Tortured Christ

Every so often, I find myself thinking about this sculpture. I know it's disturbing, and I've posted it before. But I've never seen anything that so well captures Christ's agony on the Cross as he suffers the penalty for our sin, bearing the weight of God's wrath.

It is the work of Guido Rocha, a Brazilian sculptor who died in 2007. This sculpture was displayed at the World Council of Churches Assembly in Nairobi, 1975.

In front of the sculpture was this inscription:
Today, increasingly, the so-called western Christian civilization sees itself faced with two Christs: the Christ of the oppressors and the Christ of the oppressed. The Christ of the oppressors is the one which submits, without struggle, to exploitation, absolves the sins of the torturers and threatens with hell the "laziness" of the undernourished peasant's son. For us, as artists of Latin America, the Christ of the oppressed is born in the soul of the people. His cry is a weapon of struggle, who creates out of his weakness the strength to struggle against the exploitation of man by man. - Guido Rocha

What I find astounding is that the WCC had it removed. It was too disturbing. I find that disturbing. Oh the price we pay when we can only accept an un-disturbing view of the Cross of Christ.