Book Reviews

Jesus Our Love Is Crucified

What Jesus Saw from the Cross
by A.G. Sertillanges
Sophia Institute Press
245 pp., $15.95.
1-800-888-9344

Although Catholics recite the familiar words of the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed, recalling the historical fact that Christ "was crucified, died, and was buried" and although Catholics travel the Way of the Cross during Lenten devotions, often the living reality of Christ's persecution, the concrete experience of Christ's betrayal, and the acute agony of Christ's mental and physical suffering are beyond comprehension. The virtues of this book, a reprint of the 1948 original edition, are its geographical realism in descriptions of places like the Gate of Ephraim and Mount Zion, its precise historical detail about the culture of the Romans and the Jews of Jesus's time, and its insightful interpretation of the human nature of Christ's friends and enemies who witnessed the Crucifixion. Father Sertillanges' book immerses us into every detail, every event, and every emotion that accompanies the drama of Christ's suffering and sacrifice on the cross. After reading this book, every Christian will experience the vivid sense of being an eye witness to the death of His Lord and view the Crucifixion as a personal event that touches his daily life rather than regarding it as some distant historical occurrence abstractly removed from concrete reality.

In recreating the Passion of Christ's death on the Cross, Father Sertillanges informs us that the Crucifixion occurred sometime between March 20 and April 17, that attached to Christ's neck is a placard announcing His crime, that Calvary is neither a mountain nor a hill but a chalky mound, that the Cross is probably ten feet high, that Jesus faced the gate where His tormentors and the mob entered to mock Him, and that His final glance beheld the Temple and the rising sun. These details of date, place, and size depict Christ's death in all its concrete particularity and in all its historical specificity, reinforcing the mystery of the Incarnation as an event in time and place.

In delineating the Jewish culture that surrounds Mount Zion, Father Sertillanges traces the history of the Temple from a portable sanctuary or sacred tent to the building of the first temple under Solomon's kingship to the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple to Jesus as the cornerstone of a new Temple: "The stone which the builders rejected will become the cornerstone." The story of the Temple, the history of Israel, and the prophecies of the Old Testament provide the religious and cultural background which give Christ's death on the cross a distinctively human context as well as spiritual significance. Father Sertillanges witnesses the Crucifixion as an event in ancient world history as well as a miracle of Divine Revelation. While "Israel is the custodian of monotheism" in the ancient world where nature worship and polytheism abound and while Israel is also the nation that "promulgated the Law, the promises, and the hopes," Israel was conquered by other nations.

Given these geographical features of Jerusalem in the time of Christ and these historical facts about the nation of Israel, Christ's death on the Cross becomes a profoundly human story with universal meaning while never ceasing to be a record of God's miraculous intervention in history. In the most engaging part of the book Father Sertillanges examines the Crucifixion from the perspective of the different witnesses of the drama, both friends and enemies. In observing the behavior of the inquisitive and the indifferent who see Christ die, he asks, "How many passersby will there be whose hearts are truly moved  and moved to repentance  by this spectacle?" Even today "is He not generally forgotten" or ignored by many as He was in His agony on the Cross? Where are Peter the Rock, Simon the Zealot, and Andrew the Courageous when Jesus needs His friends the most? "They are weak, vacillating, selfish, unintelligent   and now they have proven cowards also."

Even though the Twelve deny or abandon Him in the hour of need, Christ never doubts their good will. Though hiding to save their own lives while their Lord is dying,

They are present, then, in spirit. They are present by their faith, by their hearts which are devoted to His service, by their vocation which they have not renounced, and by their souls which are loyal to him.

The holy women who have followed Jesus on His journeys remain loyal to the end, embalming the tomb and witnessing the Resurrection, their compassionate hearts appreciating "better than the men all the sublime sweetness and tender strength of Jesus." Grieving bitterly for the bitter sorrows of their Lord, their example illuminates one of woman's natural roles: " . . . since she herself is the giver of life, she is more conscious than man of its frailty and its needs." The sword that pierces the Blessed Mother  "a Niobe more sorrowful than Niobe"  is the heartbreaking knowledge that "in one day she is losing her God and her child." In these comments Father Sertillanges' reflects a heartsearching and profound understanding of human nature and allows us to identify perfectly with Christ's followers both then and now.

His insights into the character and motives of Christ's enemies  the soldiers, the mob, Pilate and Herod, the Jewish leaders, and Judas  are equally incisive. Although the Roman soldiers are following military orders, their barbarous cruelty and jeering mockery of their victim reflect a monstrous brutality and savagery that constitute "one of the most revolting scenes of the Passion." The crowd that shouted "Crucify Him!" manifest an inscrutable enmity since they "ought to have been His friends" and "received benefits from Him." Father Sertillanges' answer to this enigma is that the sight of a Messiah in chains, the king of the Jews powerless before a Roman tribunal, disgusted the crowds and made them loathe "the scandal of the Cross" which would not assert military force or overthrow political power: "Jesus as a political Messiah . . . a dispenser of tangible and material benefits, such as the casting off of the Roman yoke, the abolition of tithes and the return of the Jews of the dispersal  this is what would have won over these Ôstiff-necked' tribes."

Father Sertillanges' special gift is his ability to read souls.

As for Herod, he hopes to behold some dazzling spectacle or "sign" and regards Jesus as "some amusing prisoner." As for Pilate, the consummate politician, "He is in favor of justice when it costs nothing," willing to save Jesus but not provoke the Jewish leaders when they threaten to appeal to Caesar. As for the chief priests, their religion was only a source of pride and worldly advantage, an occasion for "taking the first places" and substituting formality and legalism for purity of heart. Because Christ had called them "whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful but within are full of dead men's bones," their meanspiritedness insisted upon revenge: "He has refused to be their man, and they have killed Him." As for Judas, the parsimonious businessman in charge of the finances who laments, "wherefore this waste?" when Mary Magdalene anoints the feet of her Lord, "He gave himself to Jesus for his own profit," a hardhearted man who cannot recognize Love incarnate and who offers his "vile mouth" in the gesture of a kiss to betray the God who is Love. Judas compounds his sin with his suicide, failing to follow the example of the prodigal son and to confess, "Father, master, I have sinned against Heaven and against Thee." Like a doctor who traces the symptoms of a disease to the cause of the illness, Father Sertillanges is a physician of the soul who relates the effects of human behavior to their primary causes  sin or love.

These penetrating remarks on Christ's friends and enemies establish that What Christ Saw From the Cross is for all time and for places and for all people, especially our own age. The abortionists who torture and kill babies reflect the same cruelty which the Roman soldiers inflicted on Christ. The mobs that vote for pro-abortion legislators resemble the crowds who shout "Crucify Him!" The politicians who are "personally opposed" to abortion but do not wish to impose their morality on others are guilty of the moral cowardice of Pontius Pilate. The legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade and "the structure of sin" that abounds in the political and cultural institutions of Western nations recalls the collaboration of the chief priests and the Roman authorities invoking the full weight of the law to condemn Christ. And "the culture of death" that haunts the late twentieth century reflects the despair of Judas who resorts to death rather than love as the solution to all human problems.

Dr. Kalpakgian is a professor of English at Simpson College in Iowa who taught at Christendom College from 1990 to 1992.

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