IN A time beyond the reach of history, there was no “Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke”. In that pre-Gospel era, knowledge is impossible, opinions abound, and imagination provides both real insights and red herrings. People had shared memories of words and events in which they had participated, or watched from afar, or been told about. Gradually, the Passion story came to be — a single story.
An image of this mysterious process comes to me. I see the prophet Ezekiel, in his 37th chapter, set down in the middle of a valley of dry bones. Commanded to prophesy to the bones, he does as the Lord commands, and the bones come together, “bone to its bone”. Sinews and flesh are added, until a host stands before Ezekiel: “the whole house of Israel”. So it must have been with the Gospel. Story came to story, until a whole body of truth was formed.
The Passion was the first part of the story of Jesus to coalesce like this into a whole. Luke had access to this whole, which had come together, bone after bone, piece after piece. He also has himself. When he tells the story of the Passion, he is telling us something of himself, too: elements of encounter, acceptance, and the drive to communicate to others, which inspired him. And we accept this, because we have been learning, during Lectionary Year C, to trust him for his insight and his information alike.
Thanks to Luke and his fellow-Evangelists, we all know the Passion story. Year after year, we revisit it, renewing our commitment to our spiritual inheritance. Some elements in Luke’s account are unique to him. In a devotion called the “seven last words of Christ from the Cross”, three of the seven “words” are from John’s Gospel, one is found in both Mark and Matthew, and the other three are Luke’s alone.
All three of these Lucan “words” are found in this Palm Sunday Gospel: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (23.34); “Amen, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (23.43); “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (23.46).
Without Luke, we would know none of them; nor would we have his insight — perhaps born of vision, perhaps of revelation — into Gethsemane: “An angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground” (22.43-44).
It is hard to think about these sayings, never mind to pray them in Holy Week, without feeling pain ourselves. The contrast is so cruel, between what is done to Jesus and what he says in the course of his torment. God preserve us from needing to seek such courage within ourselves!
The strengthening angel, and the sweat like great drops of blood, are in some early records of the Passion, but not others. I believe that they are authentic, but readers will decide for themselves. As for 23.43, Luke records them as Jesus’s last words to humankind before he died. What comfort (in both senses of the word: strength and consolation) they bring to Christians facing death.
The flesh and bones of the Passion (whether Luke’s or another Evangelist’s) are words and their messages. But, like the dry bones in Ezekiel’s valley, they need a voice to prophesy, to breathe God’s spirit upon them, so that they may live. What this meant for Luke was the transfiguration of a historical source into a Gospel. For us, it means living the gospel that we proclaim.
When Jesus died, Luke says he “breathed his last”. The Greek word, exepneusen could be translated “he breathed out”, or, “ex-spired”. His final out-breath had no following in-breath (“in-spire”). We may observe that moment in the life of another, if we watch beside the dying. But we will only experience it when the ex-spiration is our own.
It is nothing to fear. In breathing our last, and in the return of the spirit (another word for breath) to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12.7), we are fulfilling God’s will for us. As for commending ourselves into God’s hands, that does not make God receive us. It simply affirms what we believe and trust, namely, Jesus’s promise made long ago to a sinner like ourselves: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
