Not A Tragic Hero

I often hear people ask questions like, "What did it mean for Jesus to give his life if he knew he was going to be raised again three days later? What does that amount to?"

I am sympathetic to this question because there is something great about letting go of one's dreams and really doing it. People often style themselves as tragic heros, but when you look closer they're not really willing to give up anything meaningful. They just want to complain about the possibility of giving it up.

So is there anything greater than a person who claims to give up something and then actually does it?

The first such candidate is Jesus. He willingly died for the sins of other people. While we often overlook his life of healing and teaching, the nobility in his act of sacrifice is not difficult to recognize. But from the perspective of the tragic hero, there are a few things that should leave us suspicious.

"I lay my life down and I take it up again."

Jesus went through great agony in the crucifixion, yes. But in Hebrews we read that he obeyed God for "the joy set before him". He expressed his sorrow while on the cross, but he wasn't hopeless. He found hope in entering paradise with a theif. He wanted his conspirators to be forgiven.

Unlike Cassandra, or Hamlet, or Edmund Dantes he doesn't cry out for justice. In fact, Matthew records that he "will not quarrel, nor cry out; nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets". Yes, he was a man of sorrows ... grieved that 'he played a song to which the Jews did not dance' ... but he also spoke about a blessed life, a happy life.

"Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting."

My take on the life of faith is that it does not pursue sacrifice as a way of appearing noble in the eyes of others. This is essential to understanding the life of devotion which does not ask to be compensated in any way (for indeed to dwell with God one day is better than to spend a thousand elsewhere) and yet believes that God will not hold back any good thing.

"If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames - but have not love - I profit nothing."
-Paul

"Go and learn the meaning of the words: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice'"
-Jesus