Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

“Atonement” and the People of God

So Jesus’ death did not effect any magical redemption applied to the redeemed in some mysterious and opaque manner. That Jesus died for our sins does not mean that we ourselves need no longer die to sin. His death is not a substitute action but the cause and enabling of a process of liberation that goes on. But the social basis on which it continues is the eschatological people of God, which had already begun with the creation of the Twelve. But it was only Jesus’ self-surrender for the sake of Israel, even to death, that made possible the new chain of causality and endowed the world definitively with redemption and liberation. The Fourth Evangelist says it in an impressive image:

Standing near the cross of Jesus was his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. (John 19:25-27)

This scene may indeed signify the legitimation of the Beloved Disciple as witness to the tradition.²⁴ But there is something still more fundamental at work here: Jesus is founding a new family, the basis on which people who have nothing at all in common can join together in unreserved solidarity. It is the place where true reconciliation with God and one another is possible. But human beings cannot of themselves create that possibility. It must come from the cross and be founded in the death of Jesus.

I have tried to show that in Jesus’ death his message of the reign of God reached its most profound depths. When, at the Last Supper, he interpreted his coming death as a representative “atoning death” he did not take back his previous proclamation of God’s mercy but instead demonstrated the social reality of that mercy. God is not content merely to forgive. In the death of Jesus God bestows the social location where guilt and its consequences can be eliminated. A message about the loving Father God separated and isolated from that whole context not only fails to recognize the powers in society; it also ignores the web of evil in history. It takes no account of the world’s reality. It is absolutely unworldly.

In view of Jesus’ previous proclamation, however, his death shows something different: it reveals in all clarity the hidden and humble form of the reign of God as I spoke of it at the beginning of this book, in chapter 2. The reign of God does not come without persecution and sacrifice. It comes precisely where Jesus himself can do no more, but surrenders and sacrifices himself for the sake of God’s truth. How did Jesus’ self-sacrifice look in its concrete form?

Chapter 17

His Last Day

It is impossible to write a life of Jesus with the fullness and linkage of events required by a biography. The gospels do not provide the material—with one exception, namely, Jesus’ last day. That can be rather precisely reconstructed on the basis of the passion account in Mark’s gospel. Behind Mark 14–15 there must stand ancient traditions, carefully handed down, and behind those traditions the memories of eyewitnesses, because these two chapters recount a connected set of events and offer an unusually large number of concrete details.

Merely a glance at the numerous personal names found in Mark’s passion account is enlightening: Simon the Leper, Judas Iscariot, Peter, James, John, Pilate, Barabbas, Simon of Cyrene, Alexander, Rufus, Mary Magdalene, Mary the (daughter?/mother?) of James the Younger, Mary the mother of Joses, Salome, Joseph of Arimathea. On the other hand, Mark does not speak of the current high priest by name. Matthew and Luke saw this omission and corrected it. In contrast to Mark, they name the high priest: he was called Caiaphas (Matt 26:3; Luke 3:2; cf. John 11:49). This could be evidence that the passion narrative Mark is drawing on is very ancient. The New Testament scholar Rudolf Pesch argued that if someone telling a story today simply refers to the president, in general the reference is taken to be to the one currently in office and not an earlier one.¹ In the same way, the pre-Markan passion story spoke of the high priest. Does it then go back to the time when Caiaphas was still in office? He was high priest from 18 to 37 CE.

Gethsemane

The Passover meal ended, at that time, with the singing of the little Hallel, that is, Psalms 114(115)–118. Mark says that Jesus and his disciples went to the Mount of Olives after having sung the hymn (14:26). Even this rather minor observation, which seems almost an aside, shows that Jesus celebrated a Passover meal.