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by Ignacio Ellacuría
Chapter 15 from Systematic Theology - Perspectives
from Liberation Theology
edited by Jon Sobrino, S.J. and Ignacio
Ellacuria, S.J.
SCM Press Ltd 1996 pg 257-278
If we are to understand what the people of God is, it is very important
that we open our eyes to the reality around us, the reality of the world in
which the church has existed for almost two thousand years, since Jesus
announced the approach of the Reign of God. This reality is simply the
existence of a vast portion of humankind, which is literally and actually
crucified by natural oppressions and especially by historical and personal
oppressions. This reality prompts in the Christian spirit inescapable
questions:
What does the fact that most of humankind is oppressed mean for
salvation history and in salvation history?
Can we regard suffering
humankind as saved in history when it continues to bear the sins of the world?
Can we regard it as savior of the world precisely because it bears the sins
of the world?
What is its relationship with the church as sacrament of
salvation?
Is this suffering humankind something essential when it comes
time to reflect on what the people of God is and what the church is?
Posing these questions indicates the historic gravity and theological
relevance of the issue. Many christological and ecclesiological topics are
wrapped up in this question; in fact, we could say that we find here the whole
of christology and ecclesiology in their character as historic soteriology. How
is the salvation of humankind achieved starting from Jesus? Who continues in
history this essential function, this saving mission that the Father entrusted
to the Son? The answer to these questions can give historic flesh to the people
of God, and thus avoid dehistoricizing this basic concept, and also avoid
spiritualizing or ideologizing it falsely. Historic soteriology provides an
essential perspective in this regard.
Historic soteriology here means something referring to salvation, as it
is presented in revelation. But the accent falls on its historic character and
that in a double sense: as the achievement of salvation in the one and only
human history and as humankind’s active participation in that salvation,
and specifically the participation of oppressed humankind. Which historically
oppressed humankind it is that preeminently continues the saving work of Jesus,
and the extent to which it does so, is something to be uncovered throughout
this chapter. That task is one of the things required of historic soteriology
and clarifies what such a soteriology must be. To begin with, it must be a
soteriology whose essential reference point is the saving work of Jesus, but it
must likewise be a soteriology that actualizes in history this saving work and
does so as the continuation and following of Jesus and his work.
The analysis will be carried out from only one angle: the passion and
death which unify the figure of Jesus with that of oppressed humankind. There
are other angles but this one is essential and merits study by itself. At this
point all life flows together and from it the future of history opens
outward.
I. THE PASSION OF JESUS AS SEEN FROM THE CRUCIFIED
PEOPLE;
THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE PEOPLE AS SEEN FROM THE DEATH OF JESUS
Here we have something required by theological method as understood in
Latin American theology: any situation in history should be considered from the
angle of its corresponding key in revelation, but the focus on revelation
should derive from the history to which it is addressed although not any moment
in history is equally valid for providing a proper focus. The first aspect
seems obvious from the angle of Christian faith, even though it conceals a
problem: that of finding the proper key in order not to take as the key for one
situation one proper to another. The second aspect, which has a circular
relationship with the previous one, is not so obvious, especially if we mean
that the situation enriches and makes present the fullness of revelation, and
if we mean that revelation cannot bear its fullness and its authenticity in any
situation whatsoever.
In this instance we confront two crucial poles with regard to both
revelation and situation. Treating them together clarifies a basic problem: the
historicity of the passion of Jesus and the saving character of the crucifixion
of the people. In other words, both the saving character of the salvation of
Jesus and the saving character of the history of crucified humankind are
clarified, once it is accepted that salvation is present in Jesus and this
salvation must be worked out within humankind. Both the passion of Jesus and
the crucifixion of the people are thereby enriched, and that means an
enrichment of Jesus and of the people. However, that approach faces a very
serious problem: making sense of the seeming failure involved in the
crucifixion of a people after the definitive proclamation of salvation.
Involved here is not only the failure of history, but also the direction and
meaning in history for the vast majority of humankind, and even more important,
the historic task of saving it.
Hence, the focus here is primarily soteriological. The accent will fall
not on what Jesus and the people are, but on what they represent for the
salvation of humankind. Of course we cannot separate what are called the
ontological from the soteriological aspects, but we can accent one side or the
other. Here the accent will be on the soteriological aspects, keeping in mind
that the aim is not to reduce the being and mission of Jesus nor the being and
mission of the people to the dimension of soteriology in history, although
neither being nor mission in either case is properly illuminated if
soteriological reflection is left aside.
If this warning is important for avoiding one-sided reflections on
Jesus, which are so only if they are absolutized, it is also important for
avoiding confusion about the historic task that falls to the oppressed people
in their struggles in history. This task does not come down to simply that
which shines out when it is likened to the passion and death of Jesus. Neither
Jesus nor the crucified people, as they will be considered here, are the only
salvation of history, although the salvation of history cannot reach
fulfillment without both of them, even with respect to salvation in history.
The former is clear and acknowledged, as long as the structural complexity of
human history is taken into account; the latter is clear for believers, at
least with regard to the first term, but it must be proven to nonbelievers.
This should be done in such a way that their contribution to salvation is the
historic verification of Christian salvation; at the same time, it should not
be turned into a sweetening and mystification that would hinder the political
organization of the people and their effective contribution to liberation in
history.
To propose salvation on the basis of the crucifixion of Jesus and the
people assumes the same scandal and madness, especially if we wish to give to
salvation a content that can be verified in the reality of history, where
verifiable does not mean exhaustible.
Today from a Christian standpoint it is not scandalous to say that life
comes from the death of Jesus in history, even though it was indeed a scandal
for those who witnessed that death and had to proclaim it. Nevertheless, we
must recover that scandal and madness if we do not want to vitiate the
history-making truth of the passion of Jesus. We must do that in three
dimensions: with regard to Jesus himself, who only gradually was able to
comprehend the true path toward proclaiming and bringing about the Reign of
God; with regard to those who persecuted him to death, because they could not
accept that salvation involved particular positions in history; and finally,
with regard to scandal in the church, which leads the church to avoid passing
through the passion when it proclaims the resurrection.
It is indeed scandalous to hold the needy and the oppressed as the
salvation of the world in history. It is scandalous for many believers who no
longer think they see anything striking in the proclamation that the death of
Jesus brought life to the world, but who cannot accept in theory, and much less
in practice, that today this life-giving death goes by way of the oppressed
part of humankind. It is likewise scandalous to those who seek the liberation
of humankind in history. It is easy to regard the oppressed and needy as those
who are to be saved and liberated. but it is not easy to see them as saviors
and liberators.
Whether or not it is a scandal to hold that the passion and crucifixion
of Jesus and of the people are central for human salvation, it is clear that
precisely because of its implausibility as salvation, the passion of Jesus
casts light on the implausibility of the people’s crucifixion as
salvation, while this latter hinders a naive or ideologized reading of the
former.
On the one hand, the resurrection of Jesus and its effects in history
are hope and future for those who remain in the time of passion. Certainly
Jesus maintained hope in the definitive victory of God’s Reign, to which
he devoted his life and for which he died. Behind Luke 22:1018 (and its
parallel, Mark 14:25), despite the touching up done by the early community, we
can reconstruct a double prophecy of the death of Jesus: after his death, Jesus
will again celebrate the passover and will organize a banquet in the Reign of
God, which of necessity must arrive. His death will not prevent the salvation
to come and he himself will not remain imprisoned by death forever. Hence, as
Schürmann says, the inbreaking of the Reign and Jesus’ sudden death
are not to be separated. Jesus’ death is inseparably connected to the
eschatological and historic coming of the Reign, and for that purpose the
resurrection means not only a verification or consolation, but the assurance
that this work must continue and that he remains alive to continue it.
This hope of Jesus was not of such a nature that the passion ceased
being so, even to his anguished cry of abandonment on the cross. His struggle
for the Reign, and his certainty that the Reign of God would triumph
definitively, did not prevent him from “seeing” the connection
between his personal days of tears, between the momentary failure of the coming
of the Kingdom, and the glory of final victory. That is why he is an example
for those who look more like the wretched of the earth than like its saviors.
In being condemned personally, Jesus had to learn the road to definitive
salvation - a salvation, let us repeat once more, that was essentially a matter
of the coming of God’s Reign and not a personal resurrection separate from
what had been his earthly preaching of the Reign.
On the other hand, the ongoing passion of the people and paralleling it
the historic reign of sin as opposing the Reign of God - do not permit a
reading of the death and resurrection of Jesus removed from history. The
fundamental flaw in such a reading would lie in uprooting the history of the
Reign of God so as to relegate it to a stage beyond history, so that it would
no longer make sense to continue within history the life and mission of Jesus,
who announced the Reign. That would be a betrayal of Jesus’ life and
death, which was entirely devoted not to himself but to the Reign. Moreover,
identifying the Reign with the resurrection of Jesus would leave unfulfilled
Jesus’ message which predicted persecutions and death for those who were
to continue his work. When Paul speaks of what is still wanting in the passion
of Christ, he is rejecting a resurrection that ignores what is happening on
earth. It is precisely the reign of sin that continues to crucify most of
humankind and that obliges us to make real in history the death of Jesus as the
actualized passover of the Reign of God.
II. THEOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE CROSS IN SALVATION
HISTORY
An ascetic and moralizing focus on the Christian cross has nullified the
importance of the cross in history and led to a rejection of everything that
has to do with it. Such a rejection is fully justified if it is not simply a
matter of the immature out- burst of people being liberated from their
emotional fantasies. The renewal of the mystery of the cross has little to do
with gratuitous repression, which places the cross where one wants it and not
in its real site, as though what Jesus had sought for himself was death on the
cross and not the proclamation of the Reign.
Even more dangerous is the effort to evade the history of the cross in
those theologies of creation and resurrection that at most make of the cross an
incident or an isolated mystery that mystically projects its efficacy over
human relationships with God.
A “naturalistic” view of creation, as faith inspired as it
might regard itself, is ignorant of the novelty of the Christian God revealed
in salvation history. It even ignores the fact that Israel did not come to the
idea of the creator God through rational reflection on the course of nature,
but through theological reflection on what had happened to the chosen people.
Von Rad has shown clearly that it is in the political struggles of the Exodus
that Israel becomes aware that Yahweh is its savior and redeemer, that this
salvation has been conceived as the creation and launching of a people, and
that faith in God who creates the world is a subsequent discovery that occurs
when the historic experience of the people of Israel in the failure of the
Exile gradually points it toward a universalizing consciousness, which demands
a universal God, creator of all humans. Hence a faith apart from history, a
faith apart from historic events, whether in the life of Jesus or in the life
of humankind, is not a Christian faith. It would be at best a somewhat
corrected version of theism.
Neither is a position that takes its support exclusively from the faith
experience of the Risen One and ignores the historic roots of the resurrection.
That temptation is an ancient one, and most probably came up even in the early
communities, forcing them to emphasize very soon the continuity of the Risen
One with the Crucified One. Otherwise, people live with the false assumption
that the struggle against sin and death is over with the triumph of the
resurrection. The Reign of God again would be reduced to something in the
future, which either does not require human effort (because it is imminent), or
reduces the Reign to the resurrection of the dead (because it is a long way
off). If the life of the Risen One victorious over death is the future of
salvation for Christians and for a new humankind, as Pannenberg points out, the
life of the Risen One is the same life as that of Jesus of Nazareth, who was
crucified for us, so that the immortal life of the Risen One is the future of
salvation only insofar as we abandon ourselves to obedience to the Crucified
One, who can overcome sin.
Hence, to connect creation and resurrection is false from a Christian
viewpoint, whatever the understanding of the original “image and
likeness,” the historic process of death and resurrection. Every process
in history is a creation of the future and not merely a renewal of the past.
The fallen human is not restored, but rather the new human is built up; that
new human is built up in the resurrection of one who has struggled from death
against sin. To put it another way, eschatological hope is expressed equally as
Reign of God and as resurrection of the dead, which for Pannenberg-who is not
exactly a liberation theologian-means that the Reign of God is not possible as
a community of human beings in perfect peace and total justice, without a
radical change of the natural conditions that are present in human life, a
change that is called the resurrection of the dead. He also says that the
individual destiny and the political destiny of human beings go hand in hand.
Thus, the resurrection points back toward the crucifixion: the Crucified
One rises, and rises because he was crucified; since his life was taken away
for proclaiming the Reign, he receives a new life as fulfillment of the Reign
of God. Thus, the resurrection points back toward the passion, and the passion
points toward Jesus’ life as proclaimer of the Reign. As is well-known,
that is the sequence followed in putting the gospels together. The need to
historicize the experience of the Risen One leads to a reflection on the
passion story, which occupies a disproportionately large space in the gospel
accounts, and which, in turn, requires historical justification in the
narration of the life of Jesus. In any case, the gospels as a whole seek to
give theological weight to two facts that are part of a single reality: the
fact of Jesus’ failure in the scandal of his death, and the fact of the
persecution that the early communities soon undergo.
Hence, this is not an expiatory masochism of a spiritualizing sort, but
the discovery of something real in history. It is not a matter of grief and
mortification, but of making a break and a commitment. Jesus’ death makes
it clear why really proclaiming salvation runs up against the resistance of the
world, and why the Reign of God does combat with the reign of sin. That is made
manifest both in the death of the prophet, the one sent by God, and in the
ravaging and death of humankind at the hands of those who make themselves gods,
lording it over humankind. If a spiritualizing approach to the passion leads to
an evasion of that commitment to history that leads to persecution and death, a
historic commitment to the crucified people makes it necessary to examine the
theological meaning of this death, and thus, to go back to the redeeming
passion of Jesus. Reflecting historically on the death of Jesus helps us to
reflect theologically on the death of the oppressed people, and the latter
points back toward the former.
III. THE DEATH OF JESUS AND THE CRUCIFIXION OF
THE PEOPLE ARE REALITIES OF HISTORY AND THE RESULT OF ACTIONS IN HISTORY
1. Historic Necessity of Jesus’ Death
We may admit that the death of Jesus and the crucifixion of the people
are necessary, but only if we speak of a necessity in history and not a merely
natural necessity. It is precisely their nature as historic necessity that
clarifies the deep reality of what happens in history, at the same time as it
opens the way toward transforming history. That would not be the case if we
were dealing with a merely natural necessity.
The scriptures themselves point out this necessity when they try to
justify the passion of Jesus, and they even formulate it as a kind of
principle: “Did not the Messiah have to undergo all this so as to enter
into his glory?” (Luke 24:36). But this “having to” undergo
“so as to” reach fulfillment is a historical “having to.”
It is historic not because the prophets had announced it, but because the
prophets prefigured the events in what happened to them. Through what happened
to the prophets, this necessity is grounded in the opposition between the
proclamation of the Reign and the fact that sin is obviously a reality in
history. The resistance of the oppressive powers and the struggle for
liberation in history brought them persecution and death, but this resistance
and struggle were simply the consequence in history of a life in response to
God’s word. That long experience, explicitly recalled by Jesus, leads to
the conclusion that in our historic world arriving at the glory of God requires
passing through persecution and death. The reason could not be clearer: If the
Reign of God and the reign of sin are two opposed realities, and human beings
of flesh and blood are the standard bearers of both, then those who wield the
power of oppressive domination cannot but exercise it against those who have
only the power of their word and their life, offered for the salvation of many.
Hence, this is not the biological image of a seed dying in order to bear
fruit, nor of a dialectical law that demands undergoing death in order to reach
new life. Of course, there are scripture texts that speak of the need for the
seed to die; these texts point toward the necessity and the dialectical
movement of this necessity, but they do not make it “natural.” Making
it natural would entail both eliminating the responsibility of those who kill
prophets and those who crucify humankind, thereby veiling the aspect of sin in
historic evil; it would also imply that the new life could emerge without the
activity of human beings, who would not need to be converted internally or to
rebel against what is outside. It is true that biological images of the Reign
sometimes emphasize how the growth is God’s affair, but we cannot,
thereby, conclude that human beings should cease caring for the field of
history.
Necessity in history, on the other hand, forces us to emphasize the
determining causes of what happens. Theologically speaking, the fundamental
cause is expressed countless times to scripture: passing from death to glory is
necessary only given the fact of sin, a sin that takes possession of the human
heart, but especially a sin in history that collectively rules over the world
and over peoples. There is, in Moingt’s phrase, a “theological and
collective sin,” and it is to that sin that the proclamation of the death
of Christ for our sins refers, not directly to our individual and ethical sins;
it is a “collective reality,” grounding and making possible
individual sins. It is this theological and collective sin that destroys
history and hinders the future that God wanted for history; this collective sin
is what causes death to reign over the world, and hence, we must be freed from
our collective work of death in order to form once more the people of God. It
is Moingt himself who goes so far as to say that redemption is simultaneously
“the political liberation of the people and their conversion to God.”
This historic necessity differs in its relationship to death and to
glory: it is necessary to go through death to reach glory, but glory need not
follow death. There is one attitude for struggling against death and another
for receiving life. In both cases, there is something external to the
individual human being. The evil of the world, the sin of the world, is not
simply the sum of particular individual actions, nor are these foreign to this
sin that dominates them; likewise, the forgiveness and transformation of the
world are things that human beings initially receive so as to then offer their
own contribution. The external aspect is different in the case of evil and of
good, of sin and grace; sin is the work of human beings, and grace is
God’s work, although it is something that operates within and through
human beings, and thus, there is no question of passivity. Although God gives
the growth, the effort of human beings is not excluded but in fact is required,
especially for destroying the objective embodiment of sin, and then for
building up the objective embodiment of grace. Otherwise, necessity would not
have any historic character but would be purely natural, and the human being
would be either the absolute negation of God or a mere executor of presumably
divine designs.
The “necessary” character of Jesus’ death is seen only
after the fact. Neither his disciples nor he himself saw in the beginning and
not through reflection on scripture, that the proclamation and victory of the
Reign had to go by way of death. When it happened, the surprised minds of the
believers found in Gods designs, manifested in the words and deeds of the
scriptures Moses and the prophets Yahweh the signs of the divine will that made
death “necessary.”
This “necessity” is not based on notions of expiation and
sacrifice. In fact, when the Servant of Yahweh in Deutero-Isaiah is used to
explain the meaning of the death of Jesus, the thread of discourse is not
“sin-offense-victim-expiation-forgiveness.” This framework, which may
have some validity for particular mindsets and which expresses some valid
points, may turn into an evasion of what must be done in history in order to
eliminate the sin of the world. In times when consciences were oppressed or
felt oppressed by a Christianity centered on the idea of sin, of guilt and of
eternal condemnation, it was utterly necessary that there be a framework of
forgiveness, in which a God offended forgave sin and wiped out condemnation.
But even with its valid points this framework does not emphasize either the
collective embodiment of sin or human activity-destroying injustice and
building love-which are “necessary” in history. A new theology of sin
must move beyond the expiatorial frameworks but should not permit the existence
of sin itself to be forgotten. To forget it would, among other things, leave
the field open to the forces of oppression, which are overwhelmingly dominant
in our world, and it would also neglect the area of personal conversion.
2. Implications
Emphasizing the historic character of the death of Jesus is fundamental
for Christology and for a history-engaged soteriology, which as such would take
on a new meaning.
The historic character of the death of Jesus entails, to begin with,
that his death took place for historic reasons. New christologies are
increasingly emphasizing this point. Jesus dies - is killed as both the four
gospels and Acts so insist - because of the historic life he led, a life of
deeds and words that those who represented and held the reins of the religious,
socioeconomic and political situation could not tolerate. That he was regarded
as a blasphemer, one who was destroying the traditional religious order, one
who upset the social structure, a political agitator, and so forth, is simply
to recognize from quite distinct angles that the activity, word, and very
person of Jesus in the proclamation of the Reign were so assertive and so
against the established order and basic institutions that they had to be
punished by death. Dehistoricizing this radical reality leads to mystical
approaches to the problem, not by way of deepening but by way of escape.
We cannot simply settle the matter of the “died for our sins”
by means of the expiatory victim, thereby leaving the direction of history
untouched. It likewise implies that Jesus followed a particular direction in
history not because it would lead to death or because he was seeking a
redemptive death, but rather because that was what truly proclaiming the Reign
of God demanded. Whether the emphasis be on the soteriological character of
Jesus’ death, as in Paul, or on the soteriological character of the
resurrection, as in Luke, it cannot be forgotten that the historic Jesus sought
for himself neither death nor resurrection but the proclamation of the Reign of
God to the point of death, and that brought resurrection. Jesus saw that his
action was leading to a mortal showdown with those who could take his life, and
it is utterly inconceivable that he did not realize that he was probably going
to die, and even soon, and realize why this was so.
Indeed, he was aware earlier and better of the saving value - in a broad
sense - of his person and his life than of the saving value of his death. He
does not begin by focus" ing his activity on waiting for death but on the
proclamation of the Reign; even when he sees death as a real possibility, he
does not hesitate in that proclamation or shrink back from his conflict with
power. Putting all the saving value on his death cannot be reconciled with his
life and his demands of his disciples; it cannot be said that there is in him a
gradual shift from life to death as the center of his message, since ever in
the many texts about following him being difficult and contradictory, the
accent is on the continuity of life with death and not on the break of death
with regard to the way of salvation that his life represents.
Salvation,
therefore, cannot be made exclusively a matter of the mystical fruits of the
death of Jesus, separating it from his real and verifiable behavior. It is not
merely a passive and obedient acceptance of a natural fate, let alone a fate
imposed by the Father. It is, at least in a first level, an action that leads
to life by way of death, in such a way that in the case of Jesus what is
salvific cannot be separated from what is historic. Consequently, Jesus’
death is not the end of the meaning of his life, but the end of that pattern
that must be repeated and followed in new lives with the hope of resurrection
and thereby the seal of exaltation. Jesus’ death is the final meaning of
his life only because the death toward which his life led him shows what was
likewise the historic meaning and the theological meaning of his life. It is,
thus, his life that provides the ultimate meaning of his death, and only as a
consequence does his death, which has received its initial meaning from his
life, give meaning to his life. Therefore, his followers should not focus
primarily on death as sacrifice, but on the life of Jesus, which will only
really be his life if it leads to the same consequences as his life did.
Historic soteriology is a matter of seeking where and how the saving
action of Jesus was carried out in order to pursue it in history. Of course, in
one sense, the life and death of Jesus is over and done, since what took place
in them is not simply a mere fact whose value is the same as that of any other
death that might take place in the same circumstances, but was, indeed, the
definitive presence of God among human beings. But his life and this death
continue on earth and not just in heaven; the uniqueness of Jesus is not in his
standing apart from humankind, but in the definitive character of his person
and in the. saving all-presence that is his. All the insistence on his role as
head to a body, and on the sending of his Spirit, through whom his work is to
be continued, point toward this historic current of his earthly life. The
continuity is not purely mystical and sacramental, just as his activity on
earth was not purely mystical and sacramental. In other words, worship,
including the celebration of the eucharist, is not the whole of the presence
and continuity of Jesus; there must be a continuation in history that carries
out what he carried out in his life and as he carried it out. We should
acknowledge a trans-historic dimension in Jesus’ activity, as we should
acknowledge it in his personal biography, but this trans-historic dimension
will only be real if it is indeed trans-historic, that is, if it goes through
history. Hence, we must ask who continues to carry out in history what his life
and death was about.
3. The Crucified People, Principle of Universal Salvation
We can approach the question by taking into account that there is a
crucified people, whose crucifixion is the product of actions in history.
Establishing that may not be enough to prove that this crucified people is the
continuation in history of the life and death of Jesus. But before delving into
other aspects which prove that such is the case, it is well to take the same
starting point as that of the saving value of the death and life of Jesus.
What is meant by crucified people here is that collective body, which as
the majority of humankind owes its situation of crucifixion to the way society
is organized and maintained by a minority that exercises its dominion through a
series of factors, which taken together and given their concrete impact within
history, must be regarded as sin. This is not a purely individual way of
looking at every person who suffers even due to unjust actions by others or
because such a person is immolated in the struggle against the prevailing
injustice. Although looking collectively at the crucified people does not
exclude an individual perspective, the latter is subsumed in the former, since
that is its historic context. Nor is the viewpoint here one of looking at
purely natural misfortunes, although natural evils play a role, albeit
derivatively, insofar as they take place in a particular order within
history.
Not only is it not foreign to scripture to regard a collective body as
subject of salvation, but that is in fact its primordial thrust. For example,
as J. Jeremias points out, an individual can only become a servant of Yahweh
insofar as he or she is a member of the people of Israel, since salvation is
offered primarily to the people and within the people. The communal experience
that the root of individual sins is in a presence of a supra-individual sin and
that each one’s life is shaped by the life of the people in which he or
she lives, makes it connatural to experience that both salvation and perdition
are played out primarily in this collective dimension. The modern concern to
highlight the individual side of human existence will be faithful to reality
only if it does not ignore its social dimension. That is not the case in the
individualistic and idealistic frenzied individualism and idealism that is so
characteristic of Western culture, or at least of its elites. All the
selfishness and social irresponsibility borne by this notion is but the reverse
proof of how false this exaggeration is. There is no need to deny the
collective and structural dimension in order to give scope to the full
development of the person.
From a theological standpoint, this assertion is not arbitrary, and it
is even less so in terms of the real situation. It is something obvious in
historical experience now viewed from the standpoint of soteriology. One who is
concerned as a believer for the sin and salvation of the world cannot but
realize that in history humanity is crucified in this concrete form of the
crucified people; by the same token one who reflects as a believer on the
mangled reality of this crucified people must inquire what there is of sin and
need for salvation here. In view of this situation, which is so extensive and
so serious, considering the particular cases of those who do not belong to the
crucified people becomes quite a secondary matter, although we should here
repeat that the universalist and structural approach by no means has to do away
with the individualistic and psychological approach, but simply provides it
with a framework rooted in reality. What Christian faith adds after it is
really clear that there is a crucified people is the suspicion that, besides
being the main object of the effort of salvation, it might also in its very
crucified situation be the principle of salvation for the whole world.
This is not the place to determine the extent and the nature of the
ongoing oppression of the bulk of humankind today or to carry out a detailed
study of its causes. Although it is one of the fundamental realities that
should serve as a starting point for theological reflection, and although it
has been scandalously ignored by those who theorize from the geographical world
of the oppressors, it is so obvious and wide’spread that it needs no
explanation. What it does need is to be lived experientially.
Now although there are undeniably “natural” elements in the
present situation of injustice that defines our world, there is also undeniably
a side that derives from actions in history. Just as in the case of Jesus, we
cannot speak of a purely natural necessity, so the oppression of the crucified
people derives from a necessity in history: the necessity that many suffer so a
few may enjoy, that many be dispossessed so that a few may possess. Moreover,
the repression of the people’s vanguards follows the same pattern as the
case of Jesus, although with different meanings.
This general formulation should be made in historic terms. It does not
happen everywhere in the same way or for the same reasons, since the general
pattern of the oppression of humans by humans takes on very different forms
both collectively and individually. In our universal situation today,
oppression has some overall characteristics in history that cannot be ignored,
and those who do not take a stand on the side of liberation are culpable,
whether actively or passively.
Thus, within this collective and overall framework more specific
analysis must be carried out. While maintaining the universal pattern of people
crucifying others in order to live themselves, the subsystems of crucifixion
that exist in both groups, oppressors and oppressed, should also be examined.
As has often been pointed out, in a number of ways among the oppressed
themselves, some put themselves at the service of the oppressors or give free
rein to their impulses to dominate. This serious problem forces us to get
beyond simplistic formulas with regard to both the causes of oppression and to
its forms, so as not to fall into a Manichean division of the world, which
would situate all good in the world on one side and all evil on the other. It
is precisely a structural way of looking at the problem that enables us to
avoid the error of seeing as good all the individuals on one side and as evil
those on the other side, thus leaving aside the problem of personal
transformation. Flight from one’s own death in a continual looking out for
oneself and not acknowledging that we gain life when we surrender it to others,
is no doubt a temptation that is permanent and inherent in the human being, one
that structures and history modulate but do not abolish.
The focus on the death of Jesus and the crucifixion of the people, the
fact that they refer back and forth to each other, makes both take on a new
light. The crucifixion of the people avoids the danger of mystifying the death
of Jesus, and the death of Jesus avoids the danger of extolling salvifically
the mere fact of the crucifixion of the people, as though the brute fact of
being crucified of itself were to bring about resurrection and life. We must
shed light on this crucifixion out of what Jesus was in order to see the
salvific scope and the Christian nature of this salvation. To that end we must
examine the principles of life, that are intermingled with the principles of
death; although the presence of sin and death is overwhelming in human history,
the presence of grace and of life is also very prominent and palpable. We must
not lose sight of either aspect. Indeed, salvation can only be understood as a
victory of life over death, a victory already announced in the resurrection of
Jesus, but one that must be won in a process of following his steps.
IV. JESUS’ DEATH AND THE PEOPLE’S
CRUCIFIXION IN TERMS OF THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH
One of the approaches on which the primitive Christian community
fastened in order to understand Jesus’ death, and give it its adequate
value, was the figure of the Servant of Yahweh as described in Second Isaiah.
This entitles us to appeal once more to the Suffering Servant in order to see
what, in one of its aspects, the death of Jesus was, and especially what, in
one of its aspects, the crucifixion of the people is.
Thus, this section will have three parts. In the first, we shall list
some of the characteristics of the Servant as proposed in Second Isaiah. In the
second part, we shall align these characteristics with the concrete reality of
Jesus’ life and death. Finally, in the third part of this section, we
shall draw up a corresponding list of what are or ought to be the
characteristics of the oppressed people if they are to be the extension of
Jesus’ redemptive work. The first two parts will be orientated toward the
third: thus, even if we do not manage to show that the oppressed people are the
historical extension of the crucifixion, and of the Crucified one, at all
events we shall have indicated the route to be followed if that people is to
conform its death with that of Christ-keeping account, meanwhile, of the
distinction between the two realities, and of the different functions incumbent
upon each.
1. Characteristics of the Servant of Yahweh
We shall make our analysis of the afflicted servant of Yahweh from the
outlook of the crucified people. Any reading is done from a situation-more than
from a pre-understanding, which is in some sort determined by the situation.
Those who claim to be able to do a neutral reading of a text of scripture
commit a twofold error. First, they commit an epistemological error: they
attempt to do a nonconditioned reading, which is impossible. And they commit a
theological error: they neglect the richest locus of any reading, which will
always be the principal addressee of the text in question. This addressee is
different at each historical moment, and the hypothesis with which we are
working is that at this particular moment,of ours the addressee of the Songs of
the Servant is the crucified people-a hypothesis that will be confirmed if
indeed the text sheds light on what the crucified people are; and if,
conversely, the text is enriched, and endowed with currency, by the reality
that is this historical addressee. This is not the place for a discussion of
the epistemological and theological justification of this methodological
procedure-which does not exclude the most careful utilization of exegetical
analyses, but only subordinates them. Suffice it to have enunciated this
procedure in order not to go astray in our analysis of the text at hand.
Our analysis will prescind from whether the “servant” is a
collective or individual personage, a king or a prophet, and so on. None of
this is relevant for our purpose, since what we formally intend here is to see
what the text says to the oppressed people - what the text declares to this
historical addressee. What we propose, of course, is not an exhaustive
treatment, but an indication of the basic lines of the text in question.
The theology of the Servant proposes that the encounter with Yahweh
occurs in history, and that that encounter thus becomes the locus both of
Yahweh’s intimate presence with the people, and of the people’s
response and responsibility (Joachim Jeremias). The unity prevailing between
what occurs in history and what God seeks to manifest and communicate to human
beings is, in the text of Second Isaiah, indissoluble. We need only recall the
references we find in that text to the humiliation of Babylon, or to the
triumph of Cyrus, in order to have overwhelming proof of this. This is the
context in which the four Songs of the Suffering Servant must be read.
The First Song (Isa. 42:1-7) speaks of the election of the Servant. He
is a chosen one, a favorite of Yahweh: upon him God has placed his spirit. The
finality of this election is explicitly proclaimed: “He shall bring forth
justice to the nations.” Indeed, not content with this quite explicit
formulation. the sacred writer emphasizes and amplifies it:
A bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he
shall not quench,
Until he establishes justice on the earth;
the
coastlands will wait for his teaching.
In question, accordingly, is an objective implantation of right -
especially, of justice in the real, concrete sense of justice to be done to an
oppressed people. It is a matter of creating laws in which justice, rather than
the interests of the mighty, has the pre-eminence (although account is also
kept of the need for an interiorization of the love of justice). That is, what
is at stake is the appearance on the scene of a new human being, who would
actually live, and experience, right and justice. Likewise, there is a
universal gaze upon the nations and the “coastland”- that is, a
purely Judaic ambit is transcended. Finally, all of this will be God’s
response to that which peoples deprived of justice and right await, what they
hope for - a response to be implanted by the Servant, who will never waver or
be shaken in his mission.
The election, the choice, is God’s. Political as the
Servant’s mission may appear in its first stage (there is no talk of
restoring worship, converting sinners, or the like, but only of the
implantation of right), this is what is wanted by that God who “created
the heavens and stretched them out,” by the God who consolidated the
earth. After all, it is that God who has chosen the Servant in order to cause
justice to be, in order to do justice:
I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have
grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the
people,
a light for the nations. (NAB 2:6)
And the Song repeats, with explanation, what it is to do justice:
To open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from
confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness. (42:7)
And thus says the Lord, for “Lord” is his name: that is, this
is how his being for created persons is expressed, in this is his proclamation
of a future in contrast to what has been occurring, The Second Song underscores
the nature of this election by God. God has chosen someone whom the mighty
despise, who seemingly lacks the strength to have justice reign over the world,
and who nevertheless, has God’s backing and support:
Yet my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God . . .
Thus says the Lord, the redeemer and the Holy One of Israel,
To the one
despised, whom the nations abhor, the slave of rulers;
When kings see you,
they shall stand up,
and princes shall prostrate themselves
Because of
the Lord who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you. (49:4,
7)
The purpose of the election is the building of a new land and a new
people: “To restore the land and allot the desolate heritages”
(49:8). The people will emerge from their state of poverty, oppression, and
darkness into a new state of abundance, liberty, and light. And the reason for
God’s intervention through his servant is clear:
For the Lord comforts his people
and shows mercy to his afflicted.
(49:13)
This notion, that God is on the side of the oppressed, and against the
oppressor, is fundamental in the text, and refers to an entire people, and not
merely to particular individuals:
I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh,
and they shall be
drunk with their own blood as with the juice of the grape.
All humankind
shall know
that I, the Lord, am your savior,
your redeemer, the Mighty
One of Jacob. (49:26)
The Third Song takes a new step, setting in relief the potential
importance of suffering in the people’s march toward liberation. The long
experience of being crushed can lead to a shattered confidence, of course, but
the Lord means to sup- port that suffering, and put an end to it, giving
victory to someone seemingly confounded and routed:
The Lord God is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced [*do not
feel the outrages];
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall
not be put to shame. (50:7)
A great hope arises, a hope bearing on the future of the afflicted and
persecuted. The suffering of these is not in vain. God stands behind them. And
this is a hope which they shall touch with their hands, and which will
transform their lives altogether:
Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return
and enter Zion
singing, crowned with everlasting joy;
They will meet with joy and
gladness,
sorrow and mourning will flee. (51:11)
But it is the Fourth Song that most explicitly and extensively develops
the theme of the Servant’s passion and glory. Here the rhetorical figure
of contraposition is employed, strikingly, in order to focus the Servant’s
real situation, and concrete capacity for salvation:
See, my servant shall prosper,
he shall be raised high and greatly
exalted.
Even as many were amazed at him -
so marred was his look beyond
that of man,
and his appearance beyond that of mortals
So shall he
startle many nations,
because of him kings shall stand speechless;
For
those who have not been told shall see,
those who have not heard shall
ponder it: (52:1315)
It is here that the description of the persecution of the Servant in his
mission of “implanting right” acquires characteristics very similar
to those that the oppressed people suffer today:
He grew up like a sapling before him,
like a shoot from the
parched earth;
There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided
by men,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
One of those from
whom men hide their faces,
spurned, and we held him in no esteem.
Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he
endured,
While we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and
afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our
sins;
Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes
we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep,
each following his
own way;
But the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all.
Though he
was harshly treated, he submitted
and opened not his mouth . . .
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away,
and who would have thought
any more of his destiny?
When he was cut off from the land of the
living,
and smitten for the sin of his people,
A grave was assigned him
among the wicked
and a burial place with evildoers,
Though he had done
no wrong nor spoken any falsehood.
If he gives his life as an offering
for sin,
he shall see his descendants in a long life,
and the will of
the Lord shall be accomplished through him.,
Because of his affliction he
shall see the light in fullness of days.
Through his suffering my servant
shall justify many and their guilt he shall bear.
Therefore I will give him
his portion among the great,
and he shall divide the spoils with the
mighty,
Because he surrendered himself to death
and was counted among
the wicked;
And he shall take away the sins of many,
and win pardon for
their offenses. (53:2-12)
This text, which is fundamental for any salvation theology, any
soteriology, admits of various readings, since it can elucidate different
problems. In the problem at hand, it is impossible to ignore the applicability
of the description in the text to what is occurring today among the crucified
people. A reading that has become traditional sees a prefiguration of
Jesus’ passion here. But this is no reason why we should shut our eyes to
the element of concrete description - all “scriptural accommodation’
notwithstanding - of what is today a vast majority of humanity. From this
outlook, we may underscore certain historicotheological moments in this
impressive Song.
In the first place, the personage we contemplate is a figure shattered
by the concrete, historical intervention of human beings. We have a person of
sorrows here, someone accustomed to suffering, who is carried off to death in
helplessness and injustice. Scorned and contemned by all, he is someone in whom
there is no visible merit.
In the second place, not only is this figure not regarded as a potential
savior of the world, but, quite the contrary, he is regarded as someone who
might have leprosy, someone sentenced to death, someone wounded by God, someone
brought low, and humiliated.
In the third place, he appears as a sinner - as the fruit of sin and as
filled with sins. Accordingly, he was given burial with the wicked, and with
evildoers. He has been reckoned among sinners, because he took upon himself the
burden of the sin of so many.
In the fourth place, the believer’s view of things is a different
view. The Servant’s state is not due to his own sins. He suffers sin
without having committed it. He has been pierced for our rebellions and crushed
for our crimes - wounded for the sins of the people. He has taken on sins that
he has not committed: thus, he is in his desperate situation because of the
sins of others. Antecedently to his dying for sins, it is sins who have carried
him off to death. It is sins that kill him.
In the fifth place, the Servant accepts this lot, this destiny. He
accepts the fact that it is the weight of sins that is bearing him off to
death, although he has not committed them. By reason of the sins of others, for
the sins of others, he accepts his own death. The Servant will justify so many,
because he has taken their crimes on himself. Our punishment has fallen on him,
and his scars have healed us. His death, far from being meaningless and
ineffective, removes, provisionally, the sins that had been afflicting the
world. His death is expiation, and intercession for sins.
In the sixth place, the Servant himself, crushed in his sacrificed life
and in the failure of death, triumphs. Not only will others see themselves
justified, but he will see his offspring and will live long years. He will see
light, and be satiated with knowledge.
In the seventh place, it is the Lord himself who adopts this condition.
God takes our crimes on himself. Indeed, we read that the Lord actually wished
to crush the Servant with suffering, and deliver his life over in expiation for
sin, although afterwards he will reward him, and give him complete recompense.
This is very strong language. But it admits of the interpretation that God
accepts as having been wished by himself, as salutary, the sacrifice of someone
who has concretely died for reason of the sins of human beings. Only in a
difficult act of faith is the sacred writer able to discover, in the Songs of
the Servant, that which seems to the eyes of history to be the complete
opposite. Precisely because he sees someone burdened with sins that he has not
committed, and crushed by their consequences, the singer of these songs makes
bold, by virtue of the very injustice of the situation, to ascribe all of this
to God: God must necessarily attribute a fully salvific value to this act of
absolute concrete injustice. And the attribution can be made because the
Servant himself accepts his destiny to save, by his own suffering, those who
are actually the causes of it.
Finally, the comprehensive orientation of this Fourth Song, together
with that of the three that have preceded - their prophetic sense of a
proclamation of the future, and their ambit of universality - prevent a
univocal determination of the Servant’s historical concretion. The
Suffering Servant of Yahweh will be anyone who discharges the mission described
in the Songs - and, par excellence, will be the one discharging it in more
comprehensive fashion. Or better, the Suffering Servant of Yahweh will be
anyone unjustly crucified for the sins of human beings, because all of the
crucified form a single unit, one sole reality, even though this reality has a
head and members with different functions in the unity of expiation.
. For all the accentuation of the traits of suffering and seeming
failure, the hope of triumph emerges paramount. And it is a hope, let us not
forget, that must have a public, concrete character, and a relationship with
the implantation of right and justice. No “substitutive” elements it
may have militate against its historical reality and effectiveness.
2. Life and Death of Jesus, and the Servant of Yahweh
Before any Christian interpretation of the Suffering Servant had come to
be, this figure had already been set in relationship with that of the Messiah.
One line of theological reflection saw that the triumph of the Messiah would
come only after a passage through pain and suffering, and this precisely
because of the existence of sin. It is impossible to ignore the fact that
Second Isaiah itself, which so strongly emphasizes Yahweh’s love for the
people, places harsh reproaches in the mouth of God when it comes to that
people’s wicked behavior. The mystery of sin and evil continues to make
its way toward integration into a more complete interpretation of God’s
activity in history.
The New Testament does not teem with explicit
references to the Servant of Yahweh. The title, pais Theou,
appears only once in Matthew (12:15) and four times in Acts (3:13-26, 4:2730).
However, the theology of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, along lines of
suffering and oblation for sins, is of prime importance in the New Testament
for the attempt undertaken there to present a theological explanation of the
historical fact of Jesus’ death. The almost complete disappearance. of the
term may be attributed to the fact that the Hellenistic communities very soon
began to prefer the title, “Son of God,” to that of “servant of
God,” which they less readily assimilated. For Joachim Jeremias, the
christological interpretation of the Servant of Yahweh of Second Isaiah belongs
to the earliest Christian communities, and corresponds to the Palestinian,
pre-Hellenistic stage. Cullmann maintains that the christology of the Servant
is probably the oldest christology of all.
However, it is not the common
opinion of exegetes that Jesus himself was aware of being the Servant of Yahweh
spoken of in Second Isaiah. We need not enter into this discussion here, since
our concern is to emphasize that the primitive community justifiably saw the
theological background of the Suffering Servant in the historical events of the
life of Jesus, so that, without being explicitly aware of it, Jesus will have
carried out the Servant’s mission. It might be objected that the concrete
events narrated in the gospels are only the historical flesh placed by the
primitive communities on the framework of their theological thought concerning
the Servant, in order to historicize that thought. But even in that case -
which does not seem, across the board, to represent an acceptable explanation -
we would be satisfied with this acknowledgment of the need for a
historicization of salvation and of the manner of salvation. If, on the other
hand, Jesus himself was aware that he was the full realization of the Suffering
Servant of Yahweh, obviously he did not have this consciousness from the
beginning of his life, or even from the commencement of his public life; from
which we must again conclude that only his real, concrete life of proclamation
of the Reign and of opposition to the enemies of the Reign led him to an
acceptance, in faith and hope, of the salvific destiny of the Servant: in both
Jesus and the Servant, the struggle with sin came before death for and by sin.
On the face of it, it is difficult to admit that Jesus publicly and
solemnly manifested the notion that his death was to have a salvific scope
(Schürmann). Jesus’ preaching and behavior are not orientated toward
his future death, and do not depend upon it (Marxsen). A more difficult
question is whether he did communicate the salvific meaning of his death to his
closest disciples, at least on the eve of his passion, if not indeed when they
were sent on the mission of announcing the Reign. In order to answer this
question, we should of course have had to be present at the Last Supper. We
cannot enter in depth into this question here, but we can rely on
exegetes’ intermediate positions, between Jeremias’ literal
positivism and Bultmann’s historical skepticism. Schürmann, after a
lengthy exegetical analysis, concludes as follows. The deeds of offering of
someone who is going to die and who proclaims eschatological salvation are best
explained in a soteriological perspective. In these deeds of the Servant
performed by Jesus, eschatological salvation becomes comprehensible in the
symbolic activity of someone willing to give the gift of self to the very hilt,
to very death as a culmination of all of that person’s life, which in turn
has ever been a pro-existence - that is, it has always been a life defined by
its total commitment to others. An acknowledgement, after the Resurrection, of
the salvific value of Jesus’ death was possible only on the basis of
Jesus’ pro-existent attitude, as solemnly expressed in the actions of the
Last Supper and as reconsidered in the light of the scriptures, especially in
the light of the Suffering Servant. It came to be seen that Jesus’ death
was necessary, that it was conformable to the scriptures, that it had a
salvific value for those who had followed him and that that value could be
extended to the sins of the many.
Running counter to a full
self-understanding, in terms of his death, on the part of Jesus himself,
however, is his cry on the cross as reported by Matthew (27:26) and Mark
(15:35), which seems to indicate an absolute abandonment by God, and
consequently a failing in Jesus’ faith and hope. The difficulty presented
by this text is so grave that the other evangelists substitute words of trust
(Luke 23:46-47) or consummation (John 19:30). Indeed, since it is possible to
see, in Jesus’ words of abandonment, the first words of Psalm 22, which
ends with words of hope similar to those of the Song of the Servant, we cannot
be certain that the tenor and sense of the words placed on Jesus’ lips by
Matthew and Mark is one of dereliction by God. For Xavier Léon-Dufour,
Jesus intended to express his state of dereliction, his condition of
abandonment, that is death, a death which in and of itself is separation from
the living God.
However, the experience of abandonment is simultaneously
proclaimed and denied in a dialogue expressing the presence of the one who
seems absent-a dialogue that abides uninterrupted, even though God seems to
have disappeared. Jesus calls Yahweh not “Father,” but - the only
time he does so in the Synoptics "God." All of this arouses the suspicion that
the “Why have you forsaken me” remains without immediate response,
which will only appear after his death, and which the evangelists posit in the
voice of the centurion: “Clearly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark
15:39).
Consequently, although Jesus would not have had an explicit
awareness of the complete meaning of his death, he would have had the firm hope
that his life and death were the immediate announcement of the Reign - in other
words, that the definitive coming of the Reign was through his life and his
death, between which a continuity must be accepted, so that his death was but
the culmination of his life, the definitive moment of his total surrender and
commitment to the proclamation and the realization of the Reign. And all of
this to the point that the sacrificial and expiatory meaning of the sufferings
of the Suffering Servant would be more clear than that of Jesus’ death.
Only later would that death come to be understood as that of the universal
victim of the sins of the world.
Obviously, the crucified people is not
explicitly conscious of being the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, but as in the
case of Jesus, that is not a reason to deny that it is.
Nor would the fact
that Jesus is the Suffering Servant be such a reason, since the crucified
people would be his continuation in history, and thus, we would not be talking
of “another” servant. Hence, it would be sufficient to show that the
crucified people combines some essential conditions of the Suffering Servant to
show that the people constitute the most adequate site for the embodiment of
the Servant, even if that is not true in all its fullness.
If it is
acknowledged that Jesus’ passion is to be continued in history, it should
also be acknowledged that in order to be historical that continuity can take on
different shapes. Leaving aside individual figures, that is, the need for Jesus
to con-, tinue in each of his followers, the continuation in history by the
people should also take on different shapes. In other words, we cannot say once
and for all who constitutes the collective subject that most fully carries
forward Jesus’ redeeming work. It can be said that it will always be the
crucified people of God, but as corrected as it is, that statement leaves
undefined who that people of God is, and it cannot be understood simply as the
official church even as the persecuted church. Not everything called church is
simply the crucified people or the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, although
correctly understood this crucified people may be regarded as the most vital
part of the church, precisely because it continues the passion and death of
Jesus.
This historicity does not mean that we cannot come to an
approximation of the present-day figure of the Servant. It might vary in
different historic situations, and it might represent the Servant’s
fundamental traits under different aspects, but it would not thereby cease to
have certain basic characteristics. The most basic is that it be accepted as
the Servant by God; that acceptance, however, cannot be established except
through its “likeness” to what happened to the Jesus who was
crucified in history. Therefore, it will have to be crucified for the sins of
the world, it will have to have become what the worldly have cast out, and its
appearance will.. not be human precisely because it has been dehumanized; it
will have to have a high degree of universality, since it will have to be a
figure that redeems the whole world; it will have to suffer this utter
dehumanization, not for its sins but because it bears the sins of others; it
will have to be cast out and despised precisely as savior of the world, in such
a way that this world does not accept it as its savior, but on the contrary
judges it as the most complete expression of what must be avoided and even
condemned; and finally, there must be a connection between its passion and the
working out of the Reign of God.
On the other hand, this historic figure of
the Servant is not to be identified with any particular organization of the
crucified people whose express purpose is to achieve political power. Of
course, the salvation promised to the historic mission of the Servant of Yahweh
must be embodied in history, and such historic embodiment must be achieved
through an organizing process that if it is to be fully liberating, must be
intimately connected with the crucified people. But the aspect through which
the crucified people - and not a purely undifferentiated peoplebrings salvation
to the world, continuing the work of Jesus, is not the same as that by which it
effects this salvation in historic and political terms.
In other words, the
crucified people transcends any embodiment in history that may take place for
the sake of its salvation in history, and this transcending is due to the fact
that it is the continuation in history of a Jesus who did not carry out his
struggle for the Reign through political power. The fact that it transcends,
however, does not mean that it can be isolated from any embodiment in history,
for the Reign of God entails the achievement of a political order, wherein
human beings live in covenant in response to God’s covenant.
The
crucified people thus remains somewhat imprecise insofar as it is not
identified, at least formally, with a specific group in history-at least in all
the specific features of a group in history. Nevertheless, it is precise enough
so as not to be confused with what cannot represent the historic role of the
Suffering Servant of Yahweh. To mention some examples with two sides: the First
World is not in this line and the Third World is; the rich and oppressive
classes are not and the oppressed classes are; those who serve oppression are
not, no matter what they undergo in that service, and those who struggle for
justice and liberation are. The Third World, the oppressed classes, and those
who struggle for justice, insofar as they are Third World, oppressed class and
people who struggle for justice, are in the line of the Suffering Servant, even
though not everything they do is necessarily done in the line of the Servant.
Indeed, as was noted at the beginning of this chapter, these three levels must
by necessity develop-although we cannot here go into studying the ways this
takes place - into some embodiments that are strictly political and others that
are not formally political. though they are engaged in history.
This
likening of the crucified people to the Servant of Yahweh is anything but
gratuitous. If we can see common basic features in both, there is moreover the
fact that Jesus identified himself with those who suffer-or that was the view
of the early Christian community. That is, of course, true of those who suffer
for his name or for the Reign, but it is also true of those who suffer unaware
that their suffering is connected to the name of Jesus and the proclamation of
his Reign. This identification is expressed most precisely in Matthew 25:31-46,
and indeed, that passage appears just before a new announcement of his passion
(Matthew 26:1-2),
The passage has a “pact structure,” says Pikaza, in its
two-part statement (I am your God, who is in the little ones, and you will be
my people if you love the little ones); the pact takes place through justice
among human beings. It is the judgment of the Reign, the universal and
definitive judgment, that brings to light God’s truth among human beings;
this truth is in the identification of the Son of Man, become King, with the
hungry, the thirsty, wayfarers, the naked, the sick, and prisoners. The Son of
Man is he who suffers with the little ones; and it is this Son of Man,
precisely as incarnate in the crucified people, who will become judge. In its
very existence the crucified people is already judge, although it does not
formulate any theological judgment, and this judgment is salvation, insofar as
it unveils the sin of the world by standing up to it; insofar as it makes
possible redoing what has been done badly; insofar as it proposes a new demand
as the unavoidable route for reaching salvation. This is, lest we forget, a
universal judgment in which sentence is passed on the whole course of history.
Pikaza notes that Matthew 25:36-4 1 entails a dialectical vision of the Jesus
of history; he has been poor and yet it is he who helps the poor. Seen from the
Pasch, Jesus appears as the Son of Man, who suffers in the wretched of the
earth, yet is likewise also the Lord, who comes to their aid.
Thus the
crucified people has a twofold thrust: it is the victim of the sin of the
world, and it is also bearer of the world’s salvation. But this second
aspect is not what we are developing here in terms of the Pauline “died
for our sins and rose for our justification.” This present chapter,
halting at the crucifixion, presents only the first stage. A stage focused on
the resurrection of the people should indicate how the one crucified for the
sins of the world can by rising contribute to the world’s salvation.
Salvation does not come through the mere fact of crucifixion and death; only a
people that lives because it has risen from the Death inflicted on it can save
the world.
The world of oppression is not willing to tolerate this. As
happened with Jesus, it is determined to reject the cornerstone for the
building of history; it is determined to build history out of power and
domination, that is, out of the continual denial of the vast majority of
oppressed humankind. The stone that the builders rejected became the
cornerstone, stumbling-block, and rock of scandal. That rock was Jesus, but it
is also the people that is his people, because it suffers the same fate in
history. Those who once “were now people” are now “people of
God”; those who were “viewed without pity” are now “viewed
with mercy.” In this people are the living stones that will be built into
the new house, where the new priesthood will dwell and will offer the new
victims to God through the mediation of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Pet. 2:4-10).
-Translated by Phillip Berryman and Robert R.
Barr
Read also: Do This in Memory
of Me, from Compass Theology Review 25 (1991) no 4, pp.
33-35.
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