Jesus
as the new Adam is a trope familiar to Christianity since Paul’s letters to the
Romans and Corinthians. It has come to be reinterpreted by others, and perhaps
what I present here has already been imagined, as anyone reading this blog
knows my knowledge is limited. But I want to offer what meaning came to me as I
grappled with the notion of Jesus “dying for my sins” during this recent Holy
Week.
I
have flat out written on this blog that the God who is worthy of my devotion
would never require the death of any kind of scapegoat as a stand-in for me taking
responsibility for my own sins.
But
I have also written that the sacrificial love represented in the story of the
cross mythologically conveys the absolute and eternal depths of God’s
compassion. Many theologians have focused on the concept of God dying on the cross rather than “his only son,” taking the onus of a
demanding, bloodthirsty God off the table. And anyone who has had a terrible
sin to forgive of another knows the suffering such compassion entails.
Longtime
readers may remember that one of my Holy Week practices is to read one chapter
each day of a short book, The Temple of God’s Wounds, in which the narrator visits a mythological monastery at a
turning point in his life. I’ve written that I overlook his transactional
understanding of atonement to contemplate other, deeper spiritual wisdom
contained therein.
This
time I focused on how difficult it is for him (and for me) to face that which is absolutely holy.
I understand better the “mysterium
tremendum,” the “terrible” face of God or, as the OED adds in its definition,
of existence itself.
During
our last visit shortly before his death, an elderly dedicated churchman and
beloved professor surprised me by his sudden tears and seemingly non-sequitur confession,
saying something like, “I hope dear old Mother Church can forgive me for any
embarrassment I’ve caused her.” I don’t think this was prompted solely by his
having been a closeted gay man.
Age
may make us aware how far we have fallen short, not only of the glory of God,
but of the glory of being a child of God, because I found during Holy Week
that, along with the writer of The Temple
of God’s Wounds, I felt such a need
for forgiveness! Now, I know, as an introvert, that even the good I may do can
embarrass me; but I’ve done plenty of things I’d prefer not to have in my
eulogy!
I
have a depiction, acquired in Egypt, of a Pharaoh being weighed on scales
opposite a feather. The tradition was that if the Pharaoh’s heart was heavier
than a feather, he could not enter eternity.
Few if any of us could pass such a test!
I
have been reading The Islamic Jesus
by Mustafa Akyol. A reader and contributor to my blog had asked me if there was
a book I was eager to have in my library. Having just read a review of this
book, that’s what I asked for. What’s remarkable to me is that the Qur’an,
while not supporting Jesus’ divinity, reveres him as a prophet, like Moses and
Muhammad. The writer suggests that this was the view of the Jerusalem church
and its Jewish Christians led by James, and represented in Christian scriptures
by the epistle of James, which does not refer to the divinity of Jesus and
famously includes, “Faith without works is dead.” This contrasts with other
Christian emphases on mere belief, and specifically belief in Jesus’ divinity
and substitutionary atonement.
Thus
I realized that progressive Christians have that in common with the early
Jewish Christians, not to mention Muslims and Jews. We may or may not hold to
Jesus’ divinity, and consider that doing justice and practicing charity and
showing mercy are what the Lord (i.e. God) requires of us.
For
me as a progressive Christian, Jesus is the “new Adam”—not the innocent and
perfect and beautiful (and initially sexless) Ken and Barbie doll of Adam and
Eve; rather the tried and tested, unappealing and vulnerable and wounded one,
acquainted with sorrows and grief, the bearer of the sins and injustices of the
world—political, religious, and personal. Treasonous and blasphemous,
betrayable and deniable, because compassion was all he held dear.
Thus
he knows the trouble I’ve seen, the trouble I’ve gotten into, and the trouble
I’ve caused, not just personally but throughout the world. He is the real human
being that Adam and Eve could not even imagine in their innocence and privilege.
They were rough drafts, prototypes, not as fully human.
So
when Jesus prays, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” it seems
genuine, true, and possible.
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