Public Executions
When I was a kid, my mom worried about me and my brothers watching professional wrestling. She worried it would make us violent people. And she was right! Every time the Ultimate Warrior ran down to ringside at top speed and shook the ring ropes and then press slammed some poor jobber over his head, within 10 minutes my brothers and I were wrestling, and within 11 minutes one of us was hurt (usually my big brother because I was so much stronger and faster than him). Then my mom would say, “I told you not to watch wrestling!”
I was thinking about this today and I felt relieved that my kids are older. I don't know what I would have said to my third-grade child if they asked me what a public execution was, or if they could watch it on TV. Our government didn't put executions on television when I was a kid. In fact, the last public execution in the United States took place in Kentucky in 1936. It was not broadcast on television; it was a hanging carried out in a public space.
Many Americans, including many of our grandparents and great-grandparents, believed public executions were an embarrassment to the government and to the people of the state and nation. They did not believe it was something civilized nations did, and they believed these spectacles of violence brought no benefit to society.
I think they were right to stop them, and I think it is a mistake to resume them.
Every Sunday I go to church and worship someone who was publicly executed. The Romans crucified people in order to send a message. They wanted people to be afraid of the power of Rome, and it worked. People all over the world were afraid to oppose Rome and its power, but apparently Jesus was not afraid. The many martyrs who followed his example also had enough courage in the face of overwhelming power to die for their convictions.
The public executions that day in Jerusalem did not produce the results Pilate expected. Rome intended the cross to demonstrate the power of the empire, but today billions of people remember the one they executed. The cross became not a symbol of Rome's strength but of Christ's love.
Violence can force obedience, but it cannot create belief. Fear can make people comply for a time, but it cannot change a human heart. The Romans discovered this. So did every government that has tried to intimidate its people through spectacles of violence.
When our grandparents decided that public executions were beneath the dignity of a civilized people, I think they understood something important. Justice should be serious, sober, and reluctant. It should never become entertainment. A society should not gather to celebrate death, even when the person who dies has committed terrible crimes.
Those of us who follow Jesus should understand this. We worship a Lord who forgave his executioners, who stopped Peter from answering violence with violence, and who transformed Rome's most fearful instrument of death into a sign of everlasting life. The lesson of Good Friday is not that public executions make societies stronger. The lesson is that God can bring life out of even humanity's worst moments.
I still remember my mother worrying that what we watched would shape how we thought and acted. Looking back, she was right. The things we choose to see matter. They teach us what deserves our attention, our admiration, and our imitation.
That is one reason why I hope our government changes their minds and we do not return to public executions. A healthy society should not offer its citizens, especially its children, the chance to watch people die. We can pursue justice without putting death on display. We can protect society without turning punishment into a spectacle. And as followers of Jesus, we can remember that the most famous public execution in history did not reveal the greatness of the government that carried it out. It revealed the mercy of God.
See you in church!
Fr. Tom +
