by Jonathan Keller
I am not much of a horror film person. Seeing the depth of someone’s psychosis or yet another demon being exorcised leaves me numb or genuinely worried for my own humanity.
Leaving out some of the gratuitous elements in the genre for a moment, the grotesque and genuinely terrifying instruct us on the nature of evil. Even the “ordinary” aesthetics around psychological horrors teach that evil is real and takes on all shapes and sizes. That evil could even live inside of me!
Biblical literature may not dwell on the horrific as often as modern culture does, but the Holy Spirit made sure to include some elements of horror within the canon. Sodom and Gomorrah are an enduring terror for grievous sinners. The callback in Judges 19 is even more terrifying. One piece of horror that I often overlook, however, is found within the gospels. It’s indirect, but the account of Jesus’ suffering on the cross is horror literature.
At first, the details around His crucifixion suggest a bloody horror. Roman soldiers tortured Jesus by scourging His body and adorning Him with a crown of thorns. They spat on Him to show their supreme respect for His monarch over the Jews. Nails in his hands and feet worked to slowly deprive Him of oxygen. Notice, though, that Jesus died far before His fellow death row mates; the soldiers had no need to break His knees. Clearly, the crucifixion didn’t kill Jesus. So what was the nature of His pain, and how did He die?
A day prior to the crucifixion, Jesus’ prayers reveal his impending tribulation. His stress is such that He sweats blood. He begs the Father to “let this cup pass from me.” What is this cup? In the words of Jeremiah the prophet, the cup is the cup of the wine of God’s wrath that represents the judgment for sin on all nations. This wrath is the true end of sin; sin results in excruciating torment and death because sin severs the relationship between God and man. When Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, the Word of God somehow experiences the separation from God brought about by mankind’s sin. That stress drives him to bloody sweat and prayer.
The horror of the cross is God’s wrath and curse for sin that Jesus willingly took on behalf of His people. Before He died, Jesus compared eternal torment to the trash heap outside of Jerusalem. Eternity for sinners looked like worms’ decomposing flesh forever and fire burning it away forever. Guilt for all His people’s sins – past, present, and future – came upon Jesus on the cross as He bore the force of hellish judgment for His people. When He said, “It is finished,” the Son of God declared that He had drunk of the full measure of God’s wrath for His people. Jesus drank it all, and with authority over life and death He gave up His life, completing His work before His resurrection.
Having breathed his last, Jesus is the only person who went to hell and back out of love for His people.