Crying toddlers on a Good Friday afternoon

The child Jesus of "The Passion of the Christ"

Today I attended my church's Stations of the Cross performed by the youth group, prior to the regular Good Friday service.

There was a family sitting in front of me with two small children - the little boy seemed maybe two or three. The boy was fidgety, as small children often are during long church occasions, but his mom pointed out the scenes taking place in the Stations, and he began paying attention.

When we reached the crucifixion, the little boy had become so taken by the performance that he became visibly upset. When we reached the 12th Station, "Jesus Dies on the Cross" - in which the teenager playing Jesus let out an enormous, jarring breath and convincingly "died" - the little guy was wailing and asking to "go bye-bye." The mom took the weeping child out of church.

Now. This was no Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. This was your typical church production, played with varying levels of talent and costume authenticity, more for spiritual edification than for critics' acclaim.

But by the end of the performance, many of us were honestly moved as the group of youth carried the cloth-wrapped "Jesus" to an improvised tomb in the wall of the church. Moved ... but not to the degree of the toddler who sat in front of me.

The little boy saw it like it was: Jesus is up there in the front of the church, and Jesus just died. 

I'm sure the child's mom explained to him that this wasn't actually Jesus, the actor was pretending to die, etc.; at any rate, a calmed little boy came back into the church later on.

I reflected on this, though. Small children haven't seen as much of the world in their short lives, but they know sadness and pain when they see it. Anyone with kids or younger siblings knows that it doesn't take much to upset most children: their worlds are easily shaken.

When we grow up, our matured perspectives tell us that crying over small things is silly. Generally this is good, and at least makes for more comfortable social interaction with our peers and co-workers.

However, we can also reach a point where we've become too toughened to things. Our hearts can become like ice, or like stone, or whatever hardened heart analogy you prefer. The concept of a man dying on a cross becomes at once commonplace and not very shocking.

O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor once wrote that,

"...to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures."  (The Fiction Writer and His Country)

Most of us, especially us grown-ups, have become hard of hearing and almost blind to the rather alarming nature of a crucifixion.

At best, we don't even blink at images like crucifixes (which used to awaken horror in ancient people); at worst, we make jokes about this being an outdated religious sentiment. It takes shouting and startling figures to wake us up to realize this is a big deal.

Shouting and startling figures. Or, a crying toddler in church on a Friday afternoon.