"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (20)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
So far we have had the 19th meditation on “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” We have studied enough meditations on this particular subject that we could stop here. I am convinced that it would be a better idea if we conclude this particular subject with Paul’s confession that I quoted in the last part of the foregoing meditation.
The phrases “height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” reflect all the trials and suffering that we have to go through in this world. In most cases, money and power enslave us and eventually destroy our lives. How often do we encounter with unwholesome incidents in our daily life. When we face such unavoidable stark realities of life, we are bound to get discouragement and disappointment that lead us to unstoppable despair. To worsen, we even begin to lose our trust in God.
However, Paul says in any case, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God. We can find and experience this love in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is not a romantic love. Love is basically the power of life. It is the power of creation and the power of completion of creation. It is also the resource of resurrection.
Is the utterance of Jesus on the cross a cry of his love? Is it not incredible? His cry is impossible without an absolute trust in God. Based on this trust, Jesus could accept his death on the cross. Jesus obeyed God even to the point of throwing himself into the desperate situation of being forsaken by God. That cross is the mark love. It is so paradoxical but the capability of enduring the pain of abandonment from God is the power of love. Because of Jesus’ unfathomable love, we could experience God’s love even when living in this futile world. Because of his love we can praise God in the midst of this life process. Amen.
Showing posts with label Mark 15:37. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark 15:37. Show all posts
20100227
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (19)
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (19)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
Earlier we have discussed about the death of God in the modern theological and philosophical viewpoint. The report of the gospel writer who points out how the son of God cried out, “Why are you forsaken me?” perplexes us. It sounds nonsense and incredible that the Son of God is forsaken by God. Christian faith begins from such position of nonsense. Jesus’ resurrection is nonsense as we are bound to this worldly experimentalism.
Being nonsense does not mean that Christian faith is founded on an illogical and irrational base. It basically premises the fundamental situation that the creature cannot completely comprehend the total activity of the creator. It also means the existence of God is mystery to us. We who are bound to a point of history cannot positively cognize God who will completely reveal himself at the end of the world. God’s salvation incident can be nonsense in our epistemological level.
However, we can find out God’s deeper grace of salvation in his desperate cry, “Why have you forsaken me?” The God whom we believe and wait is the forsaken one. He is the one who went down to the lowest position of the world. If the resurrection life starts from there, then everyone in the world can be saved.
This cry also points out for us an important fact. God’s salvation takes place in the situation where there is complete forsakenness. God demonstrates his power of salvation in the desperate situation of man’s eyes. This utmost inhuman torture and nightmare has actually happened in the life of Jesus. Then what are we to be afraid of? Listen to the confession of Paul who says, “…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.”(Rom. 8:39)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
Earlier we have discussed about the death of God in the modern theological and philosophical viewpoint. The report of the gospel writer who points out how the son of God cried out, “Why are you forsaken me?” perplexes us. It sounds nonsense and incredible that the Son of God is forsaken by God. Christian faith begins from such position of nonsense. Jesus’ resurrection is nonsense as we are bound to this worldly experimentalism.
Being nonsense does not mean that Christian faith is founded on an illogical and irrational base. It basically premises the fundamental situation that the creature cannot completely comprehend the total activity of the creator. It also means the existence of God is mystery to us. We who are bound to a point of history cannot positively cognize God who will completely reveal himself at the end of the world. God’s salvation incident can be nonsense in our epistemological level.
However, we can find out God’s deeper grace of salvation in his desperate cry, “Why have you forsaken me?” The God whom we believe and wait is the forsaken one. He is the one who went down to the lowest position of the world. If the resurrection life starts from there, then everyone in the world can be saved.
This cry also points out for us an important fact. God’s salvation takes place in the situation where there is complete forsakenness. God demonstrates his power of salvation in the desperate situation of man’s eyes. This utmost inhuman torture and nightmare has actually happened in the life of Jesus. Then what are we to be afraid of? Listen to the confession of Paul who says, “…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.”(Rom. 8:39)
20100224
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (18)
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (18)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
Bonhoeffe’s statement, “Without God before God!” is similar to the aphorism of Nietzsche who says, “God is dead”. Many Christians accept Bonhoeffe but regard Nietzsche as an atheist and the head of anti-Christianity. In my opinion, we do not need to him that way. If his word is an eye-opener for us to see our fault, we should be rather thankful to him.
Nietzsche’s “God is dead” or “The will to nothing” does not demolish the entire foundation rather pursue much more positive side of the world through such nihilism. He made an affirmation of life a superman rather than God, eternal recurrence instead of immortality, the will to power instead of good and truth. Nietzsche’s nihilism promoted a downfall of pre-existing order and contains a positive momentum to overcome it through the will to power. At this point, his ‘nihility’ has an ambivalent meaning. Negative meaning is to dissect a moral system of Christianity and the other positive meaning is to initiate a new life. Listen to Pannenberg’s explanation for this.
“The fact of Nietzsche’s inclination toward atheism suggests his abhorrence to Protestant’s penitential tendency and when we look the fact, we can understand his mysterious phenomena that he never uses his intellect to prove modern atheism or did not try those social conditions. The virtue of honesty he had been so proud of was, in fact, pursued one-sidedly and also partially. Such fact is necessary to be explained as I hinted earlier. Despite this, Christianity should give thank to be broken of mirror for which Nietzsche used to criticize Christianity. Christianity should not overlook the advice that religious piety of Christianity could lead to wrong direction.”(Theology and philosophy, 385)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
Bonhoeffe’s statement, “Without God before God!” is similar to the aphorism of Nietzsche who says, “God is dead”. Many Christians accept Bonhoeffe but regard Nietzsche as an atheist and the head of anti-Christianity. In my opinion, we do not need to him that way. If his word is an eye-opener for us to see our fault, we should be rather thankful to him.
Nietzsche’s “God is dead” or “The will to nothing” does not demolish the entire foundation rather pursue much more positive side of the world through such nihilism. He made an affirmation of life a superman rather than God, eternal recurrence instead of immortality, the will to power instead of good and truth. Nietzsche’s nihilism promoted a downfall of pre-existing order and contains a positive momentum to overcome it through the will to power. At this point, his ‘nihility’ has an ambivalent meaning. Negative meaning is to dissect a moral system of Christianity and the other positive meaning is to initiate a new life. Listen to Pannenberg’s explanation for this.
“The fact of Nietzsche’s inclination toward atheism suggests his abhorrence to Protestant’s penitential tendency and when we look the fact, we can understand his mysterious phenomena that he never uses his intellect to prove modern atheism or did not try those social conditions. The virtue of honesty he had been so proud of was, in fact, pursued one-sidedly and also partially. Such fact is necessary to be explained as I hinted earlier. Despite this, Christianity should give thank to be broken of mirror for which Nietzsche used to criticize Christianity. Christianity should not overlook the advice that religious piety of Christianity could lead to wrong direction.”(Theology and philosophy, 385)
20100222
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (17)
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (17)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
For better assimilation and understanding, it would be good to add something to Bonhoeffe’s theology of de-religionization which is related to the theology of the death of God. We can overcome the orthodox of theism through this and, we can also accept the doctrine of trinity of Christianity and undermine the teaching of monotheism followed by Judaism.
The motive behind the attempt to reform Bonhoeffe’s theology of de-religionization lies in the fact that the very foundation of his theology is de-religionization of Christianity. According to him, Christianity does not stand on general religious request. Religious request is a phenomenon in which a person seeks and wishes for a supernatural death, loneliness and anxiety. Such religious desire is quite uncommon and out of normal. Rather Christianity is directly connected to the practical field of politics, economics, culture and education.
Religious request is a desire of psychologically immature people. In Bonhoeffe’s view, the people who ask such religious request are less in the matured modern era. Christian faith is not the religion which merely responds to such request. In our modern world, people do not have a religion to play the role of a disciplinarian father. They feel they should have more freedom rather than staying in a God-controlled atmosphere. So Bonhoeffe says “Without God before God!” It is a yearning for an escape from an orthodox theism.
There is no room of material comfort and personal gratification for one who is orthodox in his theism. It does not mean God’s nature is changing but modern people who should recognize and experience God are standing still even in the face of new changing world. It is worth considering Ott’s observation which says, “Today when we proclaim the gospel we should not take it for granted that listeners clearly understand and accept the existence of God.”(H. Ott, Theology bibliography, 97) How can we proclaim Jesus, the son of God who breathed on cross as Messiah?
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
For better assimilation and understanding, it would be good to add something to Bonhoeffe’s theology of de-religionization which is related to the theology of the death of God. We can overcome the orthodox of theism through this and, we can also accept the doctrine of trinity of Christianity and undermine the teaching of monotheism followed by Judaism.
The motive behind the attempt to reform Bonhoeffe’s theology of de-religionization lies in the fact that the very foundation of his theology is de-religionization of Christianity. According to him, Christianity does not stand on general religious request. Religious request is a phenomenon in which a person seeks and wishes for a supernatural death, loneliness and anxiety. Such religious desire is quite uncommon and out of normal. Rather Christianity is directly connected to the practical field of politics, economics, culture and education.
Religious request is a desire of psychologically immature people. In Bonhoeffe’s view, the people who ask such religious request are less in the matured modern era. Christian faith is not the religion which merely responds to such request. In our modern world, people do not have a religion to play the role of a disciplinarian father. They feel they should have more freedom rather than staying in a God-controlled atmosphere. So Bonhoeffe says “Without God before God!” It is a yearning for an escape from an orthodox theism.
There is no room of material comfort and personal gratification for one who is orthodox in his theism. It does not mean God’s nature is changing but modern people who should recognize and experience God are standing still even in the face of new changing world. It is worth considering Ott’s observation which says, “Today when we proclaim the gospel we should not take it for granted that listeners clearly understand and accept the existence of God.”(H. Ott, Theology bibliography, 97) How can we proclaim Jesus, the son of God who breathed on cross as Messiah?
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (16)
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (16)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
The theology of the death of God is connected with other two theologies. One is Harvey Cox’s Secularization theology and the other is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s de-religionization. Secularization theology basically teaches the repudiation of dualism of sacred-secular which holds the view that God belongs to a sacred domain whereas man belongs to a secular domain of life. Cox claimed that a true faith is to stand firm in his honesty with God.
Bonhoeffer’s de-religionization raises much more fundamental problem than Harvey Cox’s Secularization theology. Cox’s theology stood out for a while because of its strong social analytical character while Bonhoefer’s theology still gives a great influence to humanity even today because of its theological character. An interesting fact is that Bonhoefer’s theology is accepted to both evangelical and ecumenical parties. In fact, his theology is very radical. It greatly influenced the theology of the death of God. He wrote a letter named ‘resistance and obedience’ while he was imprisoned by Nazi Hitler.
Working on hypothesis, now human is able to solve all important questions by themselves without the help of God. Questions relating to science, art or ethics became the glaring examples. So people hardly take risk to argue the pros and cons about this matter. However, this attitude showed the same response to a religious question that was asked by people who lived a hundred years ago. It turns out that everything is going well without God as it has ever been before. The same is the case in the field of science; God is driven out from the human world and to have finally lost his own foundation.”(D. Bonnhoeffer, resistance and obedience, August 6, 1944)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
The theology of the death of God is connected with other two theologies. One is Harvey Cox’s Secularization theology and the other is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s de-religionization. Secularization theology basically teaches the repudiation of dualism of sacred-secular which holds the view that God belongs to a sacred domain whereas man belongs to a secular domain of life. Cox claimed that a true faith is to stand firm in his honesty with God.
Bonhoeffer’s de-religionization raises much more fundamental problem than Harvey Cox’s Secularization theology. Cox’s theology stood out for a while because of its strong social analytical character while Bonhoefer’s theology still gives a great influence to humanity even today because of its theological character. An interesting fact is that Bonhoefer’s theology is accepted to both evangelical and ecumenical parties. In fact, his theology is very radical. It greatly influenced the theology of the death of God. He wrote a letter named ‘resistance and obedience’ while he was imprisoned by Nazi Hitler.
Working on hypothesis, now human is able to solve all important questions by themselves without the help of God. Questions relating to science, art or ethics became the glaring examples. So people hardly take risk to argue the pros and cons about this matter. However, this attitude showed the same response to a religious question that was asked by people who lived a hundred years ago. It turns out that everything is going well without God as it has ever been before. The same is the case in the field of science; God is driven out from the human world and to have finally lost his own foundation.”(D. Bonnhoeffer, resistance and obedience, August 6, 1944)
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (15)
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (15)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
The Author of the gospel simply called Jesus’ death as, “Jesus breathed his last.” The Son of God, the Messiah was dead. In other words, this could mean God is dead. However, in this a question can be raised, as to how can God be dead? Death is caused by the separation of one from God. Though there cannot be death in the life of God, the gospel seems to have opened the possibility of this occurrence.
In 1960, theology on the death of God spread throughout the Northern American theological society. There was some underlying truth in their opinion. They said a traditional metaphysical God does not have any place to stand in a secular world today. The God is the absolute, omnipotence and the Almighty one. The modern people dropped the idea that God and man could exist together in this evil world. According to them such role of God disappeared after Auschwitz. The other important point in their claim is their conviction that the entire problem that man is facing today can be solved by man himself.
Of course the theology of the death of God is not an orthodox one. It is not necessary for Christians to repudiate such theology. They only criticized an aspect of Christian faith. Such aspect should be criticized. There is a theistic metaphysics in such aspect. It is the image of God who rules this world with the almighty power sitting on the throne in the highest place regardless of human pain.
However, the author of gospel says another level, different from an orthodox theistic metaphysics. The author says Jesus breathed his last on the cross. God revealed himself from the very place. God is the God who is able to die; God is the God who went down to the place of the dead. Now we are all free from death through Jesus’ death.
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.(15:37)
The Author of the gospel simply called Jesus’ death as, “Jesus breathed his last.” The Son of God, the Messiah was dead. In other words, this could mean God is dead. However, in this a question can be raised, as to how can God be dead? Death is caused by the separation of one from God. Though there cannot be death in the life of God, the gospel seems to have opened the possibility of this occurrence.
In 1960, theology on the death of God spread throughout the Northern American theological society. There was some underlying truth in their opinion. They said a traditional metaphysical God does not have any place to stand in a secular world today. The God is the absolute, omnipotence and the Almighty one. The modern people dropped the idea that God and man could exist together in this evil world. According to them such role of God disappeared after Auschwitz. The other important point in their claim is their conviction that the entire problem that man is facing today can be solved by man himself.
Of course the theology of the death of God is not an orthodox one. It is not necessary for Christians to repudiate such theology. They only criticized an aspect of Christian faith. Such aspect should be criticized. There is a theistic metaphysics in such aspect. It is the image of God who rules this world with the almighty power sitting on the throne in the highest place regardless of human pain.
However, the author of gospel says another level, different from an orthodox theistic metaphysics. The author says Jesus breathed his last on the cross. God revealed himself from the very place. God is the God who is able to die; God is the God who went down to the place of the dead. Now we are all free from death through Jesus’ death.
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (14)
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (14)
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. (15:37)
The last moment of Jesus’ earthly life mentioned in Mark 15:33-37 is a description of total submission. The Lord was hung on the cross only for six hours. In those days a strong man was usually hanged on the cross for one week. It rarely took two weeks. Crucifixion itself is not very much critical. A practical threat is the blood oozed out of the nail mark on the palm. The severity varies according to physical constitution of the victim. In some, blood gashes out quickly while in some, blood flows out slowly and normally. Crucifixion is painful for one to bear as it takes a long time to die. It is considered abnormal that Jesus could die within only six hours of suffering on the cross.
It is assumed that Jesus became so weak physically and mentally. Perhaps he had fasted for a week after entering to Jerusalem. Jesus foresaw what would happen in Jerusalem. So he was perhaps mentally and emotionally prepared to face the agony of death. Peter stopped Jesus from entering to Jerusalem. For this Jesus rebuked him and called him Satan. It means Peter’s word might be sounded for Jesus as an alluring temptation of Satan. It is the same that three forms of temptations Jesus had gone through in his early public life, that are seductive to the entire mankind. However, Jesus was completely exhausted in a week after his entry to Jerusalem. His sweat of intense pain was like the pain of bleeding as he spent time in prayer in the Gethsemane. His tortured body could not endure more than six hours on the cross and finally he had to give in.
The author of the gospel shows the picture of the last moment of Jesus in a calm atmosphere. There is no empathy and embellishment. It could not but do like that for an unacceptable thing- dying of a son of God- has happened. He only could deliver us the true relationship that Jesus died with loud cry. Others are nothing but a something superfluous
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. (15:37)
The last moment of Jesus’ earthly life mentioned in Mark 15:33-37 is a description of total submission. The Lord was hung on the cross only for six hours. In those days a strong man was usually hanged on the cross for one week. It rarely took two weeks. Crucifixion itself is not very much critical. A practical threat is the blood oozed out of the nail mark on the palm. The severity varies according to physical constitution of the victim. In some, blood gashes out quickly while in some, blood flows out slowly and normally. Crucifixion is painful for one to bear as it takes a long time to die. It is considered abnormal that Jesus could die within only six hours of suffering on the cross.
It is assumed that Jesus became so weak physically and mentally. Perhaps he had fasted for a week after entering to Jerusalem. Jesus foresaw what would happen in Jerusalem. So he was perhaps mentally and emotionally prepared to face the agony of death. Peter stopped Jesus from entering to Jerusalem. For this Jesus rebuked him and called him Satan. It means Peter’s word might be sounded for Jesus as an alluring temptation of Satan. It is the same that three forms of temptations Jesus had gone through in his early public life, that are seductive to the entire mankind. However, Jesus was completely exhausted in a week after his entry to Jerusalem. His sweat of intense pain was like the pain of bleeding as he spent time in prayer in the Gethsemane. His tortured body could not endure more than six hours on the cross and finally he had to give in.
The author of the gospel shows the picture of the last moment of Jesus in a calm atmosphere. There is no empathy and embellishment. It could not but do like that for an unacceptable thing- dying of a son of God- has happened. He only could deliver us the true relationship that Jesus died with loud cry. Others are nothing but a something superfluous
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