[b]Who Really Killed Jesus?[i]by Art Katz
Some Comments to the Newsweek Article of February 16, 2004
So horrendous has been the cost to the Jewish community of the cry, ‘Christ-killer,’ that any references of the crucifixion of Jesus are shunned with horror. Now with the advent of Mel Gibson’s film, [i]The Passion of the Christ
The question remains, however, what if the charge of Christ-killer is true? The New Testament accounts seem to indicate that, indeed, the charge is true. In his first public messages to Jewish hearers, the Apostle Peter in Acts 2:23, 36 and 3:15 and 4:10 all unequivocally indict “all the people of Israel” in his death [[i]"whom ye crucified"[i]and killed the Prince of life...[i]whom you have crucified[i]ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
How else shall we account for the thousands converted and baptized at the hearing of this message? Generations of even the most devoted missionary labors have not begun to yield such harvest as this. Could it be that the Holy Spirit waits to anoint unto conviction of the hearer, the hard and true words which we shrink to bring? So do we read, "Now when they heard [b]this,[i] they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles,[b]Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
The author of the article, reflecting the conventional wisdom, and without showing how, assures the reader that "the Christian narratives have sometimes been contorted to lay the responsibility at the feet of the Jewish people, a [i]contortion[i]truth
To seek to absolve Jews by contradicting what God in the scriptures makes unequivocally true is to do injustice to God; it is, in effect, to crucify Him afresh. It is to elevate the interests of man above God - the root of idolatry - for which sin the Son of Man was ironically given to expiate! Our very indignation at being thought sinners, is its own indictment! Indeed, if Jesus is God, the whole world is indicted!
God has deposited an indigestible lump into the craw of history. Rail as we will, and contrive as we will-this lump will not let us go. We are required to deny or affirm, blaspheme or worship. "This child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against...[i]that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed"[i]the Spirit
On the other hand, it was eye-opening to have watched the TV news following the Diane Sawyer interview of Gibson-the hiring of $25 million a year athletes; a man accused of almost beating a three month old infant to death; a survey conducted by Catholic officials with shocking statistics of sexual molestation; rampant heroin addiction among suburban, middle-class teenagers; advertisements for new gadgets on late model cars. It was a whole garish unreality described in [i]every
The Cross is the epicenter of Reality. The thump heard around the world as it was lowered into its earthly socket bearing its holy but anguished freight, reverberates chillingly still! It is an ultimate cosmic event; who can avoid it? Jewish culpability does not exhaust it, for we are [i]all[i]Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin"?[i]the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet[i]religious[b]false
[i]So shall he [startle and] sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider (Isaiah 52:15).
So also do I suspect, that this controversial film is a last days’ provision of God to enable men, especially us Jews, to see what had not been told us! May we consider what we had not been told. Even those believers, already saved, seeing the film as preview, were stunned, pierced to their depths by the enactment of their faith. The gospel, the apostle Paul reminds us, [i]is the [b]power
Despite all disputation, all conjecture of the social effect of the film, the very viewing, the making visible of what had not been told us, will perform its inexorable, indefinable work. We will be undone, skewered, left gasping-as if in one fell swoop the whole fabric, the curtain of unreality had been torn asunder to reveal the ineffable glory. Sentence has been passed on the God-rejecting [Judeo-Christian (!)] world; [i]the arm of the Lord has been revealed; we have believed the report[b]Reality[i]This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He has sent…[i]He has raised! He has risen from the dead, He is Lord. To him every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord[b] to the glory of God the Father.