Some things we call mysteries because they seem to us dark and enshadowed. What lies within the umbra of some ghastly cavern and the monsters under our beds are examples of this “dark mysteriousness”. But not all mysterious things are like that. Some in fact are the exact opposite: they are hard to fully take-in, terrible to understand, difficult to sketch, not because they are consumed in shadow, but because they are far, far too bright.
They do not so much slip away into enigma as much as draw far too uncomfortably close. We must squint and cover our eyes —making shadows of our own with hands and eyelids in order to hide from the glory.
The Passion is like this. Without suggesting that there are not also things about the Passion which fall away from comprehension in shadow and dark (e.g. the descent to the Dead on Holy Saturday), much of what occurs in what we call “the Paschale Mystery” is so bright, and so radiant, that it remains something we call “mysterious” only because it is hard to take-in.
Giorgio Agamben has called this quality an “indeterminacy that tends to halo and glory” in the work of his friend Dieter Kopp (1939-2022). In whatever way it is true of Kopp, it is even more true of the Passion.
During that first Holy Week everyone, it feels like, keeps asking Jesus “who are you?” “tell us plainly, are you the Christ?” "Who do you think you are?” An indeterminacy surrounds Jesus. In the brilliant obviousness of the mystery, we are indeterminate: who is he?
There is moreover a profound indeterminacy plaguing everyone with how to handle him: Judas betrays him, then regrets it; the pharisees want him dead but don’t want to do the killing; Pilate has no idea what’s going-on and sends him to Herod; Herod asks for some magic tricks and then sends him back to Pilate; Pilate still has little idea what to do with him, torn between keeping his job and keeping his conscience —torn between the voice of the crowds and the voice of his wife. Pilate washes his hands, Christ blood, we are told, will fall on the mob and their children —but the mob isn’t the party to crucify him, Romans do that.
Indeterminate once again we ask: what are we supposed to do with Jesus?
Each time he’s traded around, everyone gets to add a little torturous blow. Another raised welt. Another gaping wound. And yet each time he does not die. So he is placed on the Cross which is the place you put the ones who will not die until they do. “Stay here ‘till you’re dead” was effectively the slogan of crucifixion. He doesn’t die, in fact, until he lays his life down: “Father into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk. 23.46; cf. Ps. 31.5) for, as he told us “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (Jn. 10.18).
Indeterminacy again: why would the guy who cannot die, die?
The obviousness is too bright! And all these indeterminacies riddle his glory, all of the confusion actually underlines the certainty of who He is and what we ought to do with Him, as a few examples will testify:
A crown, the oldest of all crowns —Adam’s crown of thorns— is laid upon his brow (Gen. 3.18-19a; Jn. 19.2-5).
Guards bow down to him and clothe him in purple which is not merely a kingly color, but a priestly one as well (Jn. 19.2-5, Mk. 15.17; cf. Ex. 28.4-8; Jdg. 8.26; Estr. 8.15; Dan. 5.29).
He is enthroned above the dust and offered wine fragranced for a king (Ps. 113.5; Deut. 14.26; Songs 5.1, 7.9, 8.2; Is. 25.6; Matt. 27.34; cf. Lk. 22.18, Jn. 19.29-30).
The Roman governor, in a strange twist on the proclamation of the Magi, pays him homage and makes a sign proclaiming his messianic identity (Ps. 72.10-11; Matt. 2.2; Jn. 19.19).
His body is crushed for our transgressions, but none of his bones are broken (Is. 53.5; Ps. 34.20; Jn. 19.36; cf. Num. 9.11-12).
The garments which covered the Temple of his body are haggled-over and bandied by the mighty before it is divided, so also the garment which covered the holiest place of the temple in Jerusalem is haggled-over centuries by warring factions and bandied by the powerful before being divided also (Jn. 19.23-24; Matt. 27.51).
The centurion in the darkness ends the bright riddle, the indeterminacy has culminated in halo and glory: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mk. 15.39).
May the Lord renew in us the wonder of the glory and halo of Holy Week.