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Lent To Be Spent
By Hugh T. Kerr

STROLLING through the Princeton University Art Museum, as I often do, I gave some special attention to a few renaissance crucifixions on exhibit. The agony and suffering of the Christ figure is, of course, a familiar motif, especially in quattrocento paintings. The evident physical pain, suggesting even deeper inner torment, the hues of umber red, subdued blues, and earthy browns, the gaping wounds, dripping blood, and the cosmic drama of darkened sun and moon - all convey a commentary on Isaiah 53:3

He was despised and rejected …
A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.

These crucifixion scenes are very familiar to us, even though Protestants used to regard this imagery as lugubrious and sentimental, while Catholics often hesitated to draw out a "wounds theology" beyond the bounds of reason. Two examples, not from the Princeton museum, may serve as illustrative.

I

One of the fascinating sequences of the Christ as suffering servant is the continuing succession of saints, apostles, martyrs, and self - sacrificing Christians down through the centuries. Why would Christians want to celebrate, let alone replicate in their lives, the anguished passion and cruel death of a misunderstood and pathetic prophet? Well, the next stanza from the suffering servant passage, as well as the whole New Testament itself, become pertinent:

Surely he has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows …
He was wounded for our transgressions …
And with his stripes we are healed

(Isa. 53:4 - 5).

So, alongside a few crucifixion paintings in the Princeton Art Museum, we also discover a curious company of suffering saints. Here, for example, are the beheading of Paul (Piero di Giovanni, called Lorenzo Monaco, 1370-1425), St. Francis receiving the stigmata

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(Antonio Leonelli, called da Crevalcorc Bolagnese, (1490 - 1525), the martyrdom of St. Laurence on his iron grill (Placido Costanzi, 1690-1759), and the composite triptych of Pietro Despallargues, fifteenth century, of the saints Sebastian and Julian, the former shot to death with arrows, the latter a repentant hosteler who, by mistake, killed his own parents.

There are more. (College and university art museums tend to have modest collections, assembled primarily for teaching.) Here are Jerome, the Vulgate scholar, with his legendary lion, beating his breast in a desert, contemplating a crucifix; Anthony Abbot, the hermetic ascetic, founder of monasticism, resisting the temptations of the flesh; Barbara with her trinity - tower as a reminder of her devotion and death at the hands of her unbelieving father; Bartholomew with his knife who, reportedly, got as far as India, but was flayed and crucified; Apollonia of Alexandria whose fidelity to the Christian poor provoked her fiery death, but not before all her teeth were drawn with an enormous pincers; Catherine of Alexandria, erudite and beautiful, torn apart with spiked wheels and beheaded with a sword.

From the Art Museum, I went to the library and took down for the first time in years a copy of that wonderful classic, John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Here is a comprehensive compendium, up to the sixteenth century and with fascinating engravings, of this whole faithful, if often gruesome, Christian testimony.

II

What is the meaning of such a long history of suffering saints on behalf of a crucified messiah? Isn't that really an essential question about what it means to be a Christian? If we do not in some way suffer for the suffering Christ or on behalf of the suffering Christ for others who suffer, what claim to the Christian name can we make? In view of the passion and death of Christ and of centuries of suffering humanity, doesn't being a Christian translate into something equivalent to the Apostle's declaration?

I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Col. 1:24).

But, we must surely ask, how today can we "complete" Christ's sufferings? Isn't that bad theology anyway? How many of us are confronted with the kinds of faith tests or threats of physical torture common enough to the early martyrs or even to Christian minorities in more recent times? But these kinds of queries force us to rethink the role of being Christian in today's world. Let us look at a few helpful hints.

In his big, encyclopedic book, On Being a Christian, Hans Küng straightens us out on completing Christ's sufferings:

Following the cross does not mean copying the suffering of Jesus, it is not the reconstruction of his cross. That would be presumption. But it certainly

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means enduring the suffering which befalls me in my inexchangeable situation - in conformity with the suffering of Christ. Anyone who wants to go with Jesus must deny himself and take on himself, not the cross of Jesus not just any kind of cross, but his cross, his own cross; then he must follow Jesus (p. 577).

In a recent translation from the German "Biblical Encounters Series," the volume on Suffering, by E. S. Gerstenberger and W. Schrage (Abingdon, 1980), locates the necessity for contemporary suffering in the context of "solidarity and sympathy." This, we are told, is what the Christian community is all about. ("If one member suffers, all suffer together" - I Cor. 12:26.)

The real response of Jesus and of Christians to suffering is the attempt to overcome the sufferings of others or to share in them (p. 252).

In yet another current book on the subject, Faith Under Fire, by Daniel J. Simundson (Augsburg, 1980), it is suggested that "if we have faith to see it, our suffering may be part of God's work in the world to do some greater good for other people" (p. 68). But neither of these books, and surely not Küng, try to hide the sheer enigma of suffering or intimate that pain, physical or internal, can always be seen as educative or redemptive.

III

The title for this editorial, "Lent to Be Spent," comes, with permission, from a review of Douglas Steere of Haverford of the book Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, by Philip Hallie (Harper & Row, 1979). The book tells the story of the sequestering of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France. André Trocmé and his wife Magda, together with Eduard Theis and his wife, hid and sheltered dozens of Jews in the little hill town of Le Chambon from 1940 to 1944. Trocmé was a Protestant pastor; Theis, a schoolmaster.

Here is the conclusion of Douglas Steere's review (in Religion in Life, Winter 1979, p. 517):

The book leaves the reader with a lilting of the heart that even in this darkest chapter in our time there have been among us those who saw their lives as lent to be spent and who quietly and effectively carried out what was inwardly asked of them.

No more saints? With Le Charnbon, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, and who knows who else? No more suffering for and with the suffering Christ? Outstanding saints and martyrs have always been in short supply. But silent Christian witnesses, those who yearn and pray for others, nameless helpers who in so many ways complete Christ's sufferings - these have always thought of themselves as lent to be spent. As Magda Trocmé put it, "For what else was I born?"

Mathias Grunewald, The Small Crucifixion

Francesco Pesellino, The Crucifixion with St. Jerome and St. Francis

Piero di Cosimo, The Visitation With Two Saints (left, Nicholas; right, Anthony Abbot)

From John Foxe's Book of Martyrs