I mentioned by way of example the other, I think last night, that it's very unusual for the creeds to jump so rapidly from Jesus' public, from Jesus' birth to his death. We don't normally do that when we talk about someone. And indicated at the same time that the roots of that come largely from Pauline theology, those creedal expressions, and that we need for other purposes to have more information about Jesus' public life than the creeds themselves provide. But having said all that about the disadvantages of isolated focus on the crucifixion, I also want to emphasize the importance of the crucifixion over and above most other incidents. If we could just take by way of contrast The biography of Winston Churchill that a number of us have been listening to at supper the past several nights, we're not very much beyond Churchill's youth, but I suspect that the biography of Churchill does not spend very much time on his death.

[01:09]

The significant element in the biography of Churchill is going to be his service as Prime Minister during the war. Everything else is going to revolve around that contribution to history. Very different if you think for a moment of a biography of President Kennedy. There the assassination is not going to be the only thing that's focused on. but it's going to take a much more significant role in the death of a prime minister who died out of office some years after his public service was completed. As far as Jesus is concerned, the accent on death is even stronger. The proportion of space devoted to the death of Jesus in the Gospels is extraordinary. It varies from gospel to gospel, but it's quite high in each case. And it is because in some sense Christians had the idea that Jesus' act of going to death epitomized the whole of his life in a way that is not always true, or generally perhaps not true of other people.

[02:11]

So the focus on the crucifixion has a basis in the facts of the matter. There's a certain justification there for the Pauline emphasis almost in abstraction on the crucifixion, as long as it's not misunderstood and used for the wrong purposes. So that brings us tonight to the question of the crucifixion as a special topic. There are really two distinct sets of issues that I'd like to talk about. I don't know if we'll talk about them both tonight, but if we don't, we'll come back to the second one tomorrow morning. One is the question of the relationship of Jesus' crucifixion to his earlier life. There are a couple of different dimensions to that, but the link between Jesus' public life, his preaching, his conduct in various ways, on the one hand, and his crucifixion on the other. And the second issue is the question of how to interpret the crucifixion theologically.

[03:13]

What is the theological meaning of this death? The second question is one that pretty much has to be come to, we have to come to second because only against the background of the first one that the second question can really be discussed. Those are the two issues that we'll be talking about, and before saying anything at all about the first one even, I'd like to just note one subject which is not an issue at all here, just for the sake of completeness. There is no need to treat the question of whether, of the historical question here, whether or not Jesus was put to death by crucifixion. And there's absolutely no doubt about that. And so there's no need to spend a great deal of time discussing evidence for it. And I mention that here simply for the sake of indicating a contrast with regard to something we'll come to a bit later.

[04:15]

And let's take just for an example, passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This is a Pauline text. but it's based on material that Paul himself has taken over from others. He repeats and passes on a formula that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. this is chapter 15, verses 3 through 8, if you have your text with you, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures,

[05:18]

that he appeared to Kephas, that's Peter, and to the Twelve. And then the passage continues on at some length after that to mention other appearances. The last one mentioned and accented somewhat is the appearance to Paul himself. He's last on the list. behind all these other people, but of course, and this is one of the points in his writings, he's way ahead of all the Corinthians, because they're not on the list at all. The part that I'm interested in here at the moment, however, is the parallel between the first clause and the third. You can see it pretty clearly if the text is laid out schematically, because you have the repetition of the According to the Scriptures, in each case, and then you have a middle phrase for our sins in one case, on the third day in the other, and then here you have the references to death and resurrection.

[06:35]

Now, this is a text we'll come back to later when we're talking about the resurrection itself, but at the moment I just want to draw attention to a difference between the treatment of the crucifixion on the one hand and the treatment of the resurrection on the other. Suppose for a minute that you were speaking with a non-Christian. A non-Christian who was interested in inquiring into this material, but who did not share our Christian faith. There will be An initial problem with regard to this text at the very beginning, because you'll notice that the text doesn't say Jesus died, it says Christ died. So already from the very first word of the formula there is a confession of Jesus' messianic status here. Let's leave that part of it for a moment. Apart from any reservations about that, the non-Christian is not going to have any objections to saying that he died.

[07:45]

We all die. There's no reason why he shouldn't die. In fact, it would be stranger, presumably one would think, if he hadn't died. It doesn't say specifically he was crucified, but the non-Christian isn't going to object to that either. That's a historical piece of information. That's what happens. The non-Christian, however, is probably not going to agree with the idea that he died for our sins. That's a religious, Christian, theological understanding. And the non-Christian may very well not be able to make much sense out of saying he died according to the scriptures. If you go to the resurrection material, however, there is probably nothing that the non-Christian is going to accept. A non-Christian is not going to agree that Jesus was raised from the dead. Similarly, with regard to the third day and according to the scriptures. What I'm getting at is that in the case of the resurrection, you might say that the fact of the resurrection and the meaning of the resurrection are so intertwined that you can't really accept one without accepting the other.

[08:59]

They're part of a package. That's not the case with regard to the crucifixion. You can recognize and affirm historically that Jesus died, even that he was crucified, and yet not see in the crucifixion the religious significance, the theological meaning that Christians see in it. That's one of the reasons why the bare historical question, was Jesus crucified, the answer to it is certainly yes, he was, but it's not something we have to spend any particular time on tonight. We do, however, have to ask the question, what's the link between his public life and his death? Because a good bit of the understanding of what his death means can only be approached, or at least can best be approached, from that angle. And here I'd like to run through first a couple of different issues that are involved.

[09:59]

And then mention briefly various positions that have been taken historically with regard to them. We can ask first of all why Jesus was put to death. That's not a question directly about Jesus. It's a question about the people who put him to death. Did they put him to death to push the point a bit more? Did they put him to death because they misunderstood what he was about and objected to a misunderstanding? Or did they put him to death because they knew what he was about or were opposed to it? Let's just leave the question for a moment, but I think you can see how it might make a difference in interpreting things, because if the misunderstanding is involved in the picture, then the death doesn't shed quite as much light on what Jesus was about as it does otherwise. We'll come back to that side of it later.

[11:07]

The other side of the picture is to ask how Jesus himself approached death. Did he see it coming? If he did see it coming, how did he react to it? What did he do when confronted with the danger of death? We might possibly add beyond that, but this pertains more to the second half of what we'll be talking about later, what about the various theological interpretations of Jesus' death? Do they originate with Christians after Jesus had died? Do they come about after Jesus was risen from the dead? Or do they have a basis in Jesus' own comments, perhaps, about his death prior to the crucifixion? We can come back to that part of the question, too, at the moment, but the initial question is what the connection between Jesus' public life and his death were.

[12:10]

Here I'd like to sketch in very broad terms three stages of interpretation. And I do this deliberately in very broad terms for the sake of accenting point. First is the interpretation, which has been pretty well taken for granted for most of the church's history. I say most because it's not at all clear that it was true in the very early years of the church's history. but it's the way in which the Gospels traditionally have been read to address these questions. It seems at a surface reading at least of the Gospels that Jesus saw his death coming for a very long period of time, that he spoke at least to his followers about what was to come, and that in the process of doing this He also used many, at least, of the categories that Christians have later adopted to speak of his death.

[13:16]

Now, let me indicate that a little bit more concretely. The texts that I have in mind here are texts that you're all familiar with, but you may not have thought about them precisely in this connection. I used the verses here from Mark's Gospel, but you can find substantially the same material in the other synoptics. And you can find some similar material in John as well, although not direct parallels to these texts. I take Mark simply because most people think that this is the oldest of the Gospels that we have. Mark has several predictions of the passion They're scattered through the text at strategic locations. And again, I repeat that these are texts that traditionally have been taken to reflect actual words of the historical Jesus in this specific situation. That's part of the problem that we're grappling with here. The first of the texts is in chapter eight, verse 31.

[14:24]

It comes right after Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah. The text says, and he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. Now let me just draw attention to a couple of things about the text. This is the first prediction of the Passion in the Gospel of Mark. Notice that the reference to death, to suffering in general, and then to death more specifically, are both kept rather general. The Son of Man must suffer many things. You can think ahead to the Passion Narrative, but it doesn't tell you anything specific about the Passion Narrative. Be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.

[15:32]

It doesn't say crucified. It doesn't say anything about Pilate. Simply be killed. And after three days, rise again. So the two things that I draw your attention to, first is the more general formulation of the passion part of the prediction. And secondly, that the prediction of the passion is accompanied with a prediction of the resurrection. The two go hand in hand. They're all part of the package here. As you know, Peter doesn't like that, at least doesn't like the first part of it. There's a discussion which ensues. And then we come a chapter later to the second passion prediction, chapter 9, verse 31. Here Jesus is teaching his disciples, saying to them, the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men.

[16:40]

There seems to be a deliberate play on words there, Son of Man delivered into the hands of men. And they will kill him. And when he is killed after three days, he will rise. Once again, no specific reference to the form of execution, but there is again a reference to the resurrection. And finally, chapter 10, verses 33, 34. Here Jesus is speaking only to the 12. And he says, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and spit upon him and scourge him and kill him, and after three days he will rise." This point now has become much more specific as far as the passion is concerned. There's more detailed prediction of the passion, mocking, spitting, scourging.

[17:43]

leading up to the death. And there's also the specific reference to the Gentiles, that despite the conflicts with the chief priests and the scribes and the other Jewish authorities that have been mentioned, one of the elements that leads eventually to Jesus' death here is being turned over into the hands of the Romans. So this third prediction of the Passion is more concrete, more specific than the others. You still notice that in all three of the predictions of the Passion, There's nothing said about the significance of Jesus' death in those three texts. It's that he will be killed, that he'll suffer and be killed, that he will rise from the dead, but there isn't anything said about the meaning of his death in those passages. If we look just a bit further, however, there is a passage in Mark, chapter 10, verse 45, which is less specific in what it has to say about the death and yet says something more about its meaning.

[18:53]

The end of a discussion of authority among Jesus' followers and at this point Jesus ends by saying, for the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. once again a prediction of death, here no reference to resurrection, but now also an interpretation of that death as somehow for the benefit of the many in the use of the category ransom. We think of redemption in that context as an interpretation of the meaning of Jesus' death. Now, the next time that we really get significant information of this sort, is in the Last Supper material, where Jesus speaks more directly about his death. Those words are familiar to you, of course, liturgically.

[19:55]

But I'd like to draw your attention to one last passage in this regard. This is the one passage from the, first of all in general terms, there's an account of the Last Supper in each of the four Gospels. There's also an account in 1 Corinthians, so there's a fair amount of material on this. And all of the accounts, with the exception of the one in John's Gospel, detail the institution of the Eucharist. Most of the words that are involved in that make their way into liturgical use in one form or another, as you might expect. There's one verse, however, that doesn't make it into the literature. There's a good reason why it doesn't fit in the liturgy, but it fits at the Last Supper. In Mark, it's chapter 14, verse 25, where Jesus says, truly I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.

[21:08]

He's not again going to drink from the cup, before his death. It's a vow of abstinence from wine until he has been put to death in the context. This is face to face with his death. At the same time, even though you don't find here the use of the term resurrection or rise again, you do find expressed confidence that Jesus himself will participate in the kingdom. He says, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. Eating and drinking the banquet, of course, is the great symbolism for participation in the kingdom. So in all these various passages, the first four scattered through the last part of Jesus' public life, this last one coming from the context immediately of the Last Supper, we have various references to death on Jesus' part, all spoken only to his closer followers, sometimes just the twelve, certainly a smaller group, all

[22:19]

it referenced most of them, at least, also expressing some confidence with regard to resurrection or eventual vindication. The question that comes up, of course, is whether or not these texts are reliable historically as material from the life of Jesus. And you can imagine that precisely this issue of Jesus and his death was one of great concern to the early church. We know that the early church developed the passion narratives there among the most ancient parts of the gospel that were formed. We know that the early church celebrated the Eucharist from the very beginning. We know that there was much reflection in the early church on the meaning of Jesus' death. Are we justified in finding in these passages or in other passages Jesus' own comments about death, or are we only speaking here of the way the early church

[23:25]

put things back into Jesus' life. That's a question that for most of the centuries of the Church's history has not been raised, because the Gospels weren't read in that fashion. But it's a question that inevitably comes up to a modern expert in reading the Gospels. And on a point like that, I don't think it'll make any difference whether you consult the first edition or the second edition of the JVC. There'll be common ground on that. The sharpest rejection of the traditional position is the position of Rudolf Bultmann, and that should be mentioned here. I don't mention it in the sense of promoting it, but it's helpful to see the situation from Bultmann's perspective. Bultmann was of the opinion that we can know practically nothing about how Jesus faced His position is that these portions of the gospel are so thoroughly influenced by the thought of the early church.

[24:48]

that it's impossible for us to penetrate back through that to find just what Jesus thought and said on this subject. Now, Bultmann's not that skeptical on all other subjects, but he is that skeptical here. He takes the position, first of all, that Jesus was put to death by the Romans because they misunderstood what he was about. Now, let me take that step by step before we come back to the question of Jesus' own approach to death. There's a link between the two. Bultmann is starting off here with a point that's universally acknowledged. First, that Jesus was not only killed, but that more specifically, he was crucified. Now, the fact that he was crucified makes a difference, because crucifixion was a Roman form of punishment.

[26:01]

This is not the way in which Jewish authorities put people to death when they did that. That's an indication that there is at least some Roman involvement in the death of Jesus, though the responsibility may not lie exclusively with them. Now, Bultmann's judgment is that this is the way in which the Romans executed political offenders or people who were perceived as political threats. Jesus, however, according to Bultmann, was not a revolutionary, was not a political threat. And so there doesn't seem to be any link between Jesus' public preaching on the one hand and his being put to death by the Romans on the other. Put yourself again in Bultmann's situation. Had Jesus been executed by the Jewish religious authorities, of course you could see a link between his challenge to their own religious position.

[27:08]

But Bultmann doesn't see a reason why Pilate should be concerned about this. And so he takes the position that it's because Jesus' religious message was misunderstood as political that the crucifixion came about. Now, there are questions that can be raised about that. The initial question is whether or not it's possible to separate religion and politics that thoroughly, particularly in the situation that Jesus was in. But this is the way Bultmann saw the situation. Objectively, the reason Jesus was crucified is because of a misunderstanding of what he was about. What about Jesus' own personal approach? We don't have much information about that.

[28:10]

We have the texts that talk about it, the ones that I've just read primarily, but those to a great extent are the creations of the early church. And so Bultman says we simply have to face the fact that we don't know how Jesus face death. We can't rule out the possibility even that he collapsed when confronted with death. We can't say that happened, but we also can't say it didn't happen. We simply can't say anything about the matter one way or the other. Now, before I pick up on that issue, let me introduce another concern. Let me backtrack a second from the issue of how Jesus approached death and ask, why do we want to know that?

[29:11]

Bultmann says we can't know it. That didn't bother Bultmann that we can't know it. In fact, he rather liked the fact that we can't know it. Why doesn't it bother Bultmann and why would it bother or does it bother many other people if that is in fact the case? The answer basically lies in this. As I mentioned this afternoon, we look at different dimensions of Jesus' life, his public life, his crucifixion. Just to concentrate on these two for a moment. in large part with the idea that one will shed light on the other. That if we are going to understand better what the significance of Jesus' crucifixion is, we want to know why he was put to death. We want to know how he faced death, what he said or did with regard to it.

[30:17]

That's a judgment that Bultmann does not accept. Bultmann's position is that if you want to know what the meaning of the crucifixion is, and for Bultmann that was in some ways you could say the focal point of his theology, you don't do it by looking back to Jesus' life. You don't do it by looking for the reasons for his being put to death in the sense of the activity of the Jewish authorities or the Roman authorities. You don't do it by looking to see what Jesus said or thought in the face of death. You do it instead only by looking to what the church has preached. You know that Jesus' death is salvific because the Word of God proclaims it to be salvific. And so if you ask Bultman, how do I know that the preaching of the cross is salvific?

[31:25]

Bultman's answer is that the preaching of the cross is God's word. And it's not for you to call it into question. The understanding of the word of God, that focus on the early Christian preaching, really doesn't make any difference to Bultman what goes on here. And so he's perfectly happy saying we don't know that, probably just as well that we don't know it because if we did know more about it, we'd get in the way of what's more important. But all of that depends on his very particular conception of starting out rather blindly with the Word of God. That itself is open to some, quite a few, further questions. Before we come to the more widespread contemporary analysis of the situation, Bultmann, just for those who may not be familiar with the figure, Bultmann is a very prominent Protestant exegete, German Lutheran, who wrote very extensively on biblical questions.

[32:30]

He was born in 1884 and died in 1976. But the greater part of his work was done roughly between 1920 and the mid-1950s. So he's representative largely of that period. Before I go any further with the more recent discussion of the issue, are there any questions or comments on these first two? phases, the traditional understanding, taking the text quite straightforwardly as historical, Bultmann's rejection of that, seeing for all practical purposes nothing of historical value in those elements of the text. Do you offer any reasons for rejecting the acceptance of the historical document? He thought that it was a way, he thought religiously, that it was a way to avoid the demands of

[33:30]

And he thought it was the path back to the 19th century liberal Protestant theology, that the next thing you know, people would be writing biographies of Jesus as the great teacher, and the message of Paul, the message of John, would be lost. That, I think, is the religious motivation behind it. It did not seem to him that this could lead to an appropriate theology of the cross. He defended that against at least some of his initial critics. I think he's quite mistaken on that, but that's another issue. Did he ever talk about it as a starting point for those who later go back to the historical that their point of reference was his, and therefore they looked for history to confirm that.

[34:34]

Did he ever get into that debate about the starting point colors, how you take the historical facts and use them? He thought that... He had two things, he had two agendas, you might say. One is the agenda of the religious believer. And the other is the agenda of the historian, because he had extraordinary interest in the history as well, but they were two separate agendas. And he thought that each would detract from the other if they were brought together. Now, on this particular issue, he was of the opinion that if you want, I put this in broader terms, If you want to find the meaning of history in general or of specific historical events, Bultmann's position is that factual historical information doesn't help you very much.

[35:38]

And you do have to bear in mind a personal situation here. This is a man, a good bit of his theological career is in Germany under the control of the Nazis and during the Second World War. He was an opponent of the Nazis, not extremely active politically, but he was opposed to them. He does not find meaning in the history that he sees. And his judgment is that if you want to find meaning in history, you do it by going inside yourself and, in a sense, hearing God's word in your heart. Now, that's the same type of procedure, in effect, that he's recommending here. That, in principle, a historian can look at this. He doesn't deny that at all. The historian who looks at it will get very fragmentary results because the information we have is so sparse. And Bultmann had a very critical assessment of it. But the main point he had in mind is that even if you take all that historical information together, it's really not important theologically.

[36:51]

It doesn't help, even as a starting point, if anything, if anything, it may lead you in the wrong direction and keep you preoccupied with the wrong things. And behind that, of course, there's a very particular notion of faith. There's quite the Bostrom history. You know, Omar's famous for his business about demythologizing Christianity. But apparently, for him, that did not mean taking the spiritual message out of it. Quite the contrary. You mean taking it out and discarding it? Right. No, he didn't discard it. You demythologize, in his judgment, you demythologize all sorts of things. But the notion that this is God speaking, that this is God's Word, that's sacrosanct. The places where you – this is not the way he would put it at all.

[37:54]

But the places where he would demythologize would be largely with regard to the miracle stories, with regard to the apocalyptic element of Jesus' message, with regard to most understandings of the resurrection, matters of that sort. But that paradoxically God is revealed in this death. That's very Lutheran, that historic theology of the cross. Very much so. Very, very much so. And to believe in that is to take up your cross each day and to be crucified with Christ. There's nothing that he wants to demythologize on that score. He thinks that's, I don't know if you can say that's the content, that's not a word he liked, but that's what you're left with when you demythologize. It's not something that you weed out. And he was apparently a very effective preacher, and I think you can see how that message could be conveyed effectively, even though it brushes aside a certain other set of questions.

[39:07]

Well, let me turn here to some critiques of Bultmann. His position is mentioned frequently at the present time, but it's not a position that is widely accepted. It's too extreme in the other direction. I'll mention a couple of elements of critique. The first element point that has been made by a number of people, but one of the most articulate representatives of it is a more recent Protestant theologian, Jürgen Moltmann, who has written extensively on Christological questions. Moltmann is very interested in political theology, in the political context of what was going on. And he argues extensively in his book entitled The Crucified God

[40:17]

that Bultmann was wrong in seeing Jesus' death as coming about as a result of a misunderstanding. Instead, Jesus' death, and this is not the whole of Munch's position, but it's the part of it that's of interest to us here, Jesus' death came about because of a conflict with the law and with the Jewish religious authorities, on the one hand, and a conflict with the state and the Roman civil authorities on the other, combined with some further religious factors that we won't go into at the moment. The reason for Jesus' death, Moltmann says, is not that people misunderstood him, but because they wanted him out of the way. So the connection between the message and the action of Jesus And what happened to Jesus is quite close. And of course it follows from that for Moltmann that if you want to understand better what the meaning of Jesus' death is, you ought to look more thoroughly into

[41:29]

what brought about the crucifixion, and not just go, as Boltzmann did, to the preaching of the Church. That's one element. And that, with some variations and emphasis from author to author, that's something that you'd find fairly commonly. You'll find it in Skillebeaks and O'Collins and Kasper and the various authors whose names were on the sheet that was given out the other day. factor, the question of how Jesus personally approached death has also been pursued at great lengths. And here there is one man in particular who deserves to be mentioned because his work on this subject has been very thorough and very widely adopted by others. It's This is probably the last time I can identify him in this way. He's an East German exegete, and he is the only East German exegete, I think, that anyone has ever heard of. He has been—he's a Catholic theologian.

[42:42]

I think he's a Monsignor, in fact—a professor of New Testament in Erfurt in East Germany. And he has written extensively in a variety of different essays on this subject, most of which have not been translated. But the positions Sherman developed have become more popularly known through their incorporation into the writings of Caspar, Schillerbeek, Rahner, various other people. He's the exegetical figure that stands behind them on this issue. Schurman's opinion starts off with the position that it's absolutely inconceivable to think that Jesus never saw the danger of the situation he was in. That you can't possibly think of someone acting the way Jesus acted without realizing what might come about from that. Think on the one hand of what had happened to John the Baptist. I don't mean the specific incidents that provoked his beheading.

[43:46]

That's another story. But the fact that through public preaching of a religious message, John the Baptist ran afoul of various authorities, in his case also civil authorities, though it's Herod instead of Pilate. Sherman's judgment is that from the very beginning, anyone who engaged in public religious activity in Israel, in that context, had to know the danger of the situation, the personal danger that might or might not follow. That must have been clear from the beginning. Secondly, Sherman says, there's every reason to think that as time went on, Jesus was aware of increasing opposition and realized that this opposition might eventually lead to his execution. Now you notice that at this point he's not trying to argue from an individual text.

[44:48]

He recognizes the questions that might come up with regard to those individual texts, and he's not saying that Jesus' certitude about death was present from the very start of his life or even from the very start of his public life. He's saying that anyone alert to the situation in which he existed, which Jesus certainly was, would have seen things developing and would have recognized the danger threatened from various quarters, perhaps from the Romans, perhaps from Herod, perhaps simply from the Jewish religious leaders or from some combination of all these people. Finally, Sherman says that toward the end of his life, the outcome was clear. By toward the end of his life, he means somewhat more than just the Last Supper, but he means the last days of Jesus. The situation was clear to him. And that's what's expressed in at least somewhat veiled terms in the words and actions of Jesus at the Last Supper.

[45:59]

Whether there is a direct historical value to the other passion predictions that I read earlier is another question. That's not the key point. The key point is that to a certain extent, at least, Jesus foresaw that death was coming and took that into account in his own activity. What does Jesus do in this situation? First thing to note is what he does not do. He does not go home. That may sound very trivial, but it's not. Because by going home, Jesus presumably could have averted the whole threat. What went on in a small town in Galilee wouldn't have made that much difference to anybody. Instead, Jesus persists with his message of proclaiming and embodying the kingdom of God despite the fact that he knows what this will lead to.

[47:02]

Another way of putting that, confronted with abandoning his message on the one hand or accepting the consequences through dying on the other, Jesus persists with his message and is put to death. Now, that fidelity to his mission on Jesus' part is what justifies our speaking of a free acceptance of death. It's not that he sought death out. It's not that he deliberately tried to provoke people to bring about this end. But it is that when he saw concretely what this was leading to, he was not deterred from persisting in his mission. and accepted the personal consequences. And here I'd add just one element which I think is relevant for our further considerations. It has to do with the fact that so many of the passion predictions are really passion resurrection predictions or predictions of suffering and vindication.

[48:08]

It's that the message that Jesus persists in is the message that God's kingdom will come. And Jesus is a part of that kingdom. So there is also a kind of personal confidence expressed here, a confidence that he will share ultimately in the kingdom which still lies ahead. That free acceptance of death on Jesus' part can be put in different words. Here I'd like to read just one very brief passage from Karl Rahner on this subject. This is taken from Rahner's book, Foundations of Christian Faith. And there's one section of the Christological chapter where Rahner decides to recapitulate very briefly certain elements that we know historically about Jesus. And one of them has to do with his death.

[49:09]

It's page 248, if anyone wishes to read the whole context. Rana says, Jesus faced his death resolutely and accepted it as the inevitable consequence of fidelity to his mission and as imposed on him by God. The implication imposed on him by God in the sense because it's entailed in fidelity to his mission. But that, historically, would be the argument to justify our reference to Jesus' free acceptance of death, which would seem to me to be a presupposition of speaking of that death's salvific value. And I just, in conclusion, draw your attention to the fact that this is an issue which is touched on at least liturgically in the Second Eucharistic Prayer, which we used this morning, which speaks of a death, a death he freely accepted. The free acceptance, in a sense almost an active dimension, as far as Jesus is concerned, is integral to Christian efforts to understand the crucifixion.

[50:17]

I think it might be well to stop here. If there are any questions, we can talk about those for a while. But I'd like to defer the treatment of the theological interpretation of the crucifixion then until tomorrow morning. We have more time. What the hell are we on? You said that before Gethsemane or after? In Gethsemane, he tried to get out. He didn't sneak out. I don't question that. But that's a prayer. That's not running away. That's the difference that I'm getting at. I would say it's accepted in the sense that Jesus goes to Jerusalem. He preaches publicly in Jerusalem. He remains in and around Jerusalem in this period despite things beginning to gather. Those are the elements that I point to in speaking of a free acceptance of death.

[51:23]

Now, the Gethsemane story is one in which he asks that it could be otherwise. That's a different type of thing. Do you see the difference? How could it be otherwise? Do I accept it or not accept it? There is an intermediate. No, the difference, I would say the difference is this. Remember that the angle that I've tried to approach this from is acceptance as a result of fidelity to his mission. Okay? The prayer in Gethsemane is a prayer that his mission not involve his death. But he's faithful to his mission no matter what. Is that clear?

[52:30]

No. Okay. All right. That's the angle that I would approach it from. Anything else at this point? Why don't we break off here and then tomorrow morning we can look more specifically at some of the different interpretations of the death.

[52:50]

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