Jesus died

We so often hear the claim that Jesus lives, that it is hard to imagine him dead. Instead, we move from crucifixion to resurrection as if it were the logical thing to happen. And indeed, in the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly tells his disciples that the son of man was to suffer, die and rise again. Yet somehow, on Easter morning, these ideas seemed like empty words to the disciples, and they did not believe them (Luke 24:11). For them, Jesus was dead and buried. Whatever he may have told them about the resurrection was not such that they were eagerly waiting at the grave for the supernatural to occur.
No, they lost him. They laid him in a grave. They grieved for him. It was over.

Jesus was thinking of his death

Jesus read, lived, and breathed the words Isaiah. His friends turned to this chapter after his death. That does not believe that Peter took every word in Isaiah as literally referring to Jesus. Rather, he believed that the prophets gave their own words to what the holy spirit within them was driving at (I Peter 1:11). As such he could meditate on the death of Jesus through the words of Isaiah 53, giving voice to holy spirit within him. So, if you can, take your time and slowly read this chapter as if you are Peter, reading this on the day after the crucifixion, with Jesus lying in the grave. How do you feel? What comforts you? What questions does it raise?

When Jesus took the role of the Passover Lamb during his last supper with his friends and the lamb, he was not talking about his resurrection but about his death (I Corinthians 11:23-26):

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after 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.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

The Israelites had eaten the lamb on the eve of their departure and the blood of which they had used to mark their doors for salvation. By presenting his own death as part of this story and calling it a new covenant, Jesus inaugurated a new exodus and opened up a new promised land. It would be a journey that his friends would have to make without his physical presence. But through repeating his words as part of a ritual of communion, they would continue to experience him in his spirit and in each other. Perhaps you can compare it a bit to going to the cinema together to watch a really good movie. Together you identify with the main characters and share their anxieties and joys. Together you come out of the cinema, with your emotions synchronized and transformed through the experience of the movie. Together the apostles relived Jesus’s story and became again a part of it. He had died, and some part of them had died with him.

How do you understand Isaiah 53?

As they regularly sat together, shared their meals and remembered the death of Jesus, the apostles had to figure out how the body Jesus was given for them. If Jesus’s sacrifice was not about pacifying a vengeful God, why then was his death beneficial? Isaiah 53 calls it a sacrifice that erases sin and impurity. That is something they knew from the practice of sacrifice in all religions around them. It strengthens the worshipper to seek communion with the divine without feelings of guilt or shame and to share the divine gifts (the meat) with his community. But that also meant that such an experience was already available to anybody religious person in antiquity. If that was all, then why did Jesus die for them? And what does it mean when the God brings a sacrifice of atonement, rather than humans sacrificing to God, effectively ending the practice of animal sacrifice. As Jesus said in Matthew 9:13: “Go and learn what it means, when God says: I desire mercy, not sacrifice!”

Three apostles, three views

For Peter, Jesus is an example that shows slaves and exiles how to live as “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” Peter found this answer by Jesus as both the lamb (1:19) and the shepherd. By being both, Jesus was able to transform sacrifice into shepherding and oppression into healing (I Peter 2:21-25):

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

For Paul, Jesus stands for the community. Through sharing the rituals of baptism and the Eucharist, all people can participate in the body of Christ, die with him on the cross, and be buried with him in the womb of the earth (Romans 6:3-7):

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Paul found his answer in his earlier hatred for the cross, that had taught him that Jesus was cursed under the law and punished by God. But Isaiah 53:4 turns that around: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,” (2 Cor. 5:21). As a man torn apart by the legal separation of Jews and Gentile, this idea enabled Paul to change his life. After death, all claims of Thora are null and void. There are no obligations left to fulfill, no debts to pay, except for the debt to love (Romans 13:8). Of course, you do not really die in baptism. It is an outward symbol of an inward change. For Paul, his soul (a feminine word in Greek and Hebrew) was caged by his old self, as a woman by an indebted husband. But after the death of that husband, she is free to love again, and give herself to the spiritual bridegroom she discovered within her (Romans 7:1-6).

Following this image, baptism developed into a ritual of dying on the outside and being born again from within and from above. Baptismal candidates would strip of anything that denoted their status: their clothes, their make-up and their jewelry. They would go down in dark waters and come up to receive the oil of the holy spirit, a white gown and a burning candle. In some churches they even received bridal crowns. Coming up from the water, they would enter the promised land of milk and honey, and share their first communion with the other followers of Jesus, with whom they now formed the body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:12-13):

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

For John, Jesus stands for God. The Gospel of John found the answer in Jesus’s intimate relationship with the Father. Isaiah 53:11 can be read to say that we are justified through Jesus’s knowing or through knowing him. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep,” (John 10:14-15). In Jesus, God sacrifices his one and only for all of us. As this Jesus lays down his life for his friends, he reveals God’s character to them (I John 4:10-12):

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

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Suggestions for dialogue

A moderator can explain the dialogue steps and invite people to contribute:

• Check in with yourself. Share with each other how you are in this moment. Then take a moment again to seek stillness, humility and openness. 
• First round: Share something from the text or image(s) that stood out to you and that you would like to explore with the group, briefly indicating the thoughts and feelings that it evoked within you. Listen to the others do the same: what resonates with you? Responses in this round should be limited to questions for clarification.
• Second round: Name one or two things that resonated with you from the things that others just shared. 
• Third round: Having heard the group, the moderator names the main topics for exploration. The moderator may also propose a common thread that emerged in several topics. The exploration normally starts with asking the person(s) who brought up the topic to expand on it.
• Leave room for silence and contemplation. 
• Check out by sharing what you take home from this dialogue.

These suggestions are an adaptation of the Estuary protocol. Look for more at https://www.estuaryhub.com