Christianity and *The Passion* (3)

But the Christian theological meaning of Jesus' crucifixion cannot be understood solely as a statement of solidarity with suffering humanity. It receives it's theological meaning only in connection with the Resurrection. Again from Jon Sobrino:

We must not foreget that that before being the cross - the language to which we are accustomed - Jesus' cross is a cross, one among so many carried before and after Jesus. We must not forget that there are millions of persons in the world who do not simply die, but, in various ways, die as Jesus died, at the hands of "pagans," at the hands of the modern idolaters of national security or of wealth. Many men and women really die, crucified, murdered, tortured to death, or "disappeared," for justice's sake. Many other millions die a slow crucifixion caused by structural injustice. Entire peoples today are transformed into trash and offal by the appetites of other men and women, peoples without face or comeliness, like the crucified one. Unforunately this is not metaphor, but daily reality. From a quantitative viewpoint, what lends credibility to Jesus' resurrection today is that it can be the hope of the immense masses of humanity.