7. Christ Risen: Lord & Redeemer

The preeminent truth is that God so loved us that he sent his only Son to earth to save us. Without Advent and Christmas, there can be no Lent and Easter. These commemorations are closer together than we might immediately realize. Now that Christ is one of us, he saves us by suffering and dying on the Cross. Of his own free will, he offers himself as our victim to his heavenly Father to obtain pardon for all mankind. Faithful to his Father and to his mission, he embraces the Paschal Mystery so that we can be freed from original sin, obtain pardon for all personal sins, and reach heaven.

What the prophets had foretold about the messiah was fulfilled in Jesus our Savior. He and his mission were authenticated by miracles. He cured the deaf, the lame, and the blind. He multiplied fish and bread and turned water into wine. He raised people from the dead. The crowning miracle and the most crucial validation of all, was his resurrection. As foretold, three days after his death by crucifixion, he rose alive by his own power from the grave.

We are redeemed by and through the person of Jesus. He indicates by his example and teachings how we are to be disciples. He founded the Church as a particular sacramental vehicle for extending this gift of salvation-- bestowing through Word and sacrament, his presence and sacrificial action.

Detouring for a moment into speculation, it has been suggested that the Lord might have come among us through the incarnation even if men and women had not sinned. Our faith indicates that Jesus was a divine Person, the pre-existent Word, the self-expression or Idea of God-- the plan of creation to whom we are to conform and with whom we are to become one. As such, he is the center of creation. However, men and women also constitute the axis of the created order by fact of their image and likeness to God and their stewardship over creation. The two centers, the Son of God and humanity, were not to remain in tension. The contradiction of two centers was to be resolved and they become one in the incarnation. However, since we had sinned, he now not only came to join himself to the created order but to rescue it from its own folly.

Jesus' Paschal Mystery (his Passion, Death, and Resurrection) establishes a new relation of grace between God and humanity. This is the Good News. We are redeemed by Christ, literally "bought back" from the devil. During ancient days, a slave could often buy back his freedom. The biblical notion is deeper still. It denotes vindication. The one redeemed by God's salvific action is not only freed from sin but discovers himself and his life justified and righteous in God's sight.

Jesus is well aware that his death will be redemptive. At the Last Supper, he deliberately introduces a new ritual by which his disciples will remember him-- making him and his sacrificial action present. "The Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it, and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me'" (1 Cor. 11:23-27, written around 57 AD). [Notice the early composition. Pushing it back further, St. Paul says that he is merely offering what was handed down to him. These words are the ones by which the Pauline communities celebrate the Eucharist.]

The terms used at the Last Supper illustrate Jesus' consciousness of the sacrificial nature of what he was about to do. His body is "given" and his blood is "shed". These are ritualistic Jewish terms describing sacrifice, clearly connecting the meal to the Passover context. Jesus is the Lamb of a new Passover, delivering a new Israel from God's wrath. The ritual communicates what Jesus' death accomplishes, whenever it is celebrated.

As a generic definition, a sacrifice is an act of dedicating something to the deity. It can be dedicated in several ways: by destroying it and/or by offering it and then partaking of it in sacred communion. A person, in sacrifice, can dedicate his whole life and/or certain actions to the service of God.

The sacrifice of Christ consists in his life-long obedient love to the will of the Father. As both the eternal Son of God and as the messiah, Jesus is the beloved of God-- the representative and mediator for a repentant humanity. (Everything Jesus did consequently takes upon itself a universal significance and wins the pleasure of God on our behalf.)

The resurrection of Jesus can never be thought of as entirely separate from his sacrificial death. The resurrection is the Father's response to Christ's faithful love, vindicating from the world's wrongful charges and condemnation. His conquest of the grave is the Father's seal of approval upon the person, the words, and the work of Jesus. Jesus was obedient to his Father and to his mission, even when it seemed that all he had accomplished was for nought and he suffered a criminal's death. The deceased Jesus is really and truly restored to life as the first fruits of a new order of grace. Obedient love, particularly against the mystery of evil, is realized as power which death cannot destroy.

The primary resurrection theme of the Gospel is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the master of his own body; his disciples almost immediately grasp the transformation wrought by the resurrection. He is the same and yet he is also different. He is tangible and real, proving as much by offering his wounds for touching and eating a fish along the shore. He is different in that people do not usually materialize into lock rooms. He is no longer limited by space and time. This latter note is of utmost importance, especially regarding the sacraments. Jesus is now stands over human history. He commissions his apostles to act, not simply in the name of Yahweh, but in his own name. Jesus becomes the name that saves. The end-times begin.

"IF CHRIST HAS NOT BEEN RAISED, OUR PREACHING IS VOID AND YOUR FAITH IS EMPTY TOO" (1 Cor. 15:14). THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST IS A REAL FORCE AT WORK IN THE WORLD. BECAUSE OF IT, OUR FAITH TRULY ACCOMPLISHES THE FRUITS HE INTENDS. GRACE HAS TAKEN ITS FINAL AND CONCRETE FORM IN THE RISEN CHRIST.