The Cross and Resurrection*

 

There was a level of controversy recently, in the media at least, when certain events during the holiday period were advertised omitting the word “Easter”. Some church leaders spoke out against what they claimed was a de-Christianising of the festival.

Setting aside the detail that Easter has pagan origins, does the New Testament account of crucifixion and resurrection still have significance? Easter is central to Christianity due to its theology being based on St. Paul.

Paul promoted the notion that Jesus’ crucifixion was the sacrifice of God’s son to pay the debt incurred by Adam on behalf of humanity: Salvation from sin. The subsequent resurrection was God’s demonstration that not only was the sacrifice accepted, the debt paid, but also a promise of life beyond death for the faithful.

From a Deist perspective such an apparently supernatural intervention is open to a more rational explanation. It is based on the idea that Jesus was actually a proto-Deist within the context of the Judaism of his day.

Jesus seems not to have claimed any of the special supernatural or divine attributes that were to be conferred upon him in the centuries after his death. The “Kingdom of God” he proclaimed, that is to know God and love all your neighbours, was at hand because it is within, ready to be recognised and known by everyone.

However, by proclaiming “The Kingdom of God”, the Jewish population of the time were likely to interpret that as the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel. This would certainly have been regarded as sedition by the ruling Roman imperium.

The Jewish authorities also felt undermined, as all religious authorities do, by any claim that God’s way can be found by each and everyone within themselves. No need then for priests, the temple and the riches and power that go with them.

Also, the threat that the Romans might react in a devastating manner to a perceived threat of revolution would also necessitate a staunching of that threat. Not surprisingly, it did not require supernatural insight for Jesus to know his likely fate.

Nor is it surprising that in the hours before his arrest he fervently prayed to be spared that fate. Yet he remained resolute in his mission, with the result that the cross should be taken as a symbol of commitment, not one of blood sacrifice.

As for the resurrection, the explanation could be as mundane as Jesus actually surviving the crucifixion. From the New Testament accounts it seems he was on the cross for about six hours or so, when it usually took days for a victim to die that way.

Terrible as it was, human physical resilience to extreme trauma can be remarkable. By losing consciousness and not reacting to the spear wound Jesus’ death was declared, probably by soldiers who were only too ready to be relieved of their duty. They did, it seems, break the legs of the two crucified with Jesus to hasten their deaths.

When the disciple Thomas met with Jesus after the event he was able to actually touch the wounds, suggesting an all too real presence. Also, following his crucifixion Jesus did not preach a gospel of atoning death and resurrection.

The message Jesus charged his followers with was to make all nations into disciples observing repentance; that is, changing the way life is lived, and forgiveness of sins. That the message was for all nations rather than a “chosen people” was truly revolutionary.

What happened to Jesus afterwards is unknown. Perhaps his wounds forced him into secluded retirement, or maybe they eventually proved fatal. As to life beyond death, Jesus commended his spirit to God while on the cross. It seems he did not need to look forward to resurrection, unlike St. Paul, a man who did not know him.

 

*Based on “The Cross and the Empty Tomb” – christiandeism.com

Easter Message

 

 The self-appointed advocate of Christ, Saint Paul (as he became), insisted, that if Jesus had not been resurrected then there was no hope of life beyond death. Without such a hope, what then was the point of the newly emerging Trinitarian religion that would become Christianity in all its denominations?

The proposition was that death had emerged through the sinful act of the first man, Adam. That sin banishing all humanity from Eden required atonement if God’s subsequent death sentence imposed on everyone was to be lifted.

Such an atonement could only be achieved through the blood sacrifice of God’s son, Jesus, who had to suffer the pains of death at the hands of earthly authority, only to rise again, demonstrating the overwhelmingly greater power of divine authority.

However, as made plain in Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 26:39), it seems Jesus did not share such confidence in that divine plan. Just prior to his arrest he prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me…”

He knew only too well the ghastly fate of those who challenged Roman authority. It may well be he was prepared to surrender his life in pursuit of his mission, but would have naturally preferred to avoid such a dreadful fate.

Jesus’ message was simply expressed, but profound in its consequences. It is summed up in two commandments, to love God and to love your neighbour. The first, to love God, is the basis of Deism. This is love in the broadest sense, an appreciation from experience of creation of the wonder wrought by its Originator.

This does not require any religious authority, indeed it demands the denial of such authority. Each person must come to this in his or her own way. It does not depend on religious scripture or revelation, other than the gospel of nature and what it reveals to each individual.

No wonder the Jewish authorities of Jesus’ time regarded him as a threat. And such a message contradicts the political and military establishment that demands subservience, or else. The Romans would not countenance a popular movement destabilising the status quo being maintained in large part by the Jewish authorities.

Similarly, loving your neighbour, that is everyone, without qualification, would have been perceived as an assault on the religious conventions that divided humanity into God’s chosen few, the Jews, and the rest, the gentiles.

There are too many today willing enough to kill and maim to preserve or even advance their own limited view of what they impose on God as being “His will”. Hardly surprising, then, that Jesus knew only too well what was likely to happen to him.

As for the empty tomb and the post-crucifixion appearances of Jesus there can only be speculation. It is possible he did not die on the cross. If the gospel accounts are a reasonable indication it would seem he hung there for about six hours.

While this would have been horrific, in terms of crucifixion it was quite short as it often took days for those executed in this manner to die. Certainly he’d become insensible as the spear thrust demonstrated. Perhaps the Romans thought the initial severe scourging had resulted in a faster than usual demise.

Perhaps, then, Jesus survived, all be it badly wounded. Certainly those wounds were real as Thomas, Doubting Thomas, found when invited to touch them. It appears he was with his disciples long enough to send them on their way to carry his teaching into the world.

Jesus then disappears from history. Did he simply die from his terrible experience, especially the spear wound, or maybe he quietly retired to be secretly cared for, never again being able to personally continue his mission?

As to St. Paul’s insistence on resurrection being the only possible proof of life beyond death, it does not accord with Jesus’ view. He spoke of heaven during his earthly days, his Father’s mansion having many rooms.

When he was dying, according to Luke (Luke 23:46) Jesus declared, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Showing a confidence that God would care for him beyond this world.

Whether or not Jesus was correct in this view is another matter entirely, but it does show that the very basis on which the Christian church arose, Paul’s view of resurrection, was at odds with the very person he claimed to be his divine inspiration.

 

Easter Story

 

Hardly has Christmas passed, it seems, when Lent is upon us with the prospect of an early Easter. In around three months or so, the Christian story unfolds from its beginning through to its end. And then, of course, beyond.

The Easter narrative is generally familiar, at least in outline, even to those who are not church attendees. Those with a fundamental conviction believe the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus to be literally true.

The 18^th Century deist, Thomas Paine, in his book, “The Age of Reason”, gives an account as to how he came to reject the Easter story from an early age. He heard a sermon, possibly delivered by his aunt Miss Cooke, on the subject, ‘Redemption by the death of the Son of God”

Aged about seven or eight, Paine was not impressed. “I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard…that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son, when he could not revenge himself any other way…”

He went on to reflect, “How different this is to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The true deist has but one Deity…endeavouring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical (sic), and mechanical.”

Paine goes on from that point to celebrate the scientific advances in understanding the world and the cosmos made up to that point over the three previous centuries. They were the wellsprings of his religious thinking, not recycled ancient mythologies as literal truth.

 

Quotations from, “The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine, Dover Publications Inc., 2004. Pages 64-65.

Easter

 

What does Easter mean today? For committed Christians it continues to be their celebration of Jesus’s resurrection, proof of God’s sacrifice of His own son for mankind’s salvation. For those not so committed to the Church it might, at best, be a welcome spring holiday.

Could it be that both are missing the point? Deists do not subscribe to the notion the Jesus was possessed of divinity, being the literal Son of God. It certainly seems, from Gospel writings, that he was not expecting to be raised bodily from the dead.

Indeed, given the option his stated preference in his prayers in Gethsemane was to avoid the whole nasty business. There can be no doubt he was very much aware of the likely consequences of his preaching: the Romans did not take kindly to those advocating alternative kingdoms to their own rule.

However, when it came to the final moment as he hung in agony on the cross, Jesus committed his spirit into the hands of God, he didn’t make an “I’ll be back” pronouncement. This followed on from his experience of absolute despair when he cried aloud his questioning of God, “Why have you forsaken me?”

This question resonates because it manifests itself in the manifold traumas humanity experiences. This is one significance of the crucifixion, the cross can be a symbol of personal agonies, physical and mental, or even of acts of genocide – that oft asked question, “Where is/was God?”

This can lead all too readily, as it has done for so many in Western society at least, to a complete renunciation of God. It seems that no matter how forsaken he felt, Jesus had faith enough to still entrust God with his spirit.

Perhaps Jesus recognised, as deists do, that God is beyond all human comprehension, appreciating the existence of his own life, and the lives of others, is the crucial evidence that God imbues creation with life.

Many deists conclude that God having set the dynamics of creation in motion does not intervene in the universe. When Jesus felt forsaken that was very much a human in distress reaction, not God arbitrarily deciding not to come to His son’s aid.

Nor was it to ensure the completion of some divine grand plan for human salvation through sacrifice. Certainly there is no evidence in the Gospels that Jesus held such a view. It was Paul, persecutor then militant apostle, who developed that concept.

Indeed, Paul insisted if the resurrection had not occurred then there could be no hope of life beyond death. That hope was then invested in the Church giving it its awesome power. For near two thousand years this has given the crucifixion a meaning it never had.

Other than what is written in the Gospels, some while after the event, and the pronouncements of Paul, there is no indication, certainly not contemporaneous, of such a miraculous event. Although Gospel accounts of the empty tomb and subsequent meetings with the crucified Jesus may not be fanciful.

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that Jesus did not die on the cross. When he committed his spirit to God it could be he slipped in unconsciousness, not unreasonably considering the scourging he’d suffered and then the crucifixion. A spear in the side wouldn’t necessarily elicit a response in such circumstances.

Jesus had been on the cross for six hours which, interminable as it must have felt, was actually a short time as it usually took days for a victim to actually die. It could be that some did die quickly, surely the shock would be enough for this to be possible.

Therefore, the guard being convinced Jesus was dead, broke the legs of the two crucified either side of him to hasten their deaths through asphyxiation. Get the business over with and back to barracks. Jesus then revived. While this may appear unlikely, the ability of human beings to survive great traumas is well attested.

Certainly it seems Jesus was able to convince his disciples of his presence by displaying his wounds. Interestingly, he did not instruct those disciples to go into the world preaching about his death and resurrection, rather repentance and forgiveness, consistent with his pre-crucifixion message.

Jesus then disappears from history. He might well have succumbed to his ordeal or been so badly traumatised as to simply withdraw. There can only be speculation. The importance of all this is that no supernatural element is required for Jesus to have continuing significance, even for deists, as a man, a son of God, as we are all sons and daughters of God.