Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

Jesus did not believe in the perfecting of the human, but only that it is possible to become perfect (Matt 5:48), though “perfect” does not mean simply moral perfection; it means an undivided surrender to the will of God (chap. 13). Jesus believed not in the constant “improvement” of human beings but that in the people of God all could help one another, repeatedly forgive one another, and show one another the way. Precisely because Jesus counted not on the optimization of the human but on joy over the reign of God and constant conversion and reconciliation we do not find in him anything like the contempt for reality that characterizes so many utopias—the same contempt for reality that began with Plato in the utopian sections of his Politics. Precisely because Jesus always had the weakness and fragility of human existence before his eyes the society he began with his group of disciples was not totalitarian, as are so many utopian societies from More to Lenin. With the Zealots, with whom Jesus was much more powerfully confronted than is usually assumed (chap. 5), one can speak of a “terror of ideas” and also of genuine terrorism. There is nothing like that with Jesus. He even warns people against following him.

Utopia almost always demands a total or at least a closed system. Therefore the old world must first be demolished. But with Jesus the tensions within reality are maintained: the fruitful tension between the state, which Jesus did not fundamentally question (Mark 12:17), and the people of God; the tension between the individual and the community; between the already of the reign of God and its not yet; and finally the tension between grace and freedom, that is, between the reign of God as pure gift and the fact that human beings can work in freedom and yet with ultimate passion for the reign of God. He did not destroy any of these tensive arcs; he maintained them. Jesus was very well aware of the “impossibility” of God’s cause in the world, but he knew that God’s possibilities are infinitely greater than all human possibilities (Mark 10:27).

Was the reign of God that Jesus proclaimed a utopia? Most certainly it was not. We can see this also from the fact that his proclamation, sealed with his death and resurrection, immediately after his execution brought forth communities on Israel’s soil everywhere around the Mediterranean, communities that lived his message. What began in those communities is still alive and world-altering in the church even today, despite all the weakness and deficits of the church, despite its constant failure. That must be connected with the fact that the Risen One is present in the church—always, to the end of the age of the world (Matt 28:20). And it must be connected with the truth that Jesus’ proclamation and practice of the reign of God is more radical than any utopia. It is more realistic, it is more critical, it knows more about human beings. It is the only hope for the wounds and sicknesses of our planet.

Notes

Chapter 1

1. The text that follows uses material from Gerhard Lohfink, Der letzte Tag Jesu. Was bei der Passion wirklich geschah (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 71–98. The material was reworked and updated for this book. For an English translation of that book see Gerhard Lohfink, The Last Day of Jesus: An Enriching Portrayal of the Passion (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1984).

2. Story in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 289 (11 December 2010): 33.

3. Translator’s note: Scripture quotations are based on the NRSV but adapted to match the author’s German translation. Cf. v. 24 above, where NRSV reads: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”

4. This is the fifth Sunday in the cycle for Year B. Unfortunately, the liturgists broke up Mark’s composition and spread it over the fourth and fifth Sundays.

5. Stauffenberg won the prize for best German television film of 2004. Its international English title is Operation Valkyrie.

6. Frank Schirrmacher, “Was fehlt. Die entdramatisierte Geschichte. Jo Baiers ‘Stauffenberg’-Film und wie es gewesen ist,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 47 (25 February 2004): 33.

7. Cf. Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität infrähen Hochkulturen (Munich: Beck, 1997; 6th ed., 2007). Cf. idem, Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006).

8. Thomas Meurer, “Wer zu spät kommt…” Christ in der Gegenwart 54 (2002): 369–70.