Religion
In reply to the discussion: Progressive Christians, what do you tell your children Easter is about? [View all]deutsey
(20,166 posts)When I took a New Testament course led by a Jesuit theologian, I started looking at the crucifixion/resurrection differently.
He basically emphasized that the crucifixion was not a blood sacrifice to make everything ok between God and humanity. He said that historical Jesus taught the in-breaking of the new reality of the "kingdom of God" in his time and place. This new reality welcomed everyone as God's children, not just the rich, powerful, and religiously correct, but especially the poor, marginalized, and outcaste. At the heart of this new reality was new community with a radical trust in God, or what Jesus called "abba" "daddy."
According to the theologian, this was possibly what the historical Jesus believed was his role: to proclaim that the kingdom is at hand and to help bring it into its fullest expression through how he lived his life; his role wasn't to walk around preaching for a few years before going off to shed his magical blood and save the world from sin.
This inclusive new reality that he embodied and lived out, of course, threatened the Powers That Be at the time (the repressive religious/political/economic/social structures that benefited from keeping people poor, marginalized, and outcaste). Especially when Jesus goes into Jerusalem for Passover with a sizable crowd following him and reclaims the temple for this new reality.
He's eventually executed in such a way that struck at the very heart of his claim that the kingdom is at hand and that we should embrace a radical trust in God. As he died on the cross, Jesus himself was probably wondering in anguish about the validity of what he had preached and lived out ("My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" .
But even in his deepest despair and doubt, Jesus choose to remain steadfast in his faith and belief that the kingdom was at hand and even while he may die, he believed God was ultimately in control and would transform the catastrophe of his crucifixion into something powerfully transformative itself.
His resurrection was the result of that. Whether he was actually raised from the dead or not, his disciples began to understand and experience the new reality he preached in a new and deeper way after his death, in a way that did indeed radically transform them.
They did apparently believe he was going to return soon, which explains why the Gospels weren't written until decades later. Initially, the early followers went around proclaiming that the new kingdom reality was a hand and that the parousia (return of Jesus as the complete fulfillment of that reality) would be soon. As time went on and that didn't happen, however, the new reality eventually solidified into a new religion.
I think I got that right (it was back in the '90s when I took this class, so it may not be comprehensive). All of this, of course, is much more difficult to sum up than parroting a bumpersticker slogan like "Jesus died for your sins."