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February 12 - March 31, 2018
It is faith that gives us the ultimate certainty upon which we base our whole lives—
Johannine traditions thus appear to be correct on the basis of the discrepancy between two different calendars.
That Christians later saw this as no coincidence, that they recognized Jesus as the true Lamb,
Passover.
essentially, this farewell meal was not the old Passover, but the new one, which Jesus accomplished in this context.
For him the death and Resurrection of Christ have become the Passover that endures.
was regarded as a Passover: as his Passover. And so it was.
The argument among exegetes is concerned with the attempt to establish which of the two models—Mark’s or Paul’s—is the older.
It follows that Paul received the words of the Last Supper from within the early community in a manner that left him quite certain of their authenticity—quite certain that these were the Lord’s own words.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that, as far as their historical and theological character is concerned, there is ultimately no significant difference between the two texts.
Much present-day exegesis, then, disputes the claim that the words of institution go back to Jesus himself.
At issue here is our image of God and our image of man. To this extent, the whole discussion only appears to be concerned with history.
salvation
Supper and the Resurrection, we could describe the Cross as the most radical expression of God’s unconditional love, as he offers himself despite all rejection on the part of men, taking men’s “no” upon himself and drawing it into his “yes”
the Lord’s words, which in barely audible yet unmistakable ways gathered within themselves the Law and the Prophets.
From her earliest days, the Church has understood the words of consecration not simply as a kind of quasi-magical command, but as part of her praying in and with Jesus; as a central part of the praise and thanksgiving through which God’s earthly gift is given to us anew in the form of Jesus’ body and blood, as God’s gift of himself in his Son’s self-emptying love.
So it is that he can already institute the sacrament in which he becomes the grain of wheat that dies, the sacrament in which he distributes himself to men through the ages in the real multiplication of loaves.
history
In other words, the New Covenant must be founded on an obedience that is irrevocable and inviolable.
God cannot simply ignore man’s disobedience and all the evil of history; he cannot treat it as if it were inconsequential or meaningless. Such “mercy”, such “unconditional forgiveness” would be that “cheap grace” to which Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightly
His very being is a “being-for”. If we are able to grasp this, then we have truly come close to the mystery of Jesus, and we have understood what discipleship is.
He tried to prove that the word “many” in the Old Testament means “the totality” and is therefore most accurately translated as “all”.
In the writings of Paul and John we can find answers to the question about the scope of Jesus’ saving work, answers that are historically differentiated yet fully in harmony with one another and that indirectly answer the many / all problem.
Jesus died for Jews and Gentiles, for the whole of mankind.
Kattenbusch was right: with the Eucharist, the Church herself was established.
Jesus’ final meal—whether or not it was a Passover meal—was first and foremost an act of worship.
This process of appropriation and reinterpretation, which begins with Jesus’ praying of the Psalms, is a typical illustration of the unity of the two Testaments, as taught to us by Jesus.
Passover night, he follows the instruction to remain within the city of Jerusalem, whose boundary was extended outward for the night, so as to offer all pilgrims the opportunity to keep this law. Jesus observes the norm, and in full knowledge of what he is doing, he approaches the betrayer and the hour of the Passion.
the Evil One at work in the world and by all the injustice and suffering ravaging the earth. In its state of numbness, the soul prefers not to see all this; it is easily persuaded that things cannot be so bad, so as to continue in the self-satisfaction of its own comfortable existence.
my own sin was present in that terrifying chalice.
in our confession of the God who became man in Jesus Christ.
be understood to imply the schizophrenia of a dual personality.
In becoming attuned to the divine will, it experiences its fulfillment, not its annihilation.
The drama of the Mount of Olives lies in the fact that Jesus draws man’s natural will away from opposition and back toward synergy,
Jesus is characterized by a curious overlapping of two layers: the legal concern to protect the Temple and the nation, on the one hand, and the ambitious power seeking of the ruling group, on the other.
the old cult of the stone Temple has come to an end.
The Temple of stone must be destroyed, so that the new one, the New Covenant with its new style of worship, can come.
the
Jesus was claiming to be close to the “Power”, to participate in God’s own nature, and this would have been understood as blasphemy.
For Peter, too, cockcrow marked the end of the night of the soul, into which he had sunk.
while the followers of Jesus remained hidden out of fear;
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken.
read in the light of faith, it means that we all stand in need of the purifying power of love which is his blood.
Yet he underlines the complete otherness of his kingship, and he even makes the particular point that must have been decisive for the Roman judge: No one is fighting for this kingship. If power, indeed military power, is characteristic of kingship and kingdoms, there is no sign of it in Jesus’ case. And neither is there any threat to Roman order. This kingdom is powerless. It has no legions.
If a man’s intellect reflects a thing as it is in itself, then he has found truth: but only a small fragment of reality—not truth in its grandeur and integrity.
Christ is powerless by the world’s standards: he has no legions; he is crucified. Yet in his very powerlessness, he is powerful: only thus, again and again, does truth become power.
to say yes to the God who works only through the power of truth and love, or to build on something tangible and concrete—on violence.
“Ecce homo”—the expression spontaneously takes on a depth of meaning that reaches far beyond this moment in history.
The facts are, so to speak, permeated with the word—with meaning; and the converse is also true: what previously had been merely word—often beyond our capacity to understand—now becomes reality, its meaning unlocked.
Two of them are of fundamental significance, because they span, as it were, the whole of the Passion event and shed light upon it theologically:
