to short change the public by presenting Jesus in this way.

2 comments:

Tim Harris said...

Quite agree Peter. This strikes me as even more about bolstering the reputation of St Matthew's in the City as a bit 'naughty and irreverent', and less about any genuine attempt to stimulate reflection on the enormity of the Easter witness. It just comes over to me as an intentional trivialisation with little or no point of gospel interest.

BTW, we do have hints as to what was running through Jesus' mind upon the cross - a number of the Psalms appear to have given expression to his spiritual reflections.

Peter Carrell said...

Aye!!