Negative Jesus

A play in which Christ is seen through negative theology.

The script begins before the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is distraught. Mary has divulged that his biological father is some unknown man. Jesus had really thought he was special, and that he could do a better job with the humans than his Father had. But being human, has taught Jesus the tendency mankind has to create big others, including himself. He is now facing death, and the fact that all he had, was a grandiose idea of who he was.

Act 1: Cognitive Dissonance Rising

Jesus: But mom, you told me God was my father.

Mary: I know, son. After what happened, believing this was how I survived.

Jesus: Claiming to be God is a felony, Mom. I’m in real trouble here. I could die.

Mary: Just because God is not your biological father, doesn’t mean you aren't special son.

Jesus: Stop it mom. Your favoritism has clearly not helped. I finally understand why Joseph has been so critical of me all these years. All I’ve developed is grandiosity to cover over my fragile ego, and the truth everyone has disavowed, including myself.

Act 2: A Silent Call

Jesus flees. A few of the disciples follow him. Jesus grumbles all the way to the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus: Disciples, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Go. Sit by the tree. I need some time alone. But don’t fall asleep. Keep watch.

Jesus looks around as if they may have been followed, then wanders off into the garden and collapses over a stone.

Jesus: If it is possible, take this hour of suffering from me!

Silence

Jesus experiences acute shame. For years he had preached about the truth setting people free. But what did he know? What lived experience did he have? His life had been cushy up until now. Cared for by a crew of others, including women who got very little recognition. Tormented by the absence of his godship narrative, Jesus weaves his fingers into his hair and pulls. Blood trickles down his cheeks and drips onto the stone. In the abyss of his destitution a presence insists from the absence. Jesus bows his head, but he is wiser now, and it’s nothingness that still greets him.

Act 3: The Nothingness that Insists

Frustrated, Jesus gets up and finds the disciples asleep. Not appreciating their lack of attention to his safe keeping, his old ways return. Narcissistic rage fills him.

Jesus: Could you men not keep watch for one hour? Geez, the spirit is willing, but the body is weak, eh?

For a second time, Jesus stomps away to despair. Being fully human, he does not want to die this way.

Jesus: If it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.

Jesus still hopes that God's will has something to do with sparing him from what he is about to endure. Some kind of Deus ex machina. You laugh, but haven’t we all prayed this prayer in our uncertainty?

Silence greets him again. He gets up and finds the disciples sleeping again. He goes away for a third time. Still nothingness. When he returns, he finds the disciples snoring. This time he wakes them by shouting.

Jesus: Are you still sleeping? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the “Son of Man” is betrayed. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer.

Judas appears. Having seen through his guru’s narcissism, he had outed Jesus to the high priest. Judas and the soldier had talked pop psychology all the way over to the garden.

As they arrive, Peter, the populist steps forward and chops off the soldier’s ear. Jesus is appalled. The last thing he wanted was violence. He had thought he was ushering in the Kingdom of Heaven. This seemed more like hell.

Act 4: Subjective Destitution

Jesus is arrested and now stands trial. None of the usual things he says to wow the crowd help him. Instead, his ego lands him in a worse predicament than the time he was almost stoned.

Pilate: Are you the King of the Jews?

Jesus: (trying to be witty) You, have said so.

In this moment Jesus becomes conscious of his egoic voice. In particular, the way in which it helps him elude the silent one. This endows him with a still voice that makes him tremble. He feels under a gaze from which he cannot hide. Humiliated, and lacking respect, he is afraid and filled with dread.

Act 5: Power in Powerless

Caesar commands the soldiers to flog Jesus, but not kill him.

During the flogging, Jesus cries out. The nothingness he experienced in the garden greets him again. This time it translates as a call. A voice which says nothing but insists as pure injunction. The voice is silent, but one he cannot silence. It commands nothing specific of him, and offers him no guarantees. He acquiesces to the absent presence. The pain he feels transforms into heat.

Crowd: Crucify him!

Jesus picks up his cross. The x which marks the spot of his splitting from primary narcissism to subjective destitution, weighs heavy on his back. Jesus recalls the week prior, when this same crowd celebrated him as their King. Now, they deny and damn him. How ironic he rode into the city on the very day the people chose their so-called spotless lamb for Passover. What lamb is perfect anyway? Nothing is without flaw. Math, science, God and Jesus Christ. All imperfect and necessarily so. Humans like to pretend there is such a thing as wholeness and completeness. Toxic people and those who are not. They cancel, they crucify. They focus on centering and never decentering. Excess and rarely lack. They stare at the stars and never the holy and necessary separation of the space between.

A soldier picks up a hammer and nails.

Between the punctures, Jesus ponders. Is this the word became flesh? Not just me being human, but the lived experience of subjective destitution?

Soldier: King of the Jews!

The soldier fastens the sign INRI above Jesus.

Jesus: Forgive them. They know not what they do.

How foolish he had been to think authority on earth could be bent. He now knew he would have to go to the depths. He would have to be negative Jesus. Enacting something like giving someone enough rope to hang themselves, only with grace and freedom, and not judgment and condemnation.

Jesus: My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!

His cry, the death of his prior reasoning. The death of his big other. In awe, he closes his eyes so he can see, then hangs his head before the nothingness that was key.

The soldier pierces Jesus’ side to make sure his body was dead.

Act 6: A Presence in the Absence

At the tomb, Mary M perceives the gardener as Jesus. She, like so many of us, sees her loved one in the face of another.

Jesus: Do not cling to this version of me.

Mary M: But …

Jesus: For the Holy Spirit to come, I had to physically leave.

Later, Thomas ignores Jesus' body, and peers into the hole in Jesus’ side. Does he see the liminal space that holds the key?

Jesus: I leave with you the Holy Spirit.

At this point in the story, the question to ask is, how are we living? Under some big other god clinging to Jesus? Or filled with the Holy Spirit that subjective destitution brings?

Act 7: The Uncanny Paradox

Through the gaze of the crucifix, people have resurrected Christ for over two millennia. In so doing, Jesus has become more of a presence to the world in his absence, than when he walked the earth. Why is it that some of us cannot look away? Is Christ's story, our story? The apostle Paul said, “Go. Live out your death.” Is this what is meant by the word became flesh? Not incarnation, nor physical resurrection, but the lived experience of subjective destitution? If so, Godspeed.