As Christian Churches across the globe commemorate what is known as, “The Triduum” – three days (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter) representing the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth — one might reflect upon the underlying import of the Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection – what was the ultimate effect.
It is traditional Christian doctrine that the greatest Christian feast day of the year is Easter, because it is the day, according to the Nicene Creed that spells out the basics of at least Catholic Christianity, that He “… rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,” thereby proving that He was the Son of God – God as well as Man. St. Paul, the primary spreader of the Christianity in the early Church (who has thirteen letters attributed to him included in the New Testament, compared to seven for all other Christian writers), whose faith was based on Christology – i.e., the mystery of the Incarnation, Jesus as both fully divine and fully human, and his mission as Savior – wrote (in one of the letters scholars agree Paul himself actually did write) to the Christian community in Corinth, “[I]f Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. [1 Cor. 15:14]”
As the years have passed, I have reflected upon whether Easter should, indeed, be considered the greatest of Christian Holy Days. If one accepts Christology as taught by St. Paul, all the Lord did by rising from the dead (not that big a feat, since he was God 😉) was prove to us that He was God. He already knew he was God. With some temerity, I will venture that the greatest day for those who believe in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth may not be Sunday but today – Good Friday – when the Son of Man, whether or not He was also God — whom even non-Christian faiths acknowledge to be one of the holiest men ever to ever live — endured torture and execution through one of the cruelest, most painful manners ever conceived by humankind … and preached forgiveness and love of His enemies right to the last. One might venture that His death, and the selfless submission to the Father’s will with which he faced it, were significant not only because of the Christologist belief that it enabled Him to prove He was God through His Resurrection, but also because they created a marker that has caused His message to be carried through the ages.
In the Easter Season, there is a tendency to emphasize the Gospel of John. The author(s) of John’s Gospel – almost certainly, despite Christian tradition, not the Apostle John himself — were seemingly most influenced by the teachings of St. Paul. In the Gospel of John, the Lord speaks in much more detail about His Divinity than is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (the “Synoptic Gospels”), which all biblical scholars acknowledge were written at least a decade and perhaps decades closer to the Lord’s life and death. During this Easter Season, I am most taken by the substance Lord’s message recorded in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, here from Matthew:
“[O]ne of [the Pharisees] tested him by asking, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ [Matt. 22: 35-39]”
I think it is undisputed that one of the chief protagonists in the debates in the Christian community regarding the meaning of the Lord’s ministry following the Lord’s Crucifixion was St. James, referred to in the Gospel of Matthew as the “brother of the Lord.” (Assuming one believes in the Virgin Birth of the Lord, we’ll pass for purposes of this discussion whether Blessed Mother, a married woman whom I deeply, deeply revere, had to be, as the Catholic hierarchy maintains, “[for]ever virgin.”) Some scholars believe that James was both the Lord’s biological brother and one of the two men named “James” listed among the twelve disciples; other scholars maintain that he was another James, but still someone personally well acquainted with the Lord. It is seemingly undisputed that James was a – some maintain the — acknowledged leader of the Christian community in Jerusalem after the Lord’s death, that he and Paul knew each other, and that although both were undoubtedly holy men committed to the Lord, they did not always see eye to eye on matters of faith. (At least one scholar has maintained that James was a source of frustration for Paul in Jerusalem; Jerusalem Christians were, not surprisingly, more persuaded by the views of one who had known the Lord personally than by those of one who had not.) James has but one letter in the New Testament, but it certainly has the echo of someone who knew the Lord and his teachings intimately:
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world. … [I]f you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. … What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Indeed, someone might say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. [Jas. 1:27; 2:8; 14-18]”
The primary tenet of calling oneself Christian, as Christianity has evolved since the Council of Nicaea in 325, is the belief that Jesus of Nazareth was both God and Man. To believe otherwise is considered by the Catholic Church hierarchy as “heresy” – which simply means you can’t really consider yourself a Christian – be a true member of the team — if you don’t believe the Nicene Creed. For those who claim to be Christians, belief in the Resurrection is accordingly an essential affirmation. Fair enough. I’m a Catholic, and I believe that the Lord was God, but in the larger consideration of Everlasting Life, I don’t think whether one believes in His Divinity matters. (I also believe that since the Almighty provided us with minds, He doesn’t mind if we think and question; He can take care of Himself. I’m not so sure that this view is as widely appreciated by Christian hierarchies. 😊) Since I believe that a merciful and loving God affords many paths to Him for those who seek to find Him, I will be so bold as to suggest (never before or after this will I be so presumptuous as to speak for the Lord in these pages; for my sake, He’d better by merciful and loving 😉) that the Lord cares much less whether we believe that He is God than whether we abide by the message He provided us: Love the Lord your God; and love your neighbor as yourself. As a result of His selfless, guiltless sacrifice over 2000 years ago, we have been blessed with the knowledge of the path to Everlasting Life – not an easy path, but one that can be trod by anyone of any or no faith.
Happy Easter.
McCoy's Noise 