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The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
WOF 481: Bishop Barron on the Theology of Balthasar (11 of 12)
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Here is the eleventh lesson of Bishop Barron’s lecture series on one of the most important and influential Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, Han Urs von Balthasar. As we journey through these lectures, we will come to understand his...
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Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm your host, Matthew Petrusic. We are continuing our walk through Bishop Barron's lecture series on one of the most important Catholic theologians of the 20th century, Hans Urs von Balthasar. Enjoy.
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We're continuing our study of the Mysterium Paschale, the Paschal Mystery, the study of the three days. We've looked already at the downward trajectory of the Son of God, beginning with Holy Thursday, the establishment of the Eucharist, the washing of the feet of the disciples. Then we moved into the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is pressed to the ground, as it were, under the weight of human sin. He's taking upon himself the sin of the world. As part of this downward movement, we now move to the transition from Gethsemane to the trial. And the word that Balthazar focuses on here is the Greek word paradidonai, which has the sense of surrender or handing over. He wants us to think about Jesus as almost like this plaything that's just being tossed from one to another. He begins relatively in control at the Last Supper, but then increasingly he'll surrender himself into the hands of others. He's turned over. Now, that theme is very strong in the Bible, isn't it, of Yahweh, of God handing Israel over to its enemies, usually as a sign of punishment. And there's kind of a double sense going on here. In a way, Jesus as the embodiment of sin, he's becoming sin is accepting the punishment of God on behalf of the human race. But it's also that sense of his being handed over in love. It's not a punishment, it has that dimension, but it's also this expression of being handed over to us as an act of love. You know, what's very interesting here is there are a number of human traitors, if you want, because that's the Latin term. Traditor would translate the sense of being handed over, the one that surrenders him. So Jesus is kissed by Judas and then surrendered by him into the hands of the temple guard, who then surrender him over to the Jewish authorities, who in turn surrender him to Pilate, who then surrenders him to the soldiers to be taken to his death. In every step of the way, he's being handed over. But behind all of it is the great divine traitor, if you want. But see, read that positively. The one ultimately handing him over is the Father, who handed him over as he sent him on mission into the world and now sends him all the way down. Traitor. Stay with that idea, because it catches all the kind of delicious ambiguity here in a way, surrendering him into these terrible forces, but always for the sake of love. It's a gift of love to the world. We now come to the trial and the condemnation of Jesus, this handing over. Balzar says that he's handed over to those who don't understand what he's doing and who insist upon seeing him in older categories. So think of Judas and the Sanhedrin, who insist on reading the Messiah in nationalistic and political terms. He's handed over to people who don't understand what he's about. But then, even more gravely, he's handed over to the Romans who have no idea what he's about. They have no frame of reference for messiahship. Think of how befuddled Pontius Pilate is in his presence. Truth? What is that? Are you a king? Well, you know, you're the one that says it. Pilate really has no idea who he is or how to contextualize him. Jesus is surrendered over to those that will not understand him. See, keep in mind, the fundamental problem, as Balthazar points out, is always a refusal to follow the divine will. Jesus is being handed over to those who, to varying degrees, to do not understand and who are refusing to cooperate with God. But see, look what's happening. The Son of God, out of love, is being sent into those places. So it's not simply a divine judgment on them. See, that's too easy. Look at these terrible people who don't know what's going on, who don't get it, don't understand, and God judges them. Where does that get us? The point is that God has handed Jesus over to them, but more exactly for them, it's on their behalf that he's surrendering them. Now think of St. Peter in this context. The rock, right? The one that holds office, the special friend of the Lord Jesus. But Baltar says at every stage in the process of the three days, Peter gets it wrong. At every stage, he fails to understand, he fails to act, he fails to do what. What he's supposed to do. He becomes, in fact, a sort of demonic stumbling block to Jesus. Okay, that's all of us at different times, not just to pass a word of judgment on Peter, but that's all of us. Jesus is being handed over on behalf of all of us who betray him and deny him and don't understand him. Think here too, of that wonderful scene, it's only in the Gospel of Mark, of the young man who's clad only in the sheet and in the confusion of the arrest of Jesus. They grab at him, and then he runs off naked, leaving the sheet behind. Well, who is he? Well, that garment he's wearing. The word that's used in Greek, the same word that's used for the baptismal garment. When someone was baptized in the early church, they put on this white garment, a simple sheet, symbolic of new life in Christ. Who's this young man? He's someone, therefore, who has repudiated his baptismal identity. At the moment of truth, he runs away, leaving behind the symbol of his identity in Christ Jesus. Jesus is handed over on his behalf. What a wonderful detail. Of course, that later in the Gospel of Mark, when they come to the empty tomb, Jesus is not there. But who's there? A young man wearing this same garment. See, that's the church having rediscovered its baptismal identity and now able to proclaim the truth of the resurrection. But for our purposes here, it's this one who is fled at the moment of truth, as all of us sinners do. Jesus is handed over, as it were, to him. You know, think of Balthasar with his strong stress on the Marian dimension. Think of how this meditation was conditioned very much by Adrian von Speier. He'll say, when the Church of the men fled. So think of even his most intimate disciples flee from him. Even Peter the Rock denies him the Church of Office, he says, fled. And yet the women stay behind, some at the foot of the cross, others watching where he was buried. They stand, he said, there for the contemplative church up and down the ages, that stays with Christ at his moment of truth and contemplates him, watches him. Notice, the attitude of Christ in this whole process is largely one of silence. Jesus, who was hardly silent in the course of his public life. He was speaking all the time, acting all the time, gesturing all the time in public, fora. But now, at this moment of truth, he falls increasingly into silence. Well, see that, for Balthasar is very eloquent. It's the passivity now that he's accepting paradidoni, being handed over, being surrendered, letting go of his authority, his will. The silence of Jesus is evocative of that stance. Pontius Pilate's Ecce homo, which I referenced before. Behold the man. Who could miss the significance of that? How does Balthasar read it? As Pilate gestures toward Jesus, he sees, yes, as I mentioned before, there is humanity at its best. There's humanity in utter obedience to God. So in a way, Pilate's like an evangelist. Look at the man, but also, what's he seeing? He's seeing in the degradation of Jesus, so whipped and crowned with thorns, humiliated. And when he says ecce homo, it's what humanity looks like through the power of sin. What sin has done to him. That's what sin has done to the human race. And so Pilate is gesturing toward the degradation of our sin into which Jesus is willingly journeying. Okay, the downward trajectory from the Last Supper to Gethsemane to being handed over to the trial before Israel and before Pilate. And then we come to the crucifixion for Balthasar, the cross of Christ is nothing but God's judgment on sin, made visible and dragged out, as it were, into the light. Now, here's this great theme of the anger of God, and we can't run away from that theme. It's all through the Bible, and you see it very clearly here. St Anselm said that God can't call right wrong, he can't call odd, even God is truth. What's being judged. Now, as we see Christ crucified, not Christ a sinner, because he's not a sinner, but rather now all the effects and powers and works of sin that he has taken upon himself. So we see in the passion narratives cruelty and violence and denial, betrayal, injustice, stupidity, all of it that's come at Jesus. He's, as it were, covered with all of this sin. And God is expressing his anger not at Jesus, who's not a sinner, but his anger at sin. Now, don't read God's anger in a sort of emotional way, as though he's passing in and out of emotional states. Rather, God's anger is his passion to set things right. It's his judgment upon all that's gone haywire in the world. The crucified Christ is God's anger at sin dragged out into the light. So all can see were God's justice unexpressed he be less than God. And that's absolutely right. God is mercy, but God is also justice and truth. What's the most fundamental word spoken from the cross? So think of the meditations on the seven last words of Jesus. The one that Baltzar finds most compelling is not any of the articulate words, but rather, as Mark describes it, this animal cry of abandonment. So just uttering a loud cry, Jesus hands over the spirit. This is the cry of the godforsaken sinner. Now, I know we're on deeply strange, mysterious, paradoxical ground here, but I'm following GK Chesterton, who is Very Baltizarian in spirit. When he says on the cross, God became an atheist. Now see what he means. He means that the Son of God, out of love, went on utterly into the condition of the person alienated from God. So the physical suffering of the cross, I mean, is unbearable. Our word excruciating comes from that excruce from the cross. The cross was so horrific that the Romans wouldn't even speak of it directly. They'd use circumlocutions. It wasn't depicted even in Christian art for centuries. So I'm not denying for a moment how horrific the physical suffering was, more to it the psychological suffering of the cross. But see, finally the spiritual suffering of the cross. Jesus, out of love, willingly entering into the spiritual state of the sinner. God, my God, why have you abandoned me? A human being saying it to God, that's not strong enough. The Son of God saying it to God the Father now, not as though the Father and Son have been split apart. That's not right. I mean, the Holy Spirit always keeps them together, but out of love, accepting the stance and attitude of the sinner so that he might bring even to that worst of places, the divine love. See, that's the point of this downward trajectory going all the way down. See, it's one thing for God from a height to pronounce on human sin, to judge it, maybe even to call us to fullness of life. I mean, that's fine, and sending prophets to mediate that message. But see, the power of the incarnation and of the cross is God, God himself going all the way down. And that's the animal cry of Christ on the cross. How eloquent too. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus says I thirst, here's the source of life dried up. Here's the one who's meant to alleviate the thirst of the world, Himself becoming dry ground. Anybody, and we're all sinners. All of you listening to me, I myself, we're all sinners. We all know what it's like to be thirsty for God. This way God became our thirst that he might bring to that place the divine love he might make of that place. A place of springs. That's how he reads it. What's the point of the ripping of the curtain in the temple? So we hear of that at the death of Jesus. The curtain in the temple is torn in two for Balthasar, it's expressive of the end of the old eon. The curtain in the temple was meant to be a depiction of the cosmos. It was sewn of threads, of the various colors of the cosmos. The old world has passed away, a new world is opening up. So with the death of Jesus, it appears we've come to the bottom of the downward trajectory. But the answer really is no. And remember, Balthazar is especially interested in the third of the three days. So given Adrian von Speier's mystical experiences, he wants to talk about the being dead of the Son of God, that the downward trajectory, if you want, continues, and we enter into the realm of the dead Jesus, journey to the underworld, if you want. And that's what now is. The purpose, ultimately, of this mysterium Paschale, is to look at that reality. Here's his basic point, that Jesus, in his human nature really died. Not just play acting really died, really went down into sheer darkness, into lifelessness, into the passivity of death. He makes reference here to a painting that I saw as well. It's in the Basel Art Museum, so he would have known it well. It was also known to Dostoevsky, who makes it key to his novel called the Idiot, because Dostoevsky himself saw this picture and lapsed into a seizure upon seeing it. What I'm talking about is Hans Holbein's painting of the dead Christ. Now, here's what's remarkable. Very often in depictions of the dead Christ, Jesus has maybe little pinprick wounds on his hands and feet. He looks like he's asleep. The resurrection is clearly signaled, but it's as though he didn't really die. The impression those paintings, those more pious paintings often give is, well, it's a little hiatus, a little time of sleep before the resurrection. What's breathtaking about Hans Holbein's picture, and Holbein painted it from a cadaver, clearly, is it's brutally realistic. The wounds in the hands and feet are not little pinpricks, but they're terrible, gaping wounds. The color of Jesus body is becoming that sort of sickening hue of a dead body. His eyes are half open, the way someone who's just died. If you see them, the eyes usually aren't completely closed. His mouth is agape and the jaw is thrusting upward as though he's gasping for his last breath. What's horrific about that picture is it's clearly a picture of a dead man. Dostoevsky, as I mentioned, saw it, fell into a seizure, and when he came around, he said that Christ will never rise for Baltasar. That's the right depiction of the dead Jesus. And again, not to be irreverent, but to be theologically Truthful to what happened, Jesus wasn't playing at death. It wasn't as if he had died. Jesus really died, entered into this condition of utter loneliness, passivity and distantiation from God. And only when we see that are we appreciating the full downward trajectory of the incarnation. Now this is Balthazar's account of Jesus descent into hell, which we speak of in the Apostles Creed. He descended into into hell. What's being described, he said, is the sheol, the underworld that's described in the Old Testament. Balthazar sees it not as a place of great activity on the part of Jesus, just the contrary, it means his total solidarity with all those who have died. The whole point of his descent is to show that nothing, not even the lowest places of hell, are outside the reach of the Divine love. How far down did he go? All the way down, so as to grasp even the most distant of sinners. Now let me just say a quick word here about hell in the full Christian sense of the term. Balthasar argues that hell in the full Christian sense, not just sheol of the Old Testament, is a uniquely Christ related phenomenon. Now what does he mean? He means that Christ, having gone all the way down, having identified with us, yes, in death itself, has expressed the full extent of the divine love. Now, is it possible to reject even that acrobatic offer of love? And the answer is yes, it's possible to refuse even this absolute expression of the divine love. That's hell. That's hell in the Christian sense. That we can in freedom say no even to that. But the point is, God has gone all the way to God forsakenness to prevent us from missing his love. As I say, as I run energetically away from the Father, I now know that I'm running directly into the arms of the Son. That's why we may hope, Balthazar says that all people might be saved. Do we know it? No, we don't know it. To say I know it is universalism. But may I hope that all people might be saved? Yes, because of this outreach of the divine love. But is hell in the Christian sense a real possibility? Yep, it is. Because even that acrobatic act of love could be rejected. Let me close. Give the last word to Saint Athanasius, who was a great hero of Balthasar. The Lord has touched all parts of creation so that each might find the Logos everywhere, even the one who has strayed into the world of demons. Terrific. That's Athanasius, ancient figure. But anticipating Balthazar in the 20th century again, the Lord has touched all parts of creation. He went all the way down so that each might find the Logos everywhere. Even the one who has strayed into the world of demons. God went into death itself that he might find us and rescue us.
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Matthew Petruzyk here again. Thanks so much for joining us on the Word on Fire show. As always, if you'd like to learn more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ and become a better evangelist with and for others, visit institute.wordpressfire.org that's institute.WordPress.org we'll see you next time. And God bless and protect you.