These three are the most important solemnities of the liturgical year. And because they are so important, there is a time of preparation attached to each one: Advent for Christmas, Lent for Easter and Easter Time for Pentecost.
The importance of feasts
"Panem et circenses", bread and circuses or diversion, and in the understanding of the Romans, diversion is as important to humans as bread is. For this reason, popular or religious festivals are cultural manifestations and appear in all societies, whether primitive, modern or post-modern, rural or urban, poor or economically developed.
Celebrating, or feasting, has always been a reality ever since early antiquity, and it will continue to be insofar as it remains a human expression that involves a variety of elements: playful, emotional, psychological, social, aesthetic, economic, symbolic, ritual and religious. In addition to these elements, festivals have several functions both at an individual as well as at a social and economic level:
Social cohesion – Festivals convey the function of social cohesion to a given society. Parties, holidays, and days of rest are an appropriate time to expand social relationships, to socially integrate individuals and groups and to strengthen social ties.
Identity and belonging – At an individual level, festivals are occasions for identification and belonging to a specific social and cultural group. They celebrate the culture and particular idiosyncrasies of each group. It is at feasts that a group recognizes itself as such, with its particularities, especially with what distinguishes it from other groups that do not celebrate that festival. At the festival, both a group and any individual belonging to that group become aware of their identity, and grow and configure themselves even more to it.
The people who participate in a particular feast identify themselves with its patron saint, with a place of worship, with a sacred or symbolic place, with a flag, with a traditional dish, with a neighbourhood, etc. In a nutshell, the festivity brings identity and idiosyncrasy to a community of individuals.
A festival, celebrated with a banquet, is the only moment in human life where joy and pleasure go hand in hand. The joy of being with those we love the most, friends and family, together with the pleasure of a good meal consisting of the traditional dishes of our childhood, accompanied by the best of wines. It's a "Non plus ultra" of human life. This is why the Kingdom of Heaven in the Bible is often compared to a banquet of delicious and succulent food, and best wines, for all peoples, (Isaiah 25, 6ss).
Cyclical alternation – Like a bookmark inside a book, festivals are distributed throughout the annual and cyclical calendar, marking solstices and equinoxes. These are key moments that serve to signal changes from one period to the next, from one season to the next, from one cycle to the next.
Liberating catharsis – Festivals are a liberating ease out of the routine, they serve the function of unburdening the group and the individual, because they give a break from the monotony of the daily routine. They are like a truce in the daily struggle, like the Olympic Games were in the antiquity, they are the escape rooms for social and individual repressions. Instincts are unleashed, for a moment, who we truly are comes to the surface which is kept hidden in our daily routine.
Norms, rules, social standards, and even decency itself, are deliberately broken and violated. During the festive season, it is as if everything changes for a moment, so that the person can endure the monotony of the rest of the year.
Communication with the divine – In addition to the communication between individuals and the strengthening of social ties, a feast day is also a moment of communication with the divine and a strengthening of ties with this Higher Entity (God) in whom most of the inhabitants of this planet believe. Certain festivals therefore serve a religious purpose.
They are an expression of popular devotion and piety to Christ, the Virgin Mary or the Saints. Popular festivals of religious content are moments conducive to the fulfillment of a promise, the making of a sacrifice or penance or a request for grace. For these purposes certain rituals are performed.
Initiation – In certain cases, the festivities fulfill a function of initiation. For certain social groups, the festivities represent the transition from one stage of life to another, that is, from childhood to adolescence, from adolescence to youth, adulthood, etc. It is a time to adopt new social roles, new attitudes and new behaviours. For example, it is a time when the teenagers take advantage of parties to start drinking alcohol or smoking, coming home later, etc.
Economic function - Finally, the festivities have an economic function. Many of the current festivities are associated with ancient fairs of medieval origin. But undoubtedly, nowadays they are all a means to motivate the consumption of goods and services in different societies.
The meaning of the liturgical year
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. Hebrews 13:8
"Spring comes and goes, youth never returns". In this little proverb or popular phrase two diametrically opposite conceptions of time are summarized. The circular dimension of time, by which spring always comes and goes, is what all festivals presuppose because they are celebrated again and again every year. Youth never comes back alludes to the rectilinear dimension of time; Could this be the reason why some of us do not like to celebrate our birthdays when we are no longer young?
Cosmic time: The Circle – Starting from the objectively observable, in ancient Greece and the Far East, a circular understanding of time always prevailed: from the cosmic point of view, the 365 days that the Earth takes to go around the sun; from the point of view of Nature, more specifically the changes in the climate, the four seasons of the year: spring, summer, autumn and winter. From these facts, the myth of "eternal return" was born in Philosophy, the idea that "there is nothing new under the sun" in as far as Science is concerned and the belief in "reincarnation" in the field of Religion.
Human time: The Straight Line – From the existential and human point of view, each day that comes is one day more that we will live and one less day that we have left to live. Conceiving time as a straight line, which comes from the past, goes through the present and heads towards the future, is not something that can be observed in nature.
Time in a straight line is the time of individual and community history, the time that integrates the idea of progress: today was better than yesterday, tomorrow will be better than today. In Philosophy, the Heraclitus’ maxim "we do not bathe twice in the waters of the same river” shares this understanding of time, and the same is true in Cosmology and Religion, which convey the notions of the beginning and the end of the world.
This is also the Jewish conception of time: the flight from Egypt (land of slavery), the passage through the desert (place of suffering, penance, purification and effort) and the entry into the Promised Land, where milk and honey flow (land of freedom, of rewarded effort and finished work). This is the archetype of progress and human life advocated even by Karl Marx's theory, according to which: Egypt would be capitalism, the desert would be the proletariat’s dictatorship over the rich capitalists, and the Promised Land would be socialism and a classless society.
Christian time: The Spiral – This is the synthesis of a straight line and a circle, since it is a circle in a continuous forward movement. The dictionary defines spiral as "an unlimited curved line, traced by a point that turns around a pole, from which it progressively moves away" like a propeller, a spring or a spiral staircase.
This is the Christian and human notion of time, (interestingly, this shape is also inscribed in the DNA molecule, our genetic code). As the spiral indicates, each year is made up of 365 days around the Sun – the Sun is Christ, who enlightens and gives meaning to our lives, who is the beginning and the end, both of the Universe and of our individual life. A helical motion is also what our planet traces as it is dragged by the sun orbiting around the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
Christian time, therefore, is neither a circle nor a straight line, that is, every Christmas and every Easter are different, given that the year we are in and the situational conditions in which we find ourselves are different. However, Christ is the constant throughout our lives, He is the axis around which we gravitate, "In him we live and move and have our being", (Acts of the Apostles 17:28).
Each year that passes, we meditate around the mystery of Christ, from his Incarnation to his Passion, Resurrection and Ascension into heaven. Ultimately, to move out of our personal "Egypt" by configuring our lives more and more to His, so that one day we will reach the Promised Land and we can say like St. Paul: "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me", (Galatians 2:20).
A feast day for each of the 3 Divine Persons
After three years of writing on the Trinitarian dimension or tridimensionality of Creation which mirrors reality and the identity of its Creator, who is also a unity of three distinct persons, in this last text, number 63, we want to celebrate Creation and its Creator in these three most important solemnities that the Church celebrates each year: Christmas – Easter – Pentecost.
Since the Church has reserved the Sunday after Pentecost to celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the union and communion of the three divine persons, it is only right that she should have a solemnity for each of the three divine persons. Seeing that Pentecost is clearly a celebration of God the Holy Spirit, I wanted to see in the other two, Easter and Christmas, the celebrations of the Father and the Son, and I ran into the problem that both Christmas and Easter seem to be celebrations of the Son, leaving the Father without a separate distinct feast day.
It does not seem fair that the Son has two feast days while the Father is left without any, so I thought which of the two to give to the Father and on what basis; it could be Easter, because Jesus dies doing the will of the Father (Luke 22:42), or it could be Christmas, because Jesus himself says in his dialogue with Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” (John 3:16-21).
To resolve this question, we turn to grammar and what it tells us about active and passive voice. At Easter, it seems that it is Jesus who directs the action when he says, "No one takes it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord", (John 10:18). At Easter, Jesus is the leading actor, no one has greater love than he who gives his life for his friends, (John 15:13). There is no doubt then that Easter is the feast of the Son, because he is its protagonist.
The same is no longer the case at Christmas; Jesus is not the protagonist of Christmas because grammatically he is a passive person, Jesus does not give birth but is given birth. This is why I have never liked the formulation of the third Joyful Mystery that in all languages says, we contemplate the nativity of Jesus. It is as if Jesus had fallen from Heaven by parachute or as if He himself had caused his own birth. This mystery should say: "In the third Joyful Mystery, we contemplate Mary who gives birth to Jesus".
Christmas has two great protagonists, one divine and one human. God the Father is the divine protagonist and Mary is the human protagonist. The action begins in God the Father who sends his only begotten Son into the world. Although there is no order of importance between the Father and the Son, from the grammatical and human point of view, it is more important the one who sends than the one who is sent; the one who sends provokes the action, while the one who is sent “suffers” the action.
Mary, the human protagonist, is not passive but is also active; she represents all of Humanity who says Yes to God's plan. A Yes freely given because it was spoken after some pondering and without any coercion on the part of God who proposed it; a Yes that, because it was freely given, could have been a No. The one who sends is as important as the one who receives. If a King sends a messenger to another King, the latter is free to receive or not receive the message.
Let us then speak of the most important solemnities of the liturgical year, Christmas being a celebration of the Father for sending us his Son, Easter being a celebration of the Son who restored humanity to the dignity with which God had created it, and Pentecost being the celebration of the Holy Spirit who came to stay with us until the end of time as the companion on our way back to God.
Three solemnities, three nights - In the hustle and bustle of the day many things escape us and we lose the real perspective of everything. We look at the sky and what we see is unreal; there is a gas in the upper layers of the atmosphere, which when light strikes it, paints the sky blue and is no longer the outer space.
At night when activities cease, we look at the sky and recognize our smallness in the immensity of the universe. The night is a time of realism, the night is a time of meditation, the night is a time of salvation. Christ was born at night, at night he rose again, and at night the Holy Spirit came to us to stay with us.
CHRISTMAS
It was for this reason that the Word of God became Man - so that Man would become the son of God.
St. Irenaeus of Lyon
Since Christianity is the religion with most followers and Christmas is the most popular feast day of the Christian world, we can then easily conclude that Christmas is the most celebrated holiday of all the holidays celebrated on this planet. It is undoubtedly the holiday that brings together more people worldwide than any other and not just in the Western society.
Religion and revelation
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son… Hebrews 1:1-2
This verse, from the letter to the Hebrews, can summarize all religions in addition to Christianity. Religion, from the Latin "religare", means relationship with God and with one’s neighbour. Ever since the human species became aware of itself, it has believed in the possible existence of a superior being, transcendent to everything and everyone, who is the Creator of everything and everyone.
At all times and in all places, man has sought to communicate with this superior being, God, in order to obtain his approval. God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways, summarizes all religions, which in relation to Christianity, occupy the place that Old Testament occupies in the Bible. They are all about prophets sent by God; Christianity no longer presents just a prophet, but God himself, God with us or Emmanuel.
Cell phones, televisions and radios all use radio waves that cross our space which we cannot see or hear, but we know that they exist because when we have the right instruments, we can capture them. Analogously, God also sought to communicate with man, and man with God. But this communication is also not accessible to everyone, it is necessary to have a special sensibility to enter into this communication.
There have always been people with a special sensibility to communicate with God. In the biblical tradition, prophets were the catalysts of God's designs for the people and the people's petitions to God. Communication, however, was not without difficulties; as in the field of telecommunications, there were a lot of "interference"; the prophet's personality and character, his flaws and prejudices, filtered the message and therefore it did not reach the receiver as it was originally sent. On the other hand, these prophets often understood that Heaven was closed to everyone and that God was shrouded in silence.
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest, (Psalm 22:2). The people of Israel were never satisfied with this communication, so lacking, and therefore lived in a continuous restlessness.
‘Come’ my heart says, ‘seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, do I seek, (Psalm 27:8). True love never gets used to absence.
Christianity is not a religion because it does not represent only man's effort or attempts to reach God, on the contrary, Christianity is a revelation because it is God who seeks man and reveals Himself to him. As Jesus says in the gospel, you did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name, (John 15:16).
At Christmas, we celebrate the great truth, that God is not shrouded in silence, but in bands of cloth and laid in a manger. With the birth of Jesus, God breaks the silence, eliminates the distance, and undoes the inaccessibility. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, at our side, a travelling companion in our life as he was with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Around the campfire
The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned. Matthew 4:16
The worship of the sun was very important in Rome. In the 3rd century, the Sun King was the main patron saint of the Empire. It is the sun that illuminates, that warms; in its absence in the winter, bonfires were made and the sun was remembered in its absence.
The invention of fire not only made it possible to melt various ingredients in foods or various minerals in metal alloys, but along with the need for warmth, it also made it possible to melt several wills into one. To have a place around the campfire and to keep themselves warm, many people gave up individual point of view and adopted communal points of view in order to be accepted in the community circle around the fire.
The warmth of the fireplace gave birth to love among people. How many fireplaces a village has meant how many families live there. Even today the number of families in a village is counted by the number of fireplaces. The fireplace was for cooking, for light and for warmth; at night, when no work could be done, around the fireplace culture was passed from parents to children by oral tradition.
The Romans celebrated a great festival at winter solstice, the shortest day and the longest night of the year, the day when the sun begins its return to the Northern Hemisphere and the day begins to lengthen. The Church, aware of the importance of Christ's coming into the world, baptized this special day with the birth of Jesus.
In fact, if the sun illuminates our way, then Christ illuminates our life; if the sun warms and gives life to our body, then Christ warms and gives life to our soul. Christ came and history was divided into two, the years before Christ and the years after Christ. Christ marks the beginning of a new era; the years are counted from the time of his birth.
Winter solstice and summer solstice
You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.” He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason, my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:28-30
Similar to the evening of Christmas, the 24th of December, is the evening of St. John the Baptist feast day celebrated on the 24th of June. Both nights are a festival of lights and each marks a solstice. St. John's night occurs when the days are already waning, after the summer solstice which marks the longest day of the year. John came to prepare the way of the Lord, but he must decrease; the same must be done by parents and teachers: they must live according to their children/students, but without seeking the leading role. The evening of Christmas occurs when the days are already lengthening, after the winter solstice which marks the shortest day of the year; Christ must increase until he is everything in everyone.
The Feast of the Father
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16
Jesus is not the reason for the season or Christmas season, the Father is. On this holiday, Jesus is born: the verbs that refer to Jesus in this season come in the passive voice. Christmas, as an encounter between God and Humanity, has a human protagonist, a mother, Mary, who received Jesus in her womb and contributed her genetic material, and a divine Father, God.
In the past, I too used to criticize the importance civil society gives to the mythical figure of Santa Claus. Today I understand that it is one of those cases of "the voice of the people echoes the voice of God". Santa Claus represents God the Father who sent his Son into the world. He is a venerable old man who does not hide his age or want to appear younger, and who is always giving presents to children out of love, cuddling them and taking them on his lap. In everyone’s imagination God the Father is always represented by an old man with white hair and white beard. Santa Claus coincides with this collective imagery.
His outfit is the red garment of a bishop because historically, Santa Claus is associated with Bishop St. Nicholas, which is why he is called Santa Claus in English or just Santa. He lives in the North Pole, a place apart from everything and everyone in a region that is white, in a pure world that appeals to the collective imagery of the way heaven is conceptualized, God’s dwelling place.
He visits us at night, because, as we have said, the night is a time of salvation. He is never seen, but he speaks through his works translated into the graces and gifts that we, as children and his sons and daughters, ask of him. Despite being able to enter through windows or doors, he only enters through the chimney because he moves around by flying, he comes down from above and enters through the only part of the house that is always open, and somehow keeping watch, pointing out that we must always be in prayer open to the Most High, looking upwards from where help may come.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’ (…) The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. Luke 2:13-14, 20
Christmas as the feast of the Father was celebrated in Heaven by the angels who said Glory to God in the highest, and on earth by the shepherds who returned from Bethlehem glorifying and praising God.
The messianic banquet
Christmas is the feast that unites men to God, it is the feast that unites earth to Heaven. The incarnation is a marriage between the Only Begotten Son of God and Humanity, Christmas is a wedding banquet that celebrates this indivisible and everlasting union. A marriage is a union of two destinies into one. At Christmas, God the Father marries his Son to Humanity, that is, he joins the nature of the second person of the Most Holy Trinity to the Human Nature.
The union of the two natures inside one person took place in Mary’s womb. She is, with every right, the Mother of the child to be born because she not only lent her womb, but also contributed her genetic material. God, through the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, is the Father of both the second person of the Most Holy Trinity and the very person incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus of Nazareth who was born in Bethlehem is the result of this union, this inseparable and indivisible union of the two natures: human and divine. God became the son of Man, the only title Jesus gives to himself, so that Man, who is a creature of God, may also become a son of God.
Jesus' time among us corresponds to the messianic banquet prophesied many centuries earlier in Isaiah 25, and declared by Jesus in one of his parables in Matthew 22:1-14. Because it is the time of the messianic banquet, it is a fact that the public life of Jesus begins with a wedding banquet at Cana of Galilee and ends at the Eucharistic banquet on Holy Thursday in Jerusalem, in which He is the food. Between these two banquets, Jesus participated in many others with his disciples and many of his sayings were pronounced in the context of a meal.
Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. Matthew 9:14-15
Because it is the time that Jesus is among us, the time of the messianic banquet, his disciples, that is, the bridegroom's friends should not fast, but should celebrate. It is a time of feasting, a time of celebration, not a time of penance or sadness.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:2-3
The days of fasting will come when the bridegroom returns to the Father’s house taking with Him our human nature redeemed in his person and by his person, sitting at the right hand of God the Father.
EASTER
Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Corinthians 5:7-8
Christ's death can be seen as the ransom payment from eternal death to which mankind was destined. But it can also be seen as the death of a prophet, that is, as paying the price for daring to bring the Kingdom of God to a world that has long ago forsaken God.
This death is salvific because it is the payment for a debt and because it is the death of the one who dies for justice and truth. Only Easter is truly saving because it is the passage from death to life. It is the Resurrection of Christ that gives the saving merit to His death, whether we see it as a payment for the debt of sinful humanity, or we see it as the death of a prophet who proves, with His Resurrection, that evil does not have the last word.
Jewish Passover, archetype of life
As we have said in another text about the archetype of progress or even the archetype of success: Egypt - Desert - Promised Land, Passover is the celebration of this archetype. The term itself means passage and it celebrates the crossing of the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land, the passage of the Jordan River and the entry into the Promised Land, the passage of the Red Sea, and finally, the passage of the Angel of Death over all the firstborn of the Egyptians.
At Passover, a lamb is slaughtered in order to remember that lamb whose blood was painted on the doorpost so that the Angel of Death who killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians will pass over that house. This is how the sacrificial system began. According to the author of the letter to the Hebrews, the goal of religion is to access friendship with God. This goal was achieved through obedience to the Law that God gave to Moses.
Since it was very difficult to always obey the Law without ever breaking it, a sacrificial system was instituted so that the faithful, through a sacrifice offered to God, could obtain forgiveness of their guilt and thus restore their friendship with God. Since no one is perfect, without the sacrificial system the Law would be completely useless.
Jesus dies for the sins of mankind according to the letter to the Hebrews
Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:29
It was precisely John the Baptist, who belonged to a movement that accessed God's forgiveness through a water purification ritual and not by offering a sacrifice, who presented Jesus as the Lamb of God, perhaps because he understood that Jesus was the last of the lambs, as Muhammad is for Muslims the last of the prophets.
It is the day of salvation for Humanity. Christ's sacrifice, because it is perfect (if it is perfect there can only be one, and Christ can only die once), replaces once and for all the sacrifices of the old Law. Why is it perfect? This sacrifice is perfect because it brings together aspects that have happened once in the history of humanity.
Christ is the perfect Temple and Altar: "Destroy this Temple and I will raise it up in three days." The temple is the place of God's presence. Christ is God.
Christ is the perfect Priest: Being God and man, He is the perfect bridge (intermediary pontifex) between God and men. He does not need to offer a sacrifice to purify himself as the priests of Jerusalem did before offering a sacrifice for the people. In Christ's sacrifice, He himself is the priest since He himself offers the sacrifice to God. As Jesus said, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again”, (John 10:18).
Christ is the perfect Lamb: "All that opens the womb is Mine." Christ is the firstborn, the only Son of God, and since he committed no sin, he is the perfect victim without blemish required by the Law. He paid our ransom.
Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
(...) He forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. Colossians 2:13-14
In Romans 6:23, St. Paul says that the wages of sin is death. We sin therefore we deserve to die or we must pay for our sin with eternal death. God forgives us our faults, but someone has to die in our place and preferably someone who is innocent. This idea has much that is anthropological, but little that is theological.
A God who forgives but does not forget, who penalizes, who demands retribution, or payment, is a God similar to the human justice which is a form of retaliation, but has little to do with the God whom Jesus speaks to us about, a God who forgives, forgets, and turns the page.
Jesus as the Scapegoat - "the innocent pays for the sinner"
When the Jews sought reconciliation and forgiveness for their sins, a male goat was brought in and all the people projected their sins onto it. It was then released into the wilderness to die there as a scapegoat for the sins of the people.
In the court of England, the "weeping boy" was a boy who was punished in place of the prince when the latter did something reprehensible.
The idea of paying for the sin of others has more to do with a retributive justice than with a God who is love and pure gratuity, and whose only condition for forgiving us is that we also forgive others freely and from the heart without asking anything from those who have offended us.
To Die in someone's place
We understand the idea of giving up our life for someone, of dying for someone, because what gives meaning to our life must also give meaning to our death, that is, the reason why we live minute by minute, may require that we give our whole life up in one minute. A mother lives for her child and would be willing to die for him... In a Nazi concentration camp, the Polish priest Maximilian Kolbe offered to die in place of a man condemned to death.
To die so to save
We also understand, as we often see in the movies, that someone gets in between the killer and the victim and ends up dying in the victim’s place. On a physical level, when a wound opens up in our body and we are under a threat from bacteria, germs, and viruses, there is a type of white blood cells, the neutrophils, that ingest the bacteria, germs or viruses, and end up dying in the process, thus preventing a generalized infection; they died to save us.
In the movie Independence Day, our planet is under attack by aliens and the only way to get rid of them is to strike their spaceship with an atomic bomb. A pilot offers to fly the plane carrying the atomic bomb, but when it comes time to fire it, the mechanism jams. He then decides to sacrifice himself for humanity by flying his plane into the spaceship. He died to save humanity.
These reasons and many others have been used to explain the idea that Jesus died to save us; but we do not see how they can apply to Jesus and his death on the cross.
Jesus dies as a prophet according to Luke’s Gospel
To Luke, Jesus' death has no saving power in itself. It does not provide atonement for sins. On the contrary, Jesus dies as a consequence of his commitment to bless all people, especially the poor and the sinners, which he does even when he was already nailed to the cross. His resurrection vindicates Him as the Savior of the world, as the One who brings humanity into God's presence.
The interpretation of Jesus' death as the death of a prophet is not only how Luke views the death of the Lord, because the sacrificial culture of the Jews is foreign to him. In fact, it makes no sense that Jesus saw his death as a payment demanded by God to save mankind, since He himself was strongly against the sacrificial system of Jerusalem, and against the Temple and its priests.
As we have already mentioned in other texts, Jesus was associated with a movement that already existed which advocated obtaining forgiveness of sins through a ritual of cleansing with water. This was done by the monks of Qumram. John the Baptist brought this ritual out of the monasteries by offering it to everyone in the waters of the Jordan River; Jesus took it even further into the midst of the people in the villages and towns wherever he went, reducing it to just one statement, "Your sins are forgiven", (Luke 7:48).
(...) today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Luke 13:33-34
From this text, and by the fact that the figure of Jesus was mistaken with that of John the Baptist who had returned to life (Matthew 14:1-2) and that the disciples of Emmaus interpreted the death of Jesus, as the death of a prophet mighty in deeds and words (Luke 24:13-35), we understand that Jesus himself saw His own death as the death of a prophet.
There is no text in which Jesus presents himself as the lamb of God who, with his sacrifice, cleanses mankind from all guilt. The only metaphor that Jesus uses to explain his death is that of the grain of wheat which if it does not die, bears no fruit (John 12:24). This seems to allude indirectly to salvation not by death, but by the Resurrection which indicates that good has overcome evil.
Jesus lived for the Kingdom and died for the Kingdom
As the biblical quote that opens this reflection suggests, Jesus died not to pay the price for our sins, but to pay the price for His life. He died for the values that gave shape and meaning to His life. He came into the world to establish and inaugurate a New World, the Kingdom of God. And since a new world is made with new men, He was the first stone, the first New Man, the first model citizen of the Kingdom of God.
When a new structure replaces an old one, the latter must be destroyed. Thus, while proclaiming a new world and presenting himself as the model of the Way, the Truth and the Life, Jesus denounced the former structures.
He did not do this with impunity because the powers that maintained the status quo quickly silenced him. But the fire had already spread and continues to devour the hearts of Jesus' followers. "If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also", (John 15:20). As Jesus had already said, they also had to pay the price for their boldness.
Christ's death for the Kingdom saves us because he died for the model of society that is truly salvific for all and not only for some; he saves us individually because he died for the values that give meaning, form and content to our living, and allow us to cross the threshold of death and live eternally with God.
Those who directly intervened in Jesus' death did so by the kind of attitudes that still motivate many of our actions today, so it was not only they who were guilty, but all humanity. Christ therefore did not die for our sins, but it was our sins that killed Him.
Jesus dies as a prophet for the salvation of the world
Since there is no text that proves that Jesus understood his death as the sacrifice of the lamb to redeem mankind, we can peremptorily conclude that Jesus understood his own death as the death of a prophet. However, we cannot do this either.
The prophets of Israel are famous not only for their words, but also for their actions, especially for their dramatic and theatrical gestures. For example, Isaiah walked around naked among the people to show what was about to happen to those who were to be exiled. The prophet Hosea married a prostitute so that his life would be an audiovisual of the people's infidelity to God.
Jesus as a prophet also had these theatrical and dramatic gestures. For example, the expulsion of the peddlers from the temple (John 2:13-25), the proof that he had the power to forgive sins by healing a paralytic and telling the Pharisees that for Him it was the same as saying "your sins are forgiven" or "stand up and walk" (Matthew 9:5), and most shockingly, the washing of the disciples’ feet (John 13:1-17).
In line with the dramatic and theatrical gestures that the prophets and Jesus used to transmit a message in an audiovisual manner that is harder to forget, we understand that Jesus used his own death as a dramatic and theatrical gesture. The fact that Jesus chose Jerusalem, the only place where sacrifices were offered, and that he chose the most important feast of the Hebrew liturgical calendar, Passover, and not another feast like that of the Tabernacles, can only have been to pass on a message.
It is true that Jesus died as a prophet and he understood his death as such, but the fact that he chose to die in Jerusalem and on Passover cannot pass by us unnoticed. Jesus wanted to destroy the Temple with the destruction of his body (John 2:19); Jesus somehow wanted to tell the Jews that He was the last lamb to be sacrificed in Jerusalem before the Temple was destroyed as he had foretold. In fact, as he breathed his last on the cross, the veil of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, (Matthew 27:51).
To put it plainly, for the Jews, Jesus died a sacrificial death; for those that were not familiar with sacrificial deaths, like St. Luke, Jesus died as a prophet who fought for justice and peace.
Jesus rose again as the light that overcomes the darkness
Como el grano de trigo que al morir da mil frutos,
RESUCITÓ EL SEÑOR.
Como el ramo de olivo que venció a la inclemencia, RESUCITÓ EL SEÑOR.
Como el sol que esconde y revive en el alba,
RESUCITÓ EL SEÑOR.
Como pena muere y se vuelve alegría,
RESUCITÓ EL SEÑOR.
El amor vence al odio, y el sencillo al soberbio,
RESUCITO EL SEÑOR.
La luz vence a la sombra y la paz a la guerra,
RESUCITO EL SEÑOR.
Jose Antonio Olivar
Like the grain of wheat that when it dies bears a thousand fruits, THE LORD IS RISEN.
Like the olive branch that overcame inclement weather, THE LORD IS RISEN.
Like the sun that hides and rises at dawn, THE LORD IS RISEN.
Like a sadness that dies and becomes joy, THE LORD IS RISEN.
Love overcomes hatred, the simple over the proud, THE LORD IS RISEN.
Light overcomes darkness and peace over war, THE LORD IS RISEN.
As this song, that I so often sang during my theology studies in Spain, says so well, it is in fact the Resurrection of Jesus that gives salvific merit to his death, both as a death of a prophet and a sacrificial death, as well as everything the Master said during his life, everything he did and the way he acted in life. It is his Resurrection that imparts normative value to his entire life, from birth to death, and which makes the person of Jesus of Nazareth the only model of humanity, the only Way, Truth and Life, (John 14:16).
PENTECOST
‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. (…) I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.’ John 14:15-17, 25-26
Invisible, perhaps, but real, the Holy Spirit is probably the least understood person of the Trinity. He is confused with the manifestations themselves and has been presented as an accidental figure who appears momentarily. However, He is vital to the Church and to each one of us. That is why we must get to know Him better, learn to relate to Him, and understand how He is manifested.
We no longer live in the time of the Father, which was in the Old Testament, nor in the time of the Son, which was in the New Testament, we live presently in the time of the Holy Spirit, for He is the soul of the Church that we are part of. God the Father is God the Creator, God above us; God the Son is God the Savior, God with us, Emmanuel; God the Holy Spirit is God the Sanctifier, God within us.
The greatest Catholic theologian of the 20th century, one of the leaders of the Second Vatican Council said, "the Holy Trinity has been so neglected throughout the Christian history that most Christians are, in their practical lives, absolute monotheists." In relation to the Holy Spirit, he called Christians Holy Spirit atheists, and I would add, especially the Catholics. Not because they do not believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit, but because they think and act as if He does not exist.
With the exception of the Portuguese people of the Islands of Azores, where the Holy Spirit has many worshippers and popular festivals celebrated in His name, I believe what Karl Rahner said is true. If I want to do a theological research on the Holy Spirit, I find much more material in Protestant theology than in Catholic theology. It is by no accident that the charismatic movement that tries to evangelize the Catholic Church about the Holy Spirit was born in the Pentecostal Church and not in the Catholic Church.
One of the reasons for this situation I believe is that it is easy to conceptualize God as Father and God as the Son who became man like us, because they are human categories that we can identify with. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, because we do not have such a category in the human family, it becomes difficult to conceptualize Him, which makes it difficult to relate to Him.
Whether we like it or not, we will always be anthropomorphic in our relationship with God, that is, we will always conceptualize God in a humanly way, because that is what we know. As for the Holy Spirit, we really do not know how to categorize Him.
Who is the Holy Spirit to us?
As a person, the Holy Spirit has feelings; He can be sad or angry, and others can insult and blaspheme Him (Isaiah 63, Matthew 12:31; Acts 7:51; Ephesians 4:30; Hebrews 10:29). As a person, He has intentions and objectives, shows strength of will and thoughtfulness, He loves, communicates, witnesses, teaches and prays. These are some of the qualities that distinguish Him as a person.
(…) No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, other gifts of healing by the one Spirit to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. 1 Corinthians 12:3-11
The Holy Spirit dwells in us because we are His Temple, He is God in us. In this sense, the Holy Spirit is the source and provider of everything we need (his gifts) for our lives to be holy and happy, and for an effective service within the community.
Symbols that represent Him
Since we lack a human category to conceptualize in our mind the person of the Holy Spirit, the Bible offers us symbols that represent Him in his action. The good thing about these symbols is that they act as metaphors to illustrate to us the action and personality of the Holy Spirit. The problem with these symbols, however, is that we stick to the metaphors which do little to help us to conceptualize Him as a person, since they leave us more with the image that He is a force, an energy, an electricity, a glue that binds.
Dove (Matthew 3, 16; Mark 1, 10; Luke 3, 22; John 1:32) - The dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit communicates beauty, gentleness and peace. The dove also comes from above, somehow suggesting coming from heaven.
Fire - Fire can be a symbol of God's presence (Exodus 3:2), means of purification (1 Peter 1:7) or judgment (Leviticus 10:2, Hebrews 12:29) depending on the context in which it appears in the Bible. Acts 2:1-4 is the text in which the Spirit most explicitly appears as tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost. To disobey the Spirit is like pouring water on the fire, putting it out, says St. Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:19).
Wind - The Greek word for Spirit (pneuma) can be translated either as breath or as wind. Perhaps then it is not surprising that the Holy Spirit is seen as and compared to wind. Two verses in the New Testament communicate this idea. In Acts 2:2, Luke writes: "And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting."
And as John 3:8 describes: "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." The image of the wind communicates that the Holy Spirit is powerful, invisible, immaterial and sovereignly blows where he wills and wants because he is free.
Water - Water is also a metaphor or symbol of the Holy Spirit: On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:37-39
This same water that gushes out from within and gives life is what Jesus also offers to the Samaritan Woman (John 4:5-43). As physical water is necessary for physical life, so the living Water of the Holy Spirit is necessary for spiritual life.
The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning the term "Holy Spirit" was not used, but rather the term "Spirit of God". This does not appear as a different and distinct entity of God; in fact, the terms Spirit of God and God were used interchangeably. The Spirit of God is said to act through the ancient prophets and King David. In Judges 14:61, the Spirit of God is invoked to give strength to Samson.
The first time the term "Holy Spirit" appears in the Bible is in Psalm 51:11 where it says, "Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.” The other is in Isaiah 63:10, "But they rebelled and grieved his holy spirit; therefore, he became their enemy; he himself fought against them.”
The Holy Spirit in the New Testament
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness… Luke 4:1
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee… Luke 4:14
At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants…' Luke 10:21
The Holy Spirit was present at every moment of Jesus' life, from his conception (Luke 1:35), on the day of his Baptism (Matthew 3:16), and as the above-mentioned texts reveal, he has always accompanied Jesus in his ministry.
It is clear that since Pentecost, since the Holy Spirit entered into each of the apostles as a tongue of fire, He has never ceased to be the soul of the Church, the cohesive element that gives his necessary gifts to each member in order to realize himself as a person and to put those same gifts at the service of the community to build it up.
While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Acts 13:2
With this text it is clear that it is the Holy Spirit who commands the Church, who inspires and guides her, as well as each of her members, because they are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
The Eucharist and the Church
The upper room where Jesus celebrated the Passover meal and where he instituted the Eucharist was also the incubator or womb where the Church was born on the day of Pentecost. The Church and the Eucharist have the same dwelling place, they share the same womb and are like two identical twins and therefore inseparable. By instituting the Eucharist, Jesus created the body of the Church which is his mystical body; by sending the Holy Spirit, this body acquires a soul. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the mystical body of Christ which is the Church.
"Do this in memory of me" - Inseparable that they are, they do not live without each other. If one day the Eucharist ceases to be celebrated, not only the Eucharist dies, but so does the Church. The Eucharist is the gathering of Christians to celebrate the memory of their Saviour. If Christians do not gather, the Eucharist is not celebrated, and if the Eucharist is not celebrated, Christians do not come together, so when one disappears the other disappears too. A group of people, a club or an association that does not meet ceases to exist.
Catholics who cease to participate in the Sunday Eucharist are no longer part of the mystical body of Christ. Just as there are no such thing as non-practicing pianists or non-practicing footballers, but rather ex-pianists or ex-footballers, there are also no such thing as non-practicing Catholics, but ex-Catholics. Those who do not celebrate the memory of Christ are breaking communion with his mystical body and cease to be part of it. They are, ipso facto, excommunicating themselves from the Church.
Conclusion - At Christmas we celebrate the love of the Father, at Easter the deliverance of the Son, and at Pentecost the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
