It was a strange time waiting to be wheeled into theatre. Even more so as I read that morning’s headline: Thousands dying due to NHS delays, inquiry finds.
Yesterday I found myself in the Sanderson Suite, the day case ward at St Helen’s Hospital providing minor surgical procedures. Nothing special, just the removal of a mole on the top of my head. More straight-forward, as it happened, than having a tooth filled.
For the record, my experience was first-rate. Surprisingly efficient admin, excellent (and brand-new) facilities and most importantly, friendly and competent staff. Hilariously on returning to the ward, they even conspired to fetch me a cappuccino! Brilliant, it has to be said.
Thankfully, I have had very little experience of surgery. About 25 years ago I had an endoscopy on my knee at the then newly opened Ormskirk hospital, essentially a sports injury. That’s all.
What I do remember from then is waiting to be wheeled into theatre and hearing the staff member behind me speak out in frustration: “Does anything work in this * hospital?” I had to laugh, nervously.
And that was the main difference between yesterday’s procedure and going to the dentist. At the dentist you just walk in and sit down in the treatment chair, and when it’s all over you just stand up and walk out. Simple
But when you go to the Sanderson Suite, it’s all very different. You climb onto the trolley and then they wheel you. Yesterday we took the scenic route, corridor after corridor, door after door. Apparently they use a one-way system, so you don’t pass those being wheeled out of theatre.
So there I was, being trundled around the first floor of St Helen’s Hospital, feeling a gentle draught up my legs. I guess for many patients this must be the worst part of having surgery, of losing control and knowing “This is it!”
Wonderfully I was only in theatre for 20 minutes – and that included being given the local anaesthetic. (I praise God for modern anaesthesia). As it happens I could have easily walked back to the ward – but I do understand, of course, the reason why they wheel us around.
I later shared this experience with my family, of being trundled around. My Hebraist daughter immediately referred me to the verb structure of Mark’s gospels. This may not be obvious to you and so I elaborate.
So Mark’s gospel begins with Jesus, it would seem, in a hurry. The word immediately keeps on appearing. As commentator Alison Morgan observes: “In Mark’s gospel, the narrative has a vigorous momentum. It is full of verbs, events, changes wrought by Jesus in the environment around him.”
She continues: “Most of the verbs have Jesus as their subject even when others are the protagonists – eg he wondered at their unbelief, he knew that power had gone out of him; he found the disciples.”
In other words, Jesus is in complete control: he calls the disciples, he heals the sick, he stills the storm, he rebukes the unclean spirit. All in the active voice with Jesus as the subject.
Then it all changes, when Jesus is handed over in the Garden of Gethsemane. Again to quote Morgan: “It is all now about what was done to him, not what he did. Mostly he doesn’t speak, only responds; and mostly his words are irrelevant to the actual events.“
Jesus is still the focus of the story, but he is not the subject but the object of activity. Jesus is no longer the one who does, but the one who is done to. And even his inner state becomes silent.”
The key word here is paradidomi, which literally means ‘to give into the hands of another.’ It’s what Judas does to Jesus. It is usually translated betrayed. However in the New Testament, the word ‘betrayed’ is used only once in 33 mentions of what Judas did; the other 32 times the phrase ‘handed over’ is used.
So Mark highlights the handing over of Jesus with his transition from Jesus being the subject of the verb to being the object, from the active to the passive voice. And that’s what the word passion actually means. It means ‘being passive.’ The emphasis is not primarily on suffering but on having things done to you, being a patient.
So in the same way but infinitely more sinister, as I was being trundled into theatre, so “they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha,” (Mark 15:22), as an object to be taken to a place of their choosing.
The apostle Paul shares with us his amazement: “He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?” (Romans 8:32)
Such is his love demonstrated in his complete powerlessness, being nailed to the cross, even for us. However (and this is the very heart of the Gospel) Jesus actively decided to become passive, such is the extent of his self-emptying love.
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
(Philippians 2: 6-8)
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