Gore and Glory

            Knowing the truth can be uncomfortable. In Christopher Nolan’s cinematic portrayal of The Odyssey, the main character Odysseus washes up on Calypso’s Island part way through his journey home. On this island, he is fed the lotus flower which causes him to forget the pain of his past and live in an ignorant bliss. The pain of war, loss and past mistakes drifted away for a time as he lived in ignorance and forgetfulness. To enjoy calm and serenity Odysseus allowed himself to become severed from the reality and truth of his current condition. When Odysseus finally ceased to eat the lotus flower, his past memories and the truth of present reality ran him over like a semi-truck. The men he had lost, the people of Troy he had killed, the family he had left. To step back into the truth was very uncomfortable for Odysseus.

As a Christian, stepping into the truth is both painful and glorious. The fear of the LORD is a two-sided coin, terror and awe. The truth of Jesus of Nazareth crucified and then resurrected is both gore and glory. At the cross, I am confronted by the gore of the immeasurable grotesqueness of my sin which nailed Jesus to the cross. In the resurrection I see the glory and immeasurable joy of being forever free from God’s wrath as I can rest perennially beneath the canopy of Jesus blood shed for me.

            As I have previously pondered what Jesus’ purpose was for coming to earth, I have often assumed that it was primarily to bring salvation to sinners. But this thought has been ameliorated by a study of what Jesus had to say to Pilate about his purpose for coming to earth.

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose, I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth" (John 18:37).

Jesus came to bear witness to the truth. In response to Pilate’s agnostic sigh “what is truth,” Jesus responds with an action. Jesus proceeds to be flogged, mocked, beaten, bruised and crucified before Pilate’s eyes.

  God incarnate, crucified as Jesus of Nazareth bears witness to the truth of the human condition like nothing else in history. My utter depravity is exposed in the bloodied wounds of the naked God of the universe hanging by three nails to a wooden tree. The wrath of God towards my sinfulness is made manifest in Jesus words, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Those words uttered by Jesus should have been my cry for all of eternity as I exist with a heart melted like wax in the fiery flames of hell in perpetual searing agony and eternal alienation from the one whom I was never meant to be without. In the suffering saviour, I see the horror of my sin staring back at me. I ought to have been the one utterly estranged from God, forsaken and abandoned and slaughtered by the Just and Perfect God. What intense hatred of sin God holds. Such immense wrath against injustice. The truth of the cross is terrifying, it is full of gore.

And yet, the truth of the cross is paradoxically both terrifying and awe-inspiring, it is full of both gore and glory. Jesus Christ has died as my vicar, all of my sin exposed and remedied. Brandon the sinner has been crucified on Calvary’s tree in the person of Jesus (Gal. 2:20). But as I have died in Christ, I have also been raised with Christ.

Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, bursting out of the grave in brilliant light with a glorious new resurrected body. His inheritance is now my inheritance. I am a co-heir with Christ (Rom. 8:17) for my life is hidden with Christ, and when Christ who is my life appears then I shall also appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:4).  

Though also much more, the truth of the cross is gore and glory. Praise be to Jesus!