The Compassion of the Christ
Aloys
Budi Purnomo, Semarang
(From
the Jakarta Post — 24 March 2026)
Last year there were many debates about Mel Gibson's controversial
film, The Passion of the Christ. Millions of people across
the globe were extremely impressed by the film. It was very
violent. The suffering of Jesus as shown in the film was
almost too much to bear. I forced myself to keep my eyes
on the screen as the Roman soldiers' steel-hooked whips
ripped into the flesh of a writhing Jesus, handcuffed to
a marble block. They left Him after perhaps half an hour
of nonstop scourging, a mess of slashes oozing scarlet blood
and yellow pus; chunks of his skin spattered on the white
granite floor and on the faces of his drunken and mad torturers.
All this before He was sentenced to death.
A
dying Jesus, hair matted with blood and one eye fully shut
as a result of the beatings, was then covered with a red
haircloth that dug into the fresh wounds, a crown of spiked
thorns forced onto his bloodied head and taken before Pilate
and the crowd for the famous "Crucify him!" scene.
Jesus was so completely tortured and if one didn't know
the story, one would expect Him to die right there and then.
The crucifixion, one might think, would almost be a relief.
That
was the film based on historical facts of the crucifixion.
From the perspective of the Christian faith, in that historical
event, Jesus of His own will decided to give His life in
solidarity with those who were under the power of death.
But what was the main message of the crucifixion? Compassion!
The passion of the crucified Jesus was compassion for those
who suffer for the sake of mankind.
Man,
from generation to generation, has asked the same questions:
Why do we suffer? Why must we suffer? How can God allow
it?
And
surely, the passion of the crucified Jesus is the answer!
It is the answer, because it is a clear path to compassion.
The passion of the crucified Jesus belongs not only to the
Christians, but is part of the struggles and hopes of humankind.
The passion of the crucified Jesus is the manifestation
of compassion for the poor, the hungry and the oppressed.
Indeed,
the passion and compassion, then, should become the cornerstone
of our commitment to develop solidarity with other people
in our daily life. A journey from passion to compassion
is the great challenge of our society.
The more deeply we consider the passion of the poor, the
hungry, and the oppressed, the more we will experience the
compassionate love of God and love for others, whatever
their faith and religion may be. This is what Jesus shows
us in that historical moment of the crucifixion.
Compassion, first of all, is a strong feeling of sympathy
for people who are suffering and a desire to help them.
It would become social compassion if people work hand in
hand to show compassion for one another.
Social compassion is the articulation of the encounter with
the Divine as experienced by the poor, the hungry and the
oppressed in their struggle to affirm their human dignity
and claim their true identity as sons and daughters of God.
Freedom
exercised within a communion of life, which is marked by
social compassion. Freedom, as explained by St. Thomas Aquinas,
should be divided between "freedom from" and "freedom
for".
The first one refers to freedom from sin, from selfishness,
from injustice, from need. All of these are conditions that
call for social compassion.
The
second one states the purpose of the freedom acquired, freedom
for love, for communion; the attainment of love and communion
is the final stage in social compassion.
Social compassion should touch every dimension of life.
It is a truly social action that allows God's act of compassion
to penetrate all levels of human existence. It is precisely
in the context of the struggle of the poor, the hungry and
the oppressed that the power of the passion of the crucified
Jesus becomes visible and has a special relationship with
social compassion.
In the context of this socio-political event, social compassion
makes it not impossible to turn it into a political movement
but it is much larger than just a struggle for political
and economic rights. It is a struggle against all the forces
of death and social injustice wherever they are manifest
and a struggle for life in the fullest sense. And this is
our task to build a just civil society for a future Indonesia.
The
writer is a diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Semarang
Back
to MMI Main Page...
