Jesus the Rock

"Cool under pressure." I watch a lot of movies that feature a hero who stays focused, resolute, and composed while all around him bullets are whizzing and bombs are exploding. Recently, though, I wondered about that common, but odd, expression: "cool under pressure."

You'd think the expression would be more like "hard under pressure." Unyielding, steadfast. But the physics of the expression are correct, since, as we all fondly remember from high school, PV = nRT, right? Perhaps you don't immediately remember the ideal gas law. Let me remind you that "P" is pressure and "V" is volume and "n" is the amount of something and "R" is the ideal gas constant and "T" is the temperature. (No, I didn't immediately remember it all, either, so I looked it up for you.)

The point here is that as pressure goes up, so does temperature. But our hero stays cool no matter how high the pressure goes.

This Good Friday, I realized that Jesus of Nazareth is the coolest hero in history. Let me briefly list what he undergoes from the night of Maundy Thursday until the late afternoon of Good Friday (and message me if I've forgotten something):

• He hosts a meal for his disciples. (Note: They don't give him a meal to send him on his way to his suffering and death. He's getting ready for the most awful ordeal anyone ever suffered and he makes sure to complete his ministry to them first.)

• At this meal, he gets up from the table, strips down to servant-like attire, and washes the disciples' dirty feet as a teaching about how deeply and humbly they are to love each other.

• At this same meal, he teaches them other crucial material: his going away and his coming again; his petition on their behalf to the Father for the Holy Spirit to come to them; the fundamental importance of their abiding in him; the priority of unity among them and with the triune God; and more.

• At this same meal, he institutes the eucharist, simple but graphic symbol of his own imminent ordeal.

• And after all of this powerful modeling, teaching, and bonding, he bids adieu to Judas Iscariot and warns Peter not to pride himself on his own composure, knowing what is to come. No commendatory predictions of excellent behaviour among any of the others. Quite the contrary: a general sense of their imminent scattering and quiet nods toward the spectacular failures of two of his closest followers.

• He takes his three closest friends into Gethsemane and prays at the last minute to be relieved of the agony ahead. He prays it three times: he really means it. And each time, he receives both the answer from his Father he doesn't want and a lack of support from his sleeping friends—his best friends.

• He puts up with Judas's theatrical betrayal. He lets himself get unjustly arrested while merely pointing out the selfish cowardice of their coming by night to an isolated place: "If what you're doing is legal and right, why didn't you just take me in front of the people in the temple courts?" And he calms his excitable followers to save them from harm.

• He quietly endures the hateful loathing of the people most equipped in all the world to recognize him and his ministry: the chief priests (present and past) and the Sanhedrin. He doesn't object loudly to their "show trial." He doesn't expose the full idiocy of their false charges. He mildly exposes their hypocrisy only after being struck. It is too late for debate: events are too far gone, and they themselves (alas) are too far gone.

• He puts up with being shuttled to Pilate and then to Herod and then back to Pilate again—overnight and into the morning. These Roman and Jewish governors alike see Jesus as they see most things: obstacles or aids to their advancement, objects to be manipulated toward their egotistical ends. The fraud of Roman's vaunted respect for law and order is thus revealed. The fraud of Herod's claim to represent the people of God is likewise on display.

• He submits to Pilate's last idle musings about truth and power, and then goes along with the Roman soldiers to their bitter sport of abusing Jewish prisoners. He is pounded nearly to death by bullies who need only a victim to generate and justify their torment.

• He stands silent as the whipped-up crowd prefers Barabbas to the Son of God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Judge of All, and soon-to-be Saviour.

• He walks the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha, staggering down streets like those on which the crowd had placed palm branches and even coats to acclaim him less than a week ago.

• He lets himself be crucified. Crucified.

• He has enough compassion left to ask God to forgive the soldiers who are just going about their job as crucifiers. (He doesn't ask God to forgive other people nearby who do, presumably, know better.)

• He has enough compassion left to bless the pleading thief beside him.

• He has enough compassion left to do one last thing for his mother, as he commends her care to his friend John.

• The religious leaders gather to enjoy the spectacle of their triumph. They echo the Devil himself as they tempt Jesus to abandon his calling:

"Come on down from there—and we will believe in you! And if we believe in you, everyone will. You'll be a success, not an abject failure as you are now. Come on, now! You saved others: save yourself! You're not going any good up there. Come on down and . . . join us."

Ah, there it is: the interrogator's wheedling request, the fake solidarity, the "Help me help you" gambit. Diabolical in its deceit.

Jesus, however, is a hero. My hero. Why? He doesn't break. Ever.

Not once does he say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. No matter what is going on around him, or what is being done to him, he remains true. He remains himself.

He doesn't lose his temper, or his faith, or his purpose, or his dedication to his Father.

He concedes nothing to evil—not one word—but remains God's Good Son to the end.

It's a commonplace in "enhanced interrogation"—even a civilian like me knows it—that eventually pain and the fear of more pain drive the strongest person to compliance. Everyone breaks.

But not this man.

No matter what you chip off this rock, it remains gold. No matter how intense the pressure and no matter how high the temperature, Jesus remains pure goodness through and through.

And when (and only when) he has completed what his Father gave him to do, he masterfully gives up his spirit: not to his enemies—not to death, not to his oppressors—but to his Father.

It's God's show. It's God's project, God's mission. The enemies, and The Enemy, think that they have controlled events to produce the desired outcome. But it is the triune God who drew up the plan, assigned the roles, played the key parts, and delivered the goods.

Gentle Jesus welcoming the little ones, I am so glad you are meek and mild with us when we need you to be. But Jesus of Good Friday, you were one tough hombre when we needed you to be. Thank-you also—a thousand times, thanks—for the grit of God.