Jesus of Nazareth: From His Transfiguration Through His Death and Resurrection

by Pope Benedict XVI

  In this case peace counted for more than justice in Pilate’s eyes. Not only the great, inaccessible Truth but also the concrete truth of Jesus’ case had to recede into the background: in this way he believed he was fulfilling the real purpose of the law—its peace-building function. Perhaps this was how he eased his conscience. For the time being, all seemed to be going well. Jerusalem remained calm. At a later date, though, it would become clear that peace, in the final analysis, cannot be established at the expense of truth.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Crucifixion and Burial of Jesus

  1. Preliminary Reflection: Word and Event

  in the Passion Narrative

  All four Gospels tell of the hours that Jesus spent hanging on the Cross and of his death—they agree on the broad outlines of what happened, but there are differences of emphasis in the detail. What is remarkable about these accounts is the multitude of Old Testament allusions and quotations they contain: word of God and event are deeply interwoven. The facts are, so to speak, permeated with the word—with meaning; and the converse is also true: what previously had been merely word—often beyond our capacity to understand—now becomes reality, its meaning unlocked.

  Underpinning this particular way of recounting events is the learning process that the infant Church had to undergo as she came into being. At first, Jesus’ death on the Cross had simply been an inexplicable fact that placed his entire message and his whole figure in question. The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35) presents this journeying, talking and searching together as the process by which the soul’s darkness is gradually illumined by walking with Jesus (v. 15). It becomes clear that Moses and the Prophets—“all the Scriptures”—had spoken of the events of Christ’s Passion (vv. 26-27): the “absurd” now yields its profound meaning. In the apparently senseless event, the real sense of human journeying is truly opened up: meaning triumphs over the power of destruction and evil.

  What we find concisely expressed in Jesus’ great dialogue with the two disciples is the process of searching and maturing that was to take place in the infant Church. In the light of the Resurrection, in the light of this new gift of journeying alongside the Lord, Christ’s followers had to learn to read the Old Testament afresh: “No one had reckoned with the possibility of the Messiah dying on the Cross. Or had the relevant indications in sacred Scripture merely been overlooked?” (Reiser, Bibelkritik, p. 332). It was not the words of Scripture that prompted the narration of facts: rather, it was the facts themselves, at first unintelligible, that paved the way toward a fresh understanding of Scripture.

  This discovery of the harmony between word and event not only determines the structure of the Passion narratives and the Gospels in general: it is constitutive of the Christian faith. Without it, the emergence of the Church could not be understood, the Church whose message acquired—and continues to acquire—its credibility and historical importance precisely from this interplay of meaning and history: where that connection is severed, the fundamental structure of Christian faith collapses.

  A great many Old Testament allusions are woven into the Passion narrative. Two of them are of fundamental significance, because they span, as it were, the whole of the Passion event and shed light upon it theologically: Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. So let us begin by briefly examining these two texts, which are fundamental for the unity between Scripture (Old Testament) and Christ-event (New Testament).

  Psalm 22 is Israel’s great cry of anguish, in the midst of its sufferings, addressed to the apparently silent God. The word “cry”, which is of central importance, especially in Mark’s account, for the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, sets, as it were, the tonality of this psalm. “Why are you so far . . . from the words of my groaning”, we read in the opening lines. In verses 2 and 5 this idea of calling out comes back. Now we can hear the great anguish of the one suffering on account of God’s seeming absence. Simply calling out or pleading is not enough here. In extreme anguish, prayer inevitably becomes a loud cry.

  Verses 6-8 speak of the mockery directed at the psalmist. This mockery becomes a challenge to God and thus an even sharper ridicule of the one who is suffering: “Let [the Lord] rescue him, for he delights in him”: helpless suffering is cited as proof that God takes no delight in the one being tortured. Verse 18 speaks of casting lots for his garments, as actually happened at the foot of the Cross.

  But then the cry of anguish changes into a profession of trust, for in the space of three verses a resounding answer to prayer is anticipated and celebrated. First: “From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear [God]” (v. 25). The early Church recognized herself in that great assembly which celebrates the granting of the suppliant’s prayer, his rescue—the Resurrection! Two further surprising elements now follow. Not only does salvation come to the psalmist, but it leads to the “afflicted [eating] and [being] satisfied” (v. 26). There is more: “All the ends of the earth shall . . . turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him” (v. 27).

  In these last two verses, how could the early Church fail to recognize, in the first place, the “afflicted [eating] and [being] satisfied” as a sign of the mysterious new meal that the Lord had given them in the Eucharist? And secondly how could she fail to see there the unexpected development that the peoples of the earth were converted to the God of Israel, to the God of Jesus Christ—that the Church of Christ was gathered together from all peoples? Eucharist (praise and thanksgiving: v. 25; eating and being satisfied: v. 26) and universal salvation (v. 27) appear as God’s great answer to prayer in response to Jesus’ cry. It is important always to keep in mind the vast span of events portrayed in this psalm, if we are to understand why it occupies such a central place in the story of the crucifixion.

  The second fundamental text—Isaiah 53—we have already considered in connection with Jesus’ high-priestly prayer. In Marius Reiser’s meticulous analysis of this mysterious passage, we can relive the early Christians’ astonishment on seeing how one step after another of the path of Jesus Christ is foretold here. The Prophet—viewed through the lens of all the methods of modern critical textual analysis—speaks as an evangelist.

  Let us now move on to a brief consideration of the essential elements of the crucifixion accounts.

  2. Jesus on the Cross

  The first of Jesus’ words from the Cross:

  “Father, forgive them”

  The first of Jesus’ words from the Cross, spoken almost at the very moment when the act of crucifixion was being carried out, is a plea for the forgiveness of those who treat him thus: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). What the Lord had preached in the Sermon on the Mount, he now puts into practice. He knows no hatred. He does not call for revenge. He begs forgiveness for those who nail him to the Cross, and he justifies his plea by adding: “They know not what they do”.

  This theme of “not knowing” returns in Saint Peter’s sermon in the Acts of the Apostles. He begins by reminding the crowd that had gathered after the healing of the lame man in the portico of Solomon that they had “denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer” to be granted to them (3:14). You “killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead” (3:15). After this painful reminder, which forms part of his Pentecost sermon and which cut his hearers to the heart (cf. 2:37), he continues: “Now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers” (3:17).

  Once again, the theme of “not knowing” appears in one of Saint Paul’s autobiographical reflections. He recalls that he himself “formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted” Jesus; then he continues: “but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim 1:13). In view of his earlier self-assurance as a perfect disciple of the Law who knew and lived by the Scriptures, these are strong words; he who had studied under the best masters and who might reasonably have considered himself a real ex
pert on the Scriptures, has to acknowledge, in retrospect, that he was ignorant. Yet his very ignorance is what saved him and made him fit for conversion and forgiveness. This combination of expert knowledge and deep ignorance certainly causes us to ponder. It reveals the whole problem of knowledge that remains self-sufficient and so does not arrive at Truth itself, which ought to transform man.

  In a different way again, we encounter this same combination of knowledge and failure to understand in the story of the wise men from the East. The chief priests and scribes know exactly where the Messiah is to be born. But they do not recognize him. Despite their knowledge, they remain blind (cf. Mt 2:4-6).

  Clearly this mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of material expertise and deep incomprehension, occurs in every period of history. For this reason, what Jesus says about ignorance, and the examples that can be found in the various passages from Scripture, is bound to be unsettling for the supposedly learned today. Are we not blind precisely as people with knowledge? Is it not on account of our knowledge that we are incapable of recognizing Truth itself, which tries to reach us through what we know? Do we not recoil from the pain of that heartrending Truth of which Peter spoke in his Pentecost sermon? Ignorance diminishes guilt, and it leaves open the path to conversion. But it does not simply excuse, because at the same time it reveals a deadening of the heart that resists the call of Truth. All the more, then, it remains a source of comfort for all times and for all people that both in the case of those who genuinely did not know (his executioners) and in the case of those who did know (the people who condemned him), the Lord makes their ignorance the motive for his plea for forgiveness: he sees it as a door that can open us to conversion.

  Jesus is mocked

  Three groups of mockers are mentioned in the Gospel. The first are the passers-by. They remind the Lord of his words about the destruction of the Temple: “Aha, you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” (Mk 15:29-30). By taunting the Lord in this way, they express their contempt for his powerless state; they bring home to him once more how powerless he is. At the same time they try to lead him into temptation, as the devil himself had done: “Save yourself!” Exercise your power! They do not realize that at this very moment the destruction of the Temple is being accomplished and that the new Temple is rising up before them.

  At the end of the Passion, as Jesus dies, the veil of the Temple is torn in two—so the Synoptics tell us—from top to bottom (Mt 27:51; Mk 15:38; Lk 23:45). Probably it is the inner of the two Temple veils that is meant here, the one that seals off the Holy of Holies from human access. Only once a year is it permitted for the high priest to pass through the veil, to enter the presence of the Most High, and to utter the Holy Name.

  This veil, at the very moment of Jesus’ death, is torn in two from top to bottom. There are two things we learn from this: on the one hand, it becomes apparent that the era of the old Temple and its sacrifices is over. In place of symbols and rituals that point ahead to the future, the reality has now come, the crucified Jesus who reconciles us all with the Father. At the same time, though, the tearing of the Temple veil means that the pathway to God is now open. Previously God’s face had been concealed. Only in a symbolic way could the high priest once a year enter his presence. Now God himself has removed the veil and revealed himself in the crucified Jesus as the one who loves to the point of death. The pathway to God is open.

  The second group of mockers consists of members of the Sanhedrin. Matthew mentions all three elements: priests, scribes, and elders. They formulate their mockery using language drawn from the Book of Wisdom, the second chapter of which tells of the just man who stands in the way of the wicked life of the others, who calls himself a son of God and is handed over to suffering (Wis 2:10-20). The members of the Sanhedrin, taking their cue from these words, now say of Jesus, the Crucified One: “He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God’ ” (Mt 27:42-43; cf. Wis 2:18). Without realizing it, the mockers thereby acknowledge that Jesus is truly the one of whom the Book of Wisdom speaks. His situation of outward helplessness proves him to be the true Son of God.

  We may add that the author of the Book of Wisdom could have been familiar with Plato’s speculations from his work on statecraft, in which he asks what would become of a perfectly just person in this world, and he comes to the conclusion that such a person would be crucified (The Republic II, 361e—362a). The Book of Wisdom may have taken up this idea from the philosopher and introduced it into the Old Testament, so that it now points directly to Jesus. It is in the mockery that the mystery of Jesus Christ is proved true. Just as he refused to be induced by the devil to throw himself down from the parapet of the Temple (Mt 4:5-7; Lk 4:9-13), so now he refuses to yield to a similar temptation. He knows that God will indeed deliver him, but not in the way these people imagine. The Resurrection will be the moment when God raises him from death and accredits him as Son.

  The third group of mockers consists of the two men crucified alongside Jesus, to whom Matthew and Mark refer using the same word—lestes (robber)—that John uses for Barabbas (cf. Mt 27:38; Mk 15:27; Jn 18:40). This clearly shows that they are regarded as resistance fighters, to whom the Romans, in order to criminalize them, simply attach the label “robber”. They are crucified with Jesus because they have been found guilty of the same crime: resistance to Roman power.

  The offense attributed to Jesus, though, is of a different kind from that of the two “robbers”, who may have taken part in Barabbas’ uprising. Pilate is well aware that Jesus had nothing like that in mind, and so he adopts a particular formulation of Jesus’ “crime” in the charge that is placed above the Cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (Jn 19:19). Up to this point, Jesus had avoided the title Messiah or king, or else he had immediately linked it with his suffering (cf. Mk 8:27-31) in order to prevent false interpretations. Now the title “king” can appear quite openly. In the three great languages of that time, Jesus is publicly proclaimed king.

  It is understandable that the members of the Sanhedrin object to this title, in which Pilate clearly wants to express his cynicism toward the Jewish authorities and to take his revenge on them post factum. But this inscription now stands before world history, and it amounts to a proclamation of kingship. Jesus is “exalted”. The Cross is his throne, from which he draws the world to himself. From this place of total self-sacrifice, from this place of truly divine love, he reigns as the true king in his own way—a way that neither Pilate nor the members of the Sanhedrin had been able to comprehend.

  Of the two men crucified with Jesus, only one joins in the mockery: the other grasps the mystery of Jesus. He knows and he sees that the nature of Jesus’ “offense” was quite different—that Jesus was nonviolent. And now he sees that this man crucified beside him truly makes the face of God visible, he is truly God’s Son. So he asks him: “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power” (Lk 23:42). What exactly the good thief understood by Jesus’ coming in his kingly power, and what he therefore meant by asking Jesus to remember him, we do not know. But clearly, while on the Cross, he realized that this powerless man was the true king—the one for whom Israel was waiting. Now he wanted to be at this man’s side not only on the Cross, but also in glory.

  Jesus’ response goes beyond what is asked of him. Instead of an unspecified future, he speaks of that very day: “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43). This too is a mysterious saying, but it shows us one thing for certain: Jesus knew he would enter directly into fellowship with the Father—that the promise of “Paradise” was something he could offer “today”. He knew he was leading mankind back to the Paradise from which it had fallen: into fellowship with God as man’s true salvation.

  So in the history of Christian devotion, the good thief has become an image of hope—an image
of the consoling certainty that God’s mercy can reach us even in our final moments, that even after a misspent life, the plea for his gracious favor is not made in vain. So, for example, the Dies Irae prays: “Qui . . . latronem exaudisti, mihi quoque spem dedisti” (just as you answered the prayer of the thief, so you have given me hope).

  Jesus’ cry of abandonment

  Both Matthew and Mark recount that at the ninth hour Jesus called out in a loud voice: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34). They give the text of Jesus’ cry in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic and then translate it into Greek. This prayer of Jesus has prompted constant questioning and reflection among Christians: How could the Son of God be abandoned by God? What does this exclamation mean? Rudolf Bultmann, for example, comments as follows: Jesus was put to death “because his activity was misconstrued as a political activity. In that case it would have been—historically speaking—a meaningless fate. We cannot tell whether or how Jesus found meaning in it. We may not veil from ourselves the possibility that he suffered a collapse” (The Primitive Christian Kerygma, p. 24). What are we to reply to all this?

  First of all, we must remember that, in each of these Passion narratives, the bystanders failed to understand Jesus’ cry and took him to be calling upon Elijah. There have been scholarly attempts to reconstruct Jesus’ exact words in such a way that they either could be construed as a call to Elijah or could have reproduced the cry of abandonment from Psalm 22 (cf. Pesch, Markusevangelium II, p. 495). Be that as it may: it was only the community of the faithful, with hindsight, who recognized Jesus’ cry, misheard and misinterpreted by the bystanders, as the opening verse of Psalm 22, and on that basis they could understand it as a truly Messianic cry.