It can be tempting to sugar coat the death of Jesus, or to gloss over its unhuman cruelty. Today’s reflection invites us to realize that it is precisely within such cruelty that Jesus personifies self-giving love. We can acknowledge the beauty of the act, but also should remember the extent of the sacrifice.

August 11, 2024: Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B‍

1 Kings 19:4-8

Psalm 34:2-9

Ephesians 4:30-5:2

John 6:41-51

Crucifixion as Fragrant Aroma?

A reflection by Marianne Seggerman

The gospel for this week continues the narrative that Jesus didn’t get much respect in his hometown. Nevertheless, Jesus kept on teaching, unrelenting. This passage from John’s gospel includes some of the most familiar passages of the New Testament: “I will raise you up.” “I am the bread of life.” “No one can come to Me unless the Father [sent] them.” Maybe the words are so familiar because they come from a popular hymn.

The first reading tells a story when God attends to the physical needs of a prophet, in this case Elijah, who was about to give up out of hunger and thirst. God has a different idea – that the prophet still had work to do and if he needed sustenance to keep going – well, God would provide. And God did! The number 40 shows up as it does so often in the Scriptures. It must have been some kind of lucky number for the scribes across the centuries who wrote down the texts which became the Bible: 40 days in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11), wandering for 40 years (Joshua 5:6), rain for 40 days (Genesis 7:12), the number appears over and over again.

What really got my attention from this week’s readings was the last line from the second reading. Jesus as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma. Who wrote that? I am serious (mostly). As I have mentioned before, I read a lot of detective fiction, and going by the research of writers Lindsey Davis and especially Rosemary Rowe, torture in the Roman Empire was, in a word, brutal. Rowe, in an introduction to one of her Libertus novels, writes of the impact of crucifixion on the body of the condemned. But I cannot repeat it here – it is just too painful. It was a mercy that probably got the centurion punished when the Roman soldier stabbed Jesus in the side so he would first pass out, then bleed out. Fragrant aroma? After three hours in the late spring Middle East sun? I had an immediate and strong reaction to that description of the crucifixion because to me it was just so wrong. To sanitize a scene which was so horrific. Jesus was up there on the cross, struggling to breathe (hint: the cause of death in crucifixion is suffocation). The women sweltering in layers of black cotton (A nod to Elizabeth Peters who described the early 20^th century garments of Middle Eastern women – 2 centuries later, but really, have these garments changed that much over the years?) looking up with nothing to offer but their devotion. Jesus’ mother watching her eldest suffer so. It is asking a lot to consider this scene of anguish as offering a “fragrant aroma!”

Why am I so focused on what actually happened? Maybe because I found Jesus and experienced my faith personally as a junior in college, in a class on the history of the Old Testament. In it we were taught that the God of the Old Testament made their presence known to humanity through events in history. If that holds true for the New Testament (same God, right?) then the crucifixion was THE event of the New Testament – or one of two with the other being Jesus’ birth. How can we begin to grasp the meaning if we don’t know what happened – emotionally at least? Whatever the details: maybe it was September not spring? But Jesus really was up there, in unimaginable physical pain, barely able to draw breath, surrounded by a lot of brave women who stood by to watch him intentionally and slowly die.

Marianne Seggerman joined the chapter of Dignity New Haven around 30 years ago. That chapter is no longer alas but she continues to attend the biannual conference. In her day job she is a computer programmer living (and for the moment working) in Westport Connecticut. She is in a long-term relationship with a person raised Jewish who converted to the Mormon faith.

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