The previous post on the Passion Narrative (PN) in Luke brought us up to the effects of the angel who ministered to Jesus in Gethsemane. Here, I want to begin with what the angel did for Jesus and then go on to a much bigger question. Why?
In Matthew, the beginning of Jesus' ordeal in the garden is described like this: “…and he began to feel sadness and anguish. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.’” Mark is similar, “And he began to feel terror and anguish. And he said to them, ‘My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.’” That’s not the way Luke does it.
Jesus is here portrayed “in agony.” Brown translates this passage, “And being in agony, he was praying more earnestly.” What does tbe Greek agōnia bring to us? Brown here follows Paton [W. R. Paton, “Agōnia,” Classical Review 27 (1913), 194] who argues that agōnia often meant the kind of agony that a runner in an athletic contest experienced just before the start. Hebrews uses this word in describing Jesus as the “forerunner” (Heb. 6:20) and in 12:1 compares the Christian struggle to “running the race agōn that is before us.” Another scholar compares agōnia to “a supreme concentration of one’s power in the face of the impending battle.”
It is hard, in considering this new perspective, to find language that does not trivialize the experience, but if agōn is the context and agōnia the preparation for the context, it does not seem too much to say that the angel serves as a trainer—someone to help Jesus prepare for the race before him. It is through the God’s intervention, in the appearance of the angel, that Jesus is able to concentrate his power in the face of the impending contest. The fierce trial does not “pass away,” but Jesus is sustained in his preparation for it.
That brings us to the role of sorrow (lypē) which is so prominent in Mark and Matthew, both of whom use perilypos to refer to Jesus. Philo argues that lypē destroys strength and power. The good person, like an athlete in agōnia, combats it because it weakens him in the face of the contest. So agōnia and lypē , which we are apt to see as two expressions of Jesus’ tribulation are, by this understanding, opposed to each other. Jesus' agōnia is crucial to surviving until the cross; his lypē weakens him so that he may not make it to the cross.
It seems to me that is what we have in Luke. This is a new idea about Jesus, but it is a very familiar idea about preparation. Any of you who have competed know that as you prepare, there are some feelings that move you toward readiness and others that move you away. Some modern athletes say they cultivate anger because it helps them. Simultaneously, they suppress the feelings of friendship they may have for their antagonists (agōn, again) because it will weaken them. I am not attributing such feelings to Jesus, but I am saying that the opposition of one feeling to another will be familiar to anyone who has prepared for a competition.
The remaining question is just why Luke presents this portrait of Jesus. A part of the answer can be seen in Luke’s portrayal of Christian martyrs. In Acts 7:55—60, Luke highlights parallels between the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and the death of Jesus. Accounts of the behavior of Christian martyrs during the Roman persecutions also echo the behavior of the Lucan Jesus. If Luke is facing the issue of martyrdom on behalf of his readers, he will want to give them the example of Jesus to strengthen them.
Luke is, by this account, making Jesus the prototypical martyr. Jesus prayed to be spared the trial, but submitted himself to God’s plan. And so should you. Jesus received strength to endure by God’s direct provision (it was an angel in the case of Jesus) and so will you. Jesus shunned lypē in preparation for the awful contest and so should you. Luke may also have been sensitive to the Stoic tradition of suffering, in which any display of instability was viewed as a sign of weakness, or to have believed his hearers would have been affected by that tradition.
If Jesus is to be the prototypical martyr, some attention will also need to be paid to his own instructions. In Luke 12:11 Jesus said that his followers should not be anxious when the rulers haul them before the authorities because of their faith. Luke’s Jesus needs, for that reason, to be less anxious that the Matthean or Marcan Jesus or he will not set a good example.
No comments:
Post a Comment