Death as the Last Enemy: On the Relationship of God to Death (Reprise)

[[Dear Sister, I read something you wrote about God not willing the torture and death of Jesus. (I'm sorry for being vague here; I can't cut and paste from your blog.) That was not what I was taught. In fact, I was told when at different times two of my children died of serious illness that God "had taken them" and also was reminded that I should not be angry with God because after all, "he had not spared his only begotten Son." Are you saying that God does not will our deaths either? That God did not take my daughters from me? And if God did not do this, then where are my children? What hope do any of us have??!!]]

First, I am terribly sorry for your loss!! Please know I will hold you in my own heart and prayer. Meanwhile, yes, I have written that Jesus' torture and death by crucifixion were not willed by God; these were inhuman acts dreamt up and made as sophisticated and ingenious a way of killing someone in horrendous torture --- i.e., in as unspeakable degradation, pain, and shame, as was (in)humanly possible. The first thing I think we must accept is that our God is a God of love and life and that, as Paul tells us, death is the last enemy to be brought under God's feet (1Cor 15:25-26). What God is is Love-in-Act and what God wills is life, abundant, integral life in dialogue and union with Himself. He does not will the death of anyone, including his only begotten Son. 

The second thing we must see and embrace then, is a somewhat different way of understanding Jesus' prayer and God's silence in the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember that there Jesus prays three times that his Abba allow this cup to pass him by. He does not pray that the cup not be given him by his Abba, but that God would remove it if possible. It is possible here to hear Jesus struggling in the presence of the One he loves and is loved by  best --- the One who always hears him --- to find another way forward, another way to live his life and vocation with integrity without running headfirst into the powers that will kill him --- and this includes not only the religious and political authorities, but the powers of sin and death as well. But God does not remove or take from Jesus the cup of integrity --- the cup of a life lived with integrity in dialogue with God for the sake of others and drunk to its very dregs. 

Does God will Jesus' horrendous and shameful death by torture and/or crucifixion? No. We can't accept he does nor does any text say this specifically is the will of God. To believe it is the will of God is to accept as well that those who betrayed, rejected, lied about, abandoned, spat upon, tortured, and executed Jesus were fully cooperating with the will of God. That is simply impossible, and if true, would give us a God few of us could believe in or trust. Where is the "good news" in that? To struggle in the way Jesus does in Gethsemane is to engage with God in order to come to terms with God's actual will; here Jesus struggles to come to clarity about and embrace fully what it means to live one's life and vocation with complete and exhaustive integrity --- especially when that life/vocation is defined in terms of dialogue with and complete dependence upon God. Jesus' life certainly is about this and our own lives are meant to be the same. It is not Jesus' torture and death that God wills but his absolute integrity and exhaustively authentic God-dependent humanity. This is the cup God cannot, and will not remove from him.

In Jesus' passion, we must learn to tease apart the things that are of man, and especially of man's inhumanity versus what is authentically human, and those which are truly of God or are the will of God. What I find of God in the crucifixion is the affirmation and reassurance that God, the One Jesus calls Abba, does not despise even the most godless of situations, places, persons, and events. Our God is the one is who absolutely determined to be found in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Jesus, precisely as truly and authentically human, reveals this God to us and in the power of the Holy Spirit lives his life and speaks truth to power in a way which means that God does not despise the godless places in our lives; they are, in fact, the places God chooses to reveal his love and mercy most exhaustively.

Regarding the things of mankind, there are two aspects we must be able to see in Jesus' passion and death: first, there are the inhuman or less than truly human actions and attitudes of most of the actors in the narrative. These have to do with all the things I mentioned above in the second paragraph and several more besides -- the hunger for power and the correlative thirst for control at the expense of others, the fear associated with life in such a society for those who are diminished, oppressed, and exploited, the tendency to join in when a mob yells angry, bloodthirsty, and thoughtless slogans because otherwise we feel powerless, have no true sense of ourselves or of  genuinely belonging, and believe we can achieve these things by joining ourselves to such groups even when that leads us to harm others. All of these tend to dehumanize us. The instances of inhuman and dehumanizing behavior and attitudes in the passion narratives are legion. 

Secondly, there are examples of true or authentic humanity, human humility, integrity, faithfulness, generosity, and courage. Jesus is the primary exemplar here, but the beloved disciple, Jesus' Mother, and a few other women along with Joseph of Arimathea and the Centurion who proclaims Jesus the Christ/ Son of God are also participants modeling some of these virtues and dimensions of authentic humanity. What is especially true of authentic humanity is the way it is entirely transparent to God --- something I believe Catholic Christological dogma tried to express in the non-paradoxical language of hypostases, etc. So, the more truly human one is, the more transparent to God. And because this is so, when we see Jesus' helplessness, weakness, shame, brokenness, and so forth, we should also be able to see the paradoxical power of love that does not despise weakness, brokenness, or anything else that might once have been a sign of God's disfavor and absence. Instead, in the crucified Christ God makes these his own and there on the cross heaven and earth are drawn together in the very heart of Jesus precisely as crucified. (cf., 2 Cor 12:8-9 "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.")

The Good News of the Cross

For purposes of this essay, again, it is critically important to remember that death is not some sort of weapon God wields to punish, but again, is an event linked consequentially to estrangement and alienation from God, self, and others.  As noted above, it, along with Sin, is a power or principality which is a consequence of human sinfulness which Paul identifies as the last enemy to be put under the feet of God. It is imperative that we understand death, and especially what the NT calls "eternal death,"  "sinful death," or again, "godless death," as something linked to sinfulness with which God contends. God does this throughout the history of Israel's struggle against idolatry and he does it in Jesus' miracles, exorcisms, and in every other choice for life and love which Jesus makes on God's and others' behalf.  

What Paul also tells us is that the cross is precisely the place where God's ultimate victory over the powers of sin and death is won. It is the place where humans beings do their worst to an innocent other and it is a place where authentic humanity is made definitively real in space and time in Jesus in spite of the very worst human beings can do and experience. Finally, it is the place where God's love is revealed in its greatest depth and breadth; here we see God revealed definitively (i.e., made definitively real and known in space and time) as the One who will not allow sin  or death to have the final word or be the final scream or silence. Here on the cross Jesus remains obedient (that is, open and attentive) to the God who wills to be present to, with, and for us without condition or limit. In other words here on the cross heaven and earth come together as God has always willed. Paul says it this way: [[Very rarely will someone give his life for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God proves his love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,]] and again, [[God was in Christ, drawing all [creation] to Himself,]] and too, [[Jesus, the Christ was obedient unto death, even (godless, sinful) death on a cross."]] In all of this God is at work bringing a new heaven and new earth into existence where God will be all in all. More, God does this for us so that, as my major theology professor used to put it, human beings might "live in joy and die in peace."

Your Questions:

So, with all of that as background, let me try to respond to your questions more directly.  Yes, in light of this theology of the cross I am saying that God does not will Jesus' death or the death of any other person. Our God, the God and Abba of Jesus wills life --- full and abundant life, not death. He wills that Jesus live his life with integrity and that he bring God's love to the whole sweep of human existence, every moment and mood of it. This is Jesus' vocation and the way he proclaims the coming of the Reign of God. He wills that Jesus oppose Sin -- that state of estrangement and alienation that occurs whenever human beings fall short of their truest humanity and choose idols instead of God. But death itself is not "of God" and godless, final, or eternal death, even less so. The truth is that while death invariably intervenes in and destroys life in a bewildering variety of ways, God in/through Christ and his cross intervenes in death and brings eternal life, meaning, and hope out of that. Tragically, Death did indeed take your daughters, but in Christ God has taken death into himself and transformed it entirely with his own presence, life, and love. In so doing he rescues your daughters from death and welcomes them into his own very life. The hope this makes possible extends to all of us in Christ.

Your children are well and entirely safe in God as well --- not because God took them from you, but because he rescued them from the "one" who did. That is the hope that we all share because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us all. God in Christ loves us so exhaustively and effectively that he will allow nothing to stand in the way of this love, not sin or death, not anything created or supernatural. We are made for God and nothing at all can prevent us from reaching that goal. Again, to quote Paul, [[Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No. . .For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.]] (Romans 8: 35-39)

I sincerely hope this is helpful! It is meant not only for you but for any who have been taught some version of God using death as "punishment" or, when this doesn't fit the context, that he "calls us home" by causing our death. God calls us to himself, always and everywhere, including in our godlessness and relative inhumanity, but death is not his weapon or instrument in this; rather it is the enemy that he vanquishes in Jesus' own obedient (open to God) death.

Hanging onto the Promise: A Divine Love that is Stronger than Death

  There is a single theme running through yesterday's readings. Whether it is the reading from Revelations or from the Gospel of Luke, or the powerful refrain of the responsorial psalm, the authors are clear that we are called to be people who "hold onto" God's promise; holding onto God's promise is the essence of all prophetic vocations and the essence of Jesus' messianic life and calling as well. In the presence of turmoil and chaos, in the shadow of the cross and the threat of sin and death to be persons of faith is to be persons who make their own in every situation and circumstance the promise that the God who IS Love-in-act, loves us with a love which is stronger than death. 

The picture in the Gospel is powerful. Ordinarily we focus on the fact that Jesus threw the money changers out of the Temple and that is certainly appropriate. This action embodies the promise that God will act to transform not just the Jerusalem Temple but that in Christ he will make the entire world into a "house of prayer", that is, into the privileged place where God is present, active, and sovereign, where, in fact, he is truly worshipped and all reality is really as it is meant and made to be. In other words Jesus' enacted parable embodies the promise of a love that will do justice,  and an ultimate justice at that.

In the language of the first reading from Revelations, this "enacted parable" promises that the mystery of God will be brought to completion. It is striking that in the story of the cleansing of the Temple there are really two groups of people present. The first is the Pharisees  and other members of the Jewish leadership. They understand Jesus very well and are threatened by him; they have been seeking to find ways to put him to death but until now they have been thwarted. And here is the second very significant focus of the parable we should pay attention to in the same way we pay attention to Jesus throwing out the money changers; there is a second group of people, those persons who hold or "hang onto" Jesus' every word --- those persons who in some way have been touched directly by Jesus' ministry and the promise it embodies and mediates --- by the promise, the Word Jesus incarnates more and more fully throughout his life in every moment and mood of that life. And in light of the touch of this incarnate promise these fragile but divinely empowered people are those who, for the time being anyway, hold back the tide of darkness and violence the religious leadership are set to unleash on Jesus and (through the Romans) the world at large.

These are the people who have heard him teach and preach; they have had demons of all sorts cast out, been fed and nurtured by him. They have been listened to more profoundly than has ever happened to them until their encounter with Jesus and they have "been known", profoundly known and loved by him. They have been forgiven of their sins, reconciled to God and to themselves as well. They have found their shame transformed by an unconditional acceptance and esteem which heal at a person's core as Jesus called them by name and names (and thus effectively makes) them "friends" --- and friends of God. In every situation they encountered a man who effectively spoke truth to power (and to "powers and principalities") to unbind their hearts and free them for wholeness and abundant life. In every case Jesus is the One who confronts alienation, weakness, powerlessness and brokenness with the Incarnate Word or Promise of God: God loves them and all of creation with a love that is stronger than sin and death.

This is the promise, the Word of God Jesus himself stands in and from more and more fully --- even as he stands more and more clearly under the shadow of the cross; it is the promise in and through which he has been formed by prayer and struggle, by encounter after encounter of both love and rejection as his own sacred heart was enlarged and shaped into an image of the Living God. It is the promise which is the content of his own faith and the nature of the divine heart of the One he calls Abba. It is the living Promise he incarnates in our workl.

And so Jesus moves into the lion's den, so to speak; he casts out the money changers, takes up his place as teacher and in this way promises to make of this Temple and the whole of creation a house of prayer. His actions are provocative. They are a final instance of Jesus speaking truth to power, where the Divine promise encounters the world so in need of and hungry for that promise --- and also so implacably opposed to it. Jesus' action here will bring the entire establishment, both Jewish and Roman, down on his own head. And it will inaugurate the final showdown, the definitive encounter between godless death and the promise of a God who loves us with a love that is stronger than even godless death.

And the outcome of that showdown is well known to us. In Christ, the Love that is Stronger than death was subjected to death, even godless death; it was allowed to descend to the depths of that reality, and transformed it into the sacramental place where we may meet this Promise face to face. Cross and resurrection. The love of God encounters the very worst that human beings can do to one another, the very worst that human beings fear and build more and more securely into their world and relationships. And, in the face of death the Promise we call God is proven to be true: God loves us freely, gratuitously, prodigally, with a love that indeed is stronger than sin and sinful godless death.

The call we have each been given is the call to hang onto and be People of the Promise. This is the essence of faith. It is also the essence of prophecy, for to be People of the Promise is to speak and act with a power that changes reality. It is to speak and act in ways which accomplish the will of God in our world. But to be prophets in this way is not comfortable. As Revelations tells us the Promise is sweet like honey on our tongues. Our first contact with it as we take it into ourselves is wonderful in this way, but as we really digest it, take it into ourselves more deeply, it will also sour our stomachs. It will require that more and more deeply and extensively we speak truth to power in our own lives. It will mean that we confront the powers of sin and death still at work in our world with the Promise, the Living reality, of a Love that is stronger than death, a Love that does justice wherever it is truly spoken/enacted. As Christians --- priests, prophets, and rulers who are formed in and from this Promise this is always our vocation.

As we approach the end of our liturgical year and the Feast celebrating the sovereignty  (Kingship) of Christ, the urgency with which we are called to embrace this prophetic call today cannot be underestimated I think --- not because Jesus' own mission failed but because it did not. Thus too, through the crucified, risen and ascended Christ, it must continue in us. We must be People of the Promise, prophets and priests of a love that does justice and speaks and sings the future into existence. In this way God continues to create a new heaven and a new earth where (he) is truly all in all.