NO GREATER LOVE: THE CONTRAST BETWEEN CROSS AND RESURRECTION

At the end of his book, Prayer, theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar discusses the contrast between utter rejection which the Lord experienced on the Cross and the complete triumph of the Resurrection. Since the praying person is privileged to enter into the Passion from the standpoint of the resurrection, his fundamental approach will be one of gratitude. The Spirit of consolation sent to us by the Risen Lord bears witness to the world that there is sin, righteousness and judgment (Jn 16:8): the tremors which cleave the earth are forms of the Comforter's grace, shaking the earth to its foundations. Indeed, even things that the earth is bound to regard as the righteous judgment (and nothing else) are in fact the beginnings of resurrection, for the rupturing earth opens Hades and the disturbed graves yield up the resurrected bodies (Mt 27:51). The darkened sun (de-solatio), symbolizing the turning-away of the gracious Father who causes the sun to rise on the good and the evil, is also the sign of his arrival to pronounce judgment, the sign of the "Day of the Lord". Both great and terrible, this Day had always been the focus of Israel's entire hope. In the Passion and resurrection, we have the dramatic climax in which, in seamless continuity, abandonment in death and the darkness of hell are changed into eternal redemption and the dazzling light of heaven. The two poles belong inseparably to one another: the descent of the light of heaven into the depths of hell signals the maximum radiance of spiritual light. This mysterious unity of God's self-veiling and self-manifestation, of God's distance and nearness, was always present, in mystery, to the faith of Israel. 

The devout Israelites of Old Testament times as well as devout Jews at the time of Christ, such as Mary, the apostles, and many others, understood that they knew the real God in ways that the pagan world did not. Yet there were still questions. What happens to us after death? The author of the book of Ecclesiastes expressed the general belief of ancient Israel. “Whatever work you propose to do, do it while you can, for there is neither achievement, nor planning, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol where you are going.” (Eccles 9:10) In ancient Israel, Sheol was not annihilation as modern atheism imagines death, but it was thought to be a place of total isolation where there was no interaction with others or God. “The dead cannot praise Yahweh, they have gone down to silence; but we, the living, bless Yahweh henceforth and evermore.” (Ps 115:17-18) Yet, there was the hope that the isolation of Sheol was not the last word. “keep my soul: I am your devoted one, save your servant who relies on you.” (Ps 86:2). By New Testament times the hope for resurrection had grown so that the Pharisees did accept it, but the Sadducees still did not. (Mt 22:23-33, Mk 12:18-27, Lk 20:27-40) By His Cross and Resurrection, the Lord showed the Jews and all humanity that suffering has meaning and the resurrection of the dead is real.

Von Balthasar also tells us how the Cross is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. The psalms of dejection and the embittered reflections of Jeremiah and Job are an authentic form of the revealed word. They must be understood not only psychologically or anthropologically, but theologically. They are rungs on the ladder of the cross. Yet, dark patches that they are, their significance is only that of the elements of shadow in a painting that is full of light: they are part of the total picture of Yahweh's care and faithfulness toward his People, and, in that People, toward mankind. Indeed, even from a subjective point of view, the people of the Old Covenant only experienced them as offending and puzzling phenomena within the context of a wondrous destiny of faith. Thus these troubling aspects always elicit questions, reproaches and complaints addressed to the Covenant God whose very nature is to afford comfort and strength to the believer. The darkness is only dark in relation to a prior light which is in principle inextinguishable. The same dialectic is developed in the Wisdom literature to illuminate and evaluate the world as a whole. There is a wisdom of nearness to God, like that of Sirach and the Book of Wisdom, which see the entire creation filled with the wisdom of God, visible at all points. This is not a passing wisdom (Wis 7:29 f) like the light of day which is succeeded by night. It shines as brightly in nature as in Israel's history: the living Creator can be seen by attending to what he has created; no images are required. For these praying believers, too, God's wisdom is unfathomable and completely inaccessible to the natural man, but God imparts it to those who, in fear and love, ask him for it: "He set his eye upon their hearts to show them the majesty of his works .... Their eyes saw his glorious majesty, and their ears heard the glory of his voice" (Sir 17:8,13). But man also realizes that the most stupendous of God's manifestations is yet small compared with the glory which remains hidden (Sir 43:27-33). The faithful believers of the Old Covenant knew that the world was full of trouble, sorrow and evil. Yet they also knew that a loving, kind and compassionate God was in charge of it all. Evil and destruction do not have the last word.

The faithful believers, however, were not satisfied with the majestic God revealed in nature. They wanted to know Him. Theologian Von Balthasar tells us about how they were not satisfied. God maintained a remoteness from us. It is here that the reversal takes place. Wisdom becomes the manifestation of God's hiddenness, of his nonappearance in the world. Ecclesiastes puts forward the wisdom of the world's remoteness from God, of its emptiness of him, and Job, in the chapter on wisdom, discourses on the inaccessibility of wisdom: "Man does not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living. The deep says, 'It is not in me,' and the sea says, 'It is not with me.' ... It is hid from the eyes of all living" (Job 28:13,21). What does appear is only vanity, futility, limitation and weariness. Those who want intimacy with God cannot find it in the world. Scripture tells us that God transcends the world. Thus, we need to go above the world to reach God.

The problem is that God cannot be reached by our own efforts. Hans Urs Von Balthasar tells us about the efforts of the Sage of the book of Ecclesiastes and his conclusion on the path we must take. This too is a contemplation of the ever-greater God in his world: but it is the prayer of a tired man who has lost the joy of reaching up to God. With the eclipse of the living God, wisdom itself becomes dialectical: "I said to myself, 'I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.' And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow" (Eccles 1:16-18). And instead of a life which strives up the steep path toward God, the Sage recommends a life which, conscious of its own futility, rejoices in what is vain and insubstantial: "Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life which he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun." "He who observes the wind will not sow; and he who regards the clouds will not reap" (Eccles 9:9; 11:4). While the Sage observes that the vain joys of this life are the only joys we have, he does not recommend the path of modern secularism which believes that God is not involved in the world and does not care about human actions, good or evil. The epilogue of the book of Ecclesiastes warns us: “To sum up the whole matter: fear God, and keep his commandments, since this is the whole duty of man. For God will call all hidden deeds, good or bad, to judgement. (Eccles 12:13-14)

To end his book on Prayer, theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar does not recommend that we take the advice of the Sage of Ecclesiastes. In the New Testament, however, these "vain joys" are taken up into the joy of redeemed existence in God, i.e., into the joy of the resurrection. They are assumed into that heavenly joy which is laid up entirely in God, albeit hiddenly, and which is the backdrop of the Christian's living, rejoicing and suffering. The Christian cannot slip out of the tension between heaven and earth, resurrection and cross, and fall back into a purely natural existence, since he is governed by the revealed word which has come home to him once for all and has made him what, forever, he will be. But ultimately it is no concern of his how the word will fashion him, whether as someone dead or someone risen, as someone who is still living on earth or whose being is already in heaven, or whether he is brought down with the Word into the nether world. The contemplative leaves it to the Word to decide that particular state of the Word in which he is to make his earthly pilgrimage, no longer at home in the world and not yet having reached his home in heaven. As he has said before, it is up to God to determine the relationship we have with Him in this world. Our job is to be faithful to Him in the state He has given us.

– Jim Nugent, CFP