God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of
reconciliation. II Cor. 5:19
If you’ve ever read through one of the
Gospels from beginning to end in a single setting, maybe what surprised you
most was how long the passion story, the account of Jesus’ suffering and death
is. In what is probably the earliest
Gospel, St. Mark, 45% of the text is of the last week of Jesus’ life. Regular worshippers know to prepare
themselves for Palm Sunday, because when we read the passion, it will take
quite a long time.
The Gospels are unlike any other kind of
literature that predates them in the way they focus in on this final (or
properly almost final) part of the
life of their subject. We have some
deathbed scenes for other important figures in the Bible, and the classical
biographies usually include an account of the death. There is generally in
ancient literature a sense that the death reveals the character, but the
passions of the Gospel stories are really unprecedented.
