In the Christian tradition, Jesus has always shown solidarity with the poor. A famous example is the grisly Isenheim Alterpiece, painted for a monastery which had a hospital for patients with skin diseases and epilepsy.
In Michael’s lectures, I particularly liked the idea that God does not demand Jesus’ sacrifice. He demands fidelity to the project of liberating the poor and oppressed, and that is what leads to the Crucifixion. This model emphasizes God’s love for the poor and Jesus’s courage: it is closer to the old heroic model of redemption where God-in-Christ saves Man from the Devil out of love. St Augustine talks about this in his De Trinitate and it is the inspiration for the pictures of Jesus alive on the Cross in the heroic period, ‘the young hero’ as the Anglo-Saxon poem ‘The Dream of the Rood’ describes him (and also this crucifixion from the Coronation Sacramentary of Charles the Bald)
But, if God is present in all human suffering, it is even more imperative that humans should try to relieve suffering wherever they find it. Jesus presence on the Cross challenges us to do something about it – as in a poem I wrote about the broken crucifix in the cathedral in Nagasaki
in Urakame Cathedral
the head and arm are torn
from a Crucifix – a gaping hole
a mouth crying out
the remaining arm
an accusing finger
In Michael’s lectures, I particularly liked the idea that God does not demand Jesus’ sacrifice. He demands fidelity to the project of liberating the poor and oppressed, and that is what leads to the Crucifixion. This model emphasizes God’s love for the poor and Jesus’s courage: it is closer to the old heroic model of redemption where God-in-Christ saves Man from the Devil out of love. St Augustine talks about this in his De Trinitate and it is the inspiration for the pictures of Jesus alive on the Cross in the heroic period, ‘the young hero’ as the Anglo-Saxon poem ‘The Dream of the Rood’ describes him (and also this crucifixion from the Coronation Sacramentary of Charles the Bald)
But, if God is present in all human suffering, it is even more imperative that humans should try to relieve suffering wherever they find it. Jesus presence on the Cross challenges us to do something about it – as in a poem I wrote about the broken crucifix in the cathedral in Nagasaki
in Urakame Cathedral
the head and arm are torn
from a Crucifix – a gaping hole
a mouth crying out
the remaining arm
an accusing finger
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