The high point of the Christian year is Passion week. The suffering and death of Christ is the focal point in salvation history, and the Passion narratives of our Gospel writers comprise the very heart of the gospel. The gospel is called "the word of the cross" (1 Cor 1:18). In his brief summary of the gospel in his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul writes, "For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with...