The Insatiable Pursuit of Power
Jesus had no patience for empire and oppression (a meditation on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary)
Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Jesus didn’t have anything nice to say about empires, in fact, when he began his public ministry, those involved in the politics of the region hated him, and it’s ultimately why he died.
He died as a prisoner of the state, because he threatened their claim to power, status, and wealth. They were afraid his movement would catch on, and that was something that they couldn’t afford to have happen.
The Lord’s Prayer itself teaches a narrative of what the kingdom is like. It’s a prayer asking for the kingdom to operate the same way on earth as it does in heaven.
The cross is a countercultural symbol, it’s deeply transgressive. It reminds us of the folly and indecency of unrestrained power, we are encouraged to reject the empires of the world.
Empires rise and fall, but the kingdom of God does not. The kingdom has a totally different way of living, and we are called to live in the kingdom but still in the world.
There is a vast difference between the all-too-human idea of what constitutes a “kingdom” and God’s kingdom. Throughout history, kingdoms and empires have been based on lies — lies about a glorious past, lies about a glorious destiny, lies about their “greatness” (all three of the above are summed up, by the way, in the motto “make America great again”).
Addison Hodges Hart, Silent Rosary, p. 98.
The Sorrowful Mysteries
The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary are a meditation on the Passion of Jesus, where the power structures at play are seen.
The Agony in the Garden
Jesus said that his soul was sorrowful, which has a lot of connotations as far as empire, power, and atonement are concerned. He knew that he was going to be arrested on trumped up charges and be murdered by the empire.
The religious leaders were also the political leaders, and they couldn’t have Jesus messing things up for them. He was also going to die in order to atone for the ways in which we as individuals have contributed to structures of oppression and violence.
We have allowed sin to flourish in our own hearts. Sin is something that separates us from God, our neighbors, or ourselves. He was sacrificed to show the world that his kingdom would come: on earth as it is in heaven.
The Scourging at the Pillar
Pilate’s heart was just not in the idea of condemning Jesus to death, because he saw something different in Jesus, and the good that his principles could do. The problem was that Pilate would have to answer to Caesar if he let Jesus go, and the accusations were serious.
The mob pressured him so much that Pilate acquiesced to the crowd, washed his hands of the matter, and tried to live with himself and the decision he had been forced into making. It’s probably something that haunted him forever.
The Crowning with Thorns
This is the image of the passion that most deeply resonates with me. They are all brutal with life-changing messages, but this one seems personal between me and Jesus.
The Crowning with Thorns was about the empire showing Jesus that he would not usurp their society and their institutions of power and oppression.
Jesus showed that there were other ways to live, ways that were more loving. He taught that all people were equal and it would be so in his kingdom. The crowd could not abide this, and so they mocked him, and then murdered him as a common criminal.
The Carrying of the Cross
The cross is a symbol of discipleship, says Hart (p. 103). He believes it’s the point of the mystery of the Carrying of the Cross. Jesus asked us to pick up our cross and follow him.
Picking up our own crosses voluntarily is submitting to Jesus, whose kingdom, unlike the kingdoms of the world, will have no end. The words to the Lord’s Prayer are important here: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
The Crucifixion of Jesus
Hart says that choosing the cross as a symbol for Christianity was a deliberate slap in the face to the brutal Roman empire (p. 105). The Romans had murdered Jesus in the most excruciatingly painful and dehumanizing way.
The cruelty was the point. This man Jesus, who proclaimed his own kingdom in which he was the Lord and not Caesar, was hated because he threatened the societal narrative and structure.
A lust for power corrupts a person, and makes them commit all kinds of abominable deeds, which is clearly seen in the Passion narrative.
I’ve seen that damaging consequences a thirst for power can cause in my own life. I am constantly having to relinquish any power I think I have to Mary to give to Jesus, because it’s a vampiric thirst that exists in us all.
The bloodlust for power becomes insatiable to where we just want to consume more and more, we become drunk on the idea of power and we pursue it at any cost, to the destruction of our souls.
The thing is that this lust for power, the desire to serve ourselves, the ideas of this world, and all that is therein, is extremely expensive. It demands a price that we are unable to pay.
It costs so much that it strips the oppressors of their humanity as much as it does those who are oppressed. We deny the humanity in ourselves as well as the humanity in others.
We cannot afford the price it costs to gain this kind of power, and it’s something I personally had to renounce, turn to Jesus, take up the cross, and follow him.
