Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Auferstehung der Toten - Botschoaft Jesus; Kontinuität (Identität) - Diskontinuität (Erscheinung); J.: bleibende Verbindung: Kirche, Welt, Geschichte; menschliches, göttliches Bewusstsein Jesu - a-kosmisch ?; A. Marias; andauernde Christifizierung

Kurzinhalt: The risen Jesus not only has a role in the ongoing history of the church, and humanity more generally; his resurrection is of cosmic significance: ... the resurrection in fact proves Jesus' full humanity. Human beings require resurrection, and the ...

Textausschnitt: THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS-WHAT DOES IT TEACH US?

205b We have considered two distinct scenarios in relation to resurrection. One stresses the discontinuity between our current state and our resurrected state. God raises us up from the ashes of the old world, starting as it were with a clean slate. The other stresses the continuity between our current state and our resurrected state. The new heaven and the new earth emerge in the midst of the present cosmos, transforming it from within. Does the resurrection of Jesus help shed any light on these options?

205c Certainly in the resurrection of Jesus we find elements of continuity and of discontinuity. There is a strong element of continuity in terms of personal identity. It is Jesus who is raised from the dead; it is Jesus who initiates a new relationship with his disciples (Matt 28:9, 18; Luke 24:15); it is Jesus who breaks the bread and opens up the Scriptures on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:25-30). But there is a discontinuity in the form of existence. The risen Jesus is not a revivified corpse; his appearances and disappearances do not conform to those of a normal bodily existence (Luke 24:31; John 20:19); even his closest friends find it difficult to recognize him (John 20:11-16). In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul attempts to give expression to these elements of continuity and discontinuity, but one would be hard pressed at the end of the day to say that he sheds much light on the precise nature of the resurrection:
But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15:35-49)1

206a There is another element of continuity and discontinuity in terms of the ongoing presence of Jesus with his church. If we follow the Lukan account, then the risen Jesus ascends into heaven with the promise that he will return at the end of time (Acts 1:9-11). For John, too, Jesus must return to the Father (John 20:17). For Matthew, however, the risen Jesus promises his eternal presence to the disciples, without any suggestion of withdrawal or ascension (Matt 28:20). Paul talks of the church as the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12-27), and Jesus speaks of the blessed and broken bread as his body (Matt 26:26-28).

206b One thing, however, that is constant in this whole account is that the risen Jesus is not detached from his church or from the world. Luke may have Jesus ascend, but he also has the risen Jesus confront Paul with his actions in persecuting the church (Acts 9:3-5). Jesus may be "in heaven," but he pleads for sinners at the right hand of the Father (Rom 8:34). At the final judgment Jesus reveals his continual personal identification with the poor, the imprisoned, the hungry, and the naked and judges us in terms of our response to their needs (Matt 25:31-46). Is this identification "general"or "specific"? Does he identify with the poor in some general way, and only with each individual because of this generic identification, or does he know and love each one of them personally, so that he identifies specifically with one and all? Is Paul correct when he claimed that "the Son of God ... loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal 2:20)? It would seem that for the authors of the New Testament, Jesus had an ongoing, active, and intentional relationship with human history. (Fs)

207a However, the story does not end there. The risen Jesus not only has a role in the ongoing history of the church, and humanity more generally; his resurrection is of cosmic significance: "as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1:10). "Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth" (Phil 2:9-10). "Through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Col 1:20). The whole of creation is brought under the reign of Christ, not just our human history. The incarnation and resurrection are events predestined before time to bring the whole of creation together under God. (Fs)

207b Before we proceed with this, there are two issues that require clarification. The first is the misunderstanding, not uncommon, that the humanity of Jesus somehow becomes inactive or irrelevant with the resurrection. It is as if the resurrection of Jesus eliminates the humanity of Jesus and replaces it with his divinity. An apologetic theology would often argue that the resurrection "proves" the divinity of Jesus. As is clear from the anthropology developed in this work, however, the resurrection in fact proves Jesus' full humanity. Human beings require resurrection, and the resurrection of Jesus is required for him to be a continuing agent in human history. The human consciousness of Jesus continues as a human consciousness and is not absorbed into or eliminated by his divine consciousness.2 (Fs) (notabene)

207c The second issue regards the commonly stated notion that the risen Jesus "transcends space and time." Rahner, for example, speaks of the resurrected state as pan-cosmic, as no longer bound by the limitations of space and time.3 Again, this notion needs to be critically reevaluated in light of contemporary understandings of the nature of the universe. Clearly Rahner's notion of a pan-cosmic relationship is an advance on an a-cosmic existence, with all its Platonic overtones.4 We need to ask, however, whether the risen Jesus is no longer bound by the spatio-temporal structure of the universe? Strictly speaking, an agent who transcends space and time can also act backwards in time, another consequence of Einstein's theory of relativity.5 Are we to think of the risen Jesus as active prior to his own death, or his own birth? Does he exercise a reverse temporal causality? Here again, the distinction between the human and the divine in Jesus is very important. While the divine consciousness of Jesus, the consciousness of the Logos as the second person of the Trinity, does transcend space and time, it is not at all clear that this is the case for the human consciousness of Jesus, even the risen Jesus. (Fs) (notabene)

208a If this is the case, then the "Christification"of the universe is still in process, not just because human history is still caught in the dialectic of grace and sin, but also because the human consciousness of the risen Jesus does not yet encompass the universe as a whole. In this regard, Peter Chirico contrasts the type of conception of the resurrection commensurate with a static worldview, with the type commensurate with a dynamic worldview. A static worldview gives rise to the concept of a static unrestricted subject who:

would be one whose self-differentiation would be conceived as totally developed in regard to the world in which he lived. Every capacity of this subject within that world would be developed to its fullest extent possible ... The static fully developed subject would live in a static world and would fully grasp himself and the world.6

208b On the other hand, a dynamic worldview gives rise to the concept of a dynamic unrestricted human subject who "would constantly be expanding within a constantly expanding world, a world whose intelligibility would be ceaselessly increasing." Chirico argues that the risen Jesus exists as such a dynamic unrestricted human subject. (Fs)

208c We might also ask questions about the traditional notion of the communion of saints. It is clearly part of Catholic tradition to pray to those who it holds have been taken into divine intimacy with God in heaven (especially in the case of Mary the Mother of Jesus (CCC, no. 2675]). There is a strong sense that the saints "intervene" on our behalf, that our prayers to them are not in vain, and that through their mediation divine favor may be granted us. In extraordinary cases this may mean miracles, events that seem to go beyond our normal expectation of what is possible. Are such actions personal or impersonal, intentional or unintentional? Do they arise from a real sense of personal relationship with the one who prays? Do they represent a real, active, and personal relationship between those in the "church triumphant" and those in the "church militant"?

209a This is most notable in the church's teaching on Mary, "assumed body and soul into heaven." Consider the formal decree of this teaching:

Consequently, just as the glorious resurrection of Christ was an essential part and the final sign of this victory, so that struggle which was common to the Blessed Virgin and her divine Son should be brought to a close by the glorification of her virginal body, for the same Apostle says: "When this mortal thing hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory." Hence the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination, immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendour at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages. (Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, [1950], DS 3902)

209b One might notice immediately the strong parallels between the language of assumption and the language of resurrection. One gets the strong impression that while Jesus may be the "firstborn" of the new creation (Col 1:18) and exemplar of all our resurrections (Rom 8:29), nonetheless, resurrection is not restricted to Jesus alone (see also Matt 27:50-53 for a more scriptural example).
209c What conclusions may we draw from this discussion? I would suggest that resurrection of the dead is not into an a-cosmic state, nor a pan-cosmic state, but into a state of ongoing, active, and effective relationship with human history, and beyond that with the ongoing processes of the whole cosmos. This is not something brought about by one's own "natural" powers, but through the power of God operating through and in those who have died. The new creation of the resurrection does not involve the discarding of the old order, but rather its being taken up in a new and more creative way. Through resurrection the history of the cosmos can be open to become part of an ongoing human history in ways we may find difficult to imagine. (Fs)