“Body” should not be understood in our Western sense, in contrast to the soul. “Body” means the whole person. Jesus intends to say, “I myself am this bread, with my whole history and life. My life will be broken like this bread. I give it to you so that you may share in it.”
Thus Jesus’ sign-action is a prophecy of his death, which he proclaims in the sign of the broken bread. But at the same time this sign-action is more than a death prophecy, for Jesus gives the Twelve a share in his existence, in his life that will now be given over to death. Evidently his death has a depth dimension in which the Twelve, and therefore Israel, must share. Mark—in contrast to the Lukan/Pauline line of the Last Supper tradition19—does not yet say at this point what that dimension may be.
The Markan tradition assumes, without saying it explicitly, that the main part of the meal—the eating of the Paschal lamb with bitter herbs, bread, and the fruit mixture called ‘aroseth—followed the table prayer and the word of interpretation over the broken bread. At the end of this central part, the father of the family took the “cup of blessing” and pronounced another prayer of thanksgiving over it. At this point Mark again begins to tell us of another unusual event: Jesus makes the giving and drinking of the cup of blessing a sign-action as well, for after saying the prayer of thanksgiving he interprets the cup as follows: “This is my blood, [the blood] of the covenant, that will be poured out for many.”
The statement is replete with traditional motifs, almost too many for people today. But we should not fault the ancient text for it. Today’s hearers would not know, either, that the background of the Aramaic words of interpretation Jesus cites is Deuteronomy 16:1-8. For Jewish ears at that time a few central words, often just one, were sufficient to evoke a broader biblical context. What is Mark’s text saying?
First of all: Jesus again refers to his imminent death. He interprets the cup of red wine as his blood, soon to be shed. “Shedding blood” means “killing.” Jesus will be killed. But here again the saying does not remain merely a prophecy of death. The text does not simply speak of Jesus’ blood, but of his blood of the covenant, and “blood of the covenant” alludes to the event in Exodus 24:4-11. That is the story of the act of Israel’s founding. Moses builds an altar at the foot of Sinai and sets up twelve pillars, dashes the blood of sacrifices against the altar, and reads the book of the covenant in the hearing of the twelve tribes. Finally, he also sprinkles the people with the blood and says, “See the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words” (Exod 24:8). After that, Moses and the elders of Israel are permitted to eat a meal with God himself on the mountain. At this point we do not need to ask about the original meaning of this sprinkling with blood; probably it was intended to show that Israel had become a nation of priests in the sense of Exodus 19:6: “You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”
Crucial to the later understanding of Exodus 24:8 is that it combines three motifs: the common meal, God’s covenant with Israel, and the blood with which the covenant is sealed. In the Jewish interpretive tradition in Jesus’ time this blood dashed onto the altar at the foot of Sinai was a means of atonement for the sins of Israel.20
Against this background Jesus’ saying about the cup of blessing in Mark 14:24 can only mean that his life is being surrendered to death. But his blood, which flows out as a result, is not shed in vain and without meaning; it is “blood of the covenant,” that is, it renews and perfects the covenant God once made with Israel at Sinai. This eschatological renewal of the covenant, which is simultaneously a new creation and a new founding of Israel, takes place through the blood of Jesus, which frees Israel from its sins and atones for it.
If we take seriously the connection to Exodus 24:8 the “many” of whom the cup saying in Mark speaks can initially refer only to Israel. Jesus interprets his violent death as dying for Israel, as an atoning surrender of his life for the life of the people of God. That reference to Israel was clear from the very fact that Jesus gave the cup of blessing to the Twelve, his chosen representatives of the people of the twelve tribes. But the reference to Israel is equally clear from the background of the Sinai covenant. That covenant was made with Israel, and if it is renewed, then it is renewed with Israel. The “many” are, then, in the first place, the people of the twelve tribes.
We cannot be content to say that, however, because the saying about the “many” comes from Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the so-called Fourth Servant Song. The Servant 21 suffers as representative of the many, and in this song, in which “many” is a leitmotif, they are clearly the Gentile nations.22 So in redacting the Last Supper tradition available to him Mark must have had the nations in view in addition to Israel. That is not a problem, for Israel, in the theology of the Old Testament, is representative of the nations. It was not chosen for its own sake but for that of the world. The salvation that spreads throughout Israel is to become salvation for the whole world. Therefore the many can be Israel first of all, and then beyond Israel the nations as well. This universal statement becomes false only if it passes over the reference to Israel. And that is certainly not the case for Mark, nor is it for the other New Testament authors.
So we can also say that, according to Mark, in the course of the Paschal meal Jesus interprets the loaf of bread torn asunder and the red wine in terms of his approaching death, and by handing the bread and wine to the Twelve he gives them, and so Israel, a share in the power of his death. For this death is at the same time interpreted as atonement for Israel, which has fallen into sin, and as a renewal of the Sinai covenant. And by way of the eschatological Israel this new and ultimate salvation is to reach the many nations.
In Mark’s gospel Jesus concludes this complex of interpretation with an eschatological outlook: “Truly I tell you: I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the [reign] of God” (Mark 14:25). Here again Jesus utters a prophecy of his death: from now on he will drink no more wine, certainly not the wine of the Passover meal, because he will be killed. But the death prophecy is not the whole of the matter. Jesus points toward the great banquet of the end time as described, for example, in Isaiah 25:6-8. When that meal takes place, death will be destroyed forever. The shroud of sorrow that covers all the nations will be torn asunder. All disgrace will be removed from Israel (Isa 25:7-8). But above all, on that day God will finally and forever be shown to be king (Isa 24:23). The reign of God will dawn in its perfection, in all its fullness. With this eschatological outlook Mark concludes Jesus’ last meal.
Since there is no serious reason to regard Mark’s presentation of the Last Supper as a scribal construction by the early communities (who, after all, would have had the chutzpah to make up such a story about Jesus?), and since the tradition about the Last Supper that Paul cites in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 agrees in essential points with Mark 14:22-24, we may say that this is how Jesus celebrated his last meal, and this is how he understood it.
Thus at the end of his life Jesus performs a last and crucial sign-action. He does so in face of his approaching death. It interprets that death, but at the same time it is the sum and climax of earlier sign-actions. It reaches back to the constitution of the Twelve, because Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with the group of the Twelve. But it also refers back to the preceding entry into the city and the action in the temple. Jesus had made himself known as the Messiah of Israel and as the one who was entitled to submit even the temple to the rule of God. He was thinking of the eschatological temple, which would be altogether holy and altogether fitting for God. Now, in his words of interpretation over the cup, he makes his own life and death the place of atonement for Israel (and thus also for the nations). In this way, of course, the concept of the temple is redefined and placed in a new frame of reference. Its innermost center is no longer the many sacrifices, but the one sacrifice of life, Jesus’ surrender of his own life. He himself is the new and final “place” of atonement.
Th
is is so bold, even outrageous, that a great many New Testament scholars simply deny that Jesus had any idea of atonement, not only in celebrating his last meal, but altogether. They still grant him an eschatological outlook in his last meal, but not the interpretation of his approaching death as an atoning action on behalf of Israel. The questions thus raised are so fundamental to an understanding of what Jesus wanted that we must devote an entire chapter to them.
Chapter 16
Dying for Israel
Skepticism and inability to understand the idea of atonement are widespread, not only in society, but also in many church circles.1 At least in Germany the word “atonement” does not appear in newer prayers and hymn texts. We may say there is resistance to any formulation that alludes to atonement. This is connected, first of all, with the fact that the word “atonement” has become narrower and narrower in meaning. It was always a component of legal language, but in the medieval period Old High German suona and Middle High German suone acquired, besides the meaning “recompense,” the additional nuances of “judgment,” “contract,” “settlement,” “compensation,” “conciliatory ending of a legal conflict,” “making peace,” and even “forgiveness.”2 Of this originally broad spectrum of meanings there remained, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, only the means by which a debt was paid. Atonement thus came to mean the punishment imposed by a judge so that the crime committed by the offender may be compensated for.
Modern people don’t like such things. They don’t want criminals to atone for their crimes, but instead that they be improved and resocialized or, if that is impossible, that the general public be protected from them. If they hear “atonement” in a theological context they connect it with the specter of a cruel God who is profoundly offended, mercilessly demands the payment due him, and can only be appeased by an infinite atonement. That, or something like it, is what many people imagine as “atonement” in a Christian context, and they turn away with a shudder.
A Jesus without Atonement
Something else must be added. In New Testament exegesis atonement often appears as a theological construct with whose aid the post-Easter community interpreted the otherwise unfathomable execution of Jesus on the cross. They thus gave meaning to Jesus’ catastrophic death. Jesus himself understood his death much more simply—perhaps in the sense of the eschatological view in Mark 14:25 (“I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the [reign] of God”). When we deny that Jesus thought of atonement we degrade the idea of atonement from the outset. We no longer need take the concept seriously since Jesus himself did not use it and the early church only did so in order to give a deeper meaning to Jesus’ death.
That Jesus remained firm in his message of the coming reign of God and his love for human beings even to death is something we can appreciate, but not the thick theological web of blood, atonement, representation, and covenant embedded in the saying over the cup in Mark 14:24. After all, during the whole time of his previous activity Jesus never said anything of the kind.3
So it is that, for example, Herbert Braun’s book on Jesus sees the Last Supper as nothing more than a banquet with friends, in continuity with Jesus’ previous meals. After Jesus’ death his followers took up this meal custom again and in doing so looked forward with great joy to Jesus’ return. There were not yet any words of institution or “sacramental” food, nor was there any special “remembrance of Jesus’ death,” but simply a “breaking of bread.” Only later did the Palestinian community interpret Jesus’ death as atoning. The Hellenistic community then did something more: they saw these meals by analogy with the meals of the Greek mystery cults and “set back” the institution of “this sacrament, perceived in Hellenistic terms,” to the last hours of Jesus’ life.4
Nothing in this description can withstand a sober historical examination, from the schematic and undifferentiated distinction between Palestinian and Hellenistic communities5 to the derivation of the early Christian eucharistic celebration from the meals of the Hellenistic mysteries.6 It seems that for Braun the Old Testament had no part to play, nor did the fact that Jesus was a Jew who lived wholly on the basis of the Old Testament.
There is one position that radicalizes the objection to the idea of atonement in Jesus’ Last Supper still further. It says that the idea of an atoning death was not only fully improbable for Jesus but is incompatible with his proclamation of the nature of God. Jesus, it is said, preached a Father who was ready to forgive without condition. That this loving Father then one day was no longer so generous and suddenly demanded atonement simply does not fit with Jesus’ message and practice.7
A Gospel of Death?
Obviously this position says something correct with regard to Jesus’ preaching. He by no means came preaching the message that “I have come into the world to suffer and so to atone for the sins of the world; follow me and suffer with me!” He certainly did not preach, “I have come into the world because God desires me to be a sacrifice for the redemption of the world. Death on the cross is the goal of my life.” If Jesus’ message had been anything like that it would have been masochism, glorification of suffering, a culture of death. That is not how Jesus spoke and acted. From the very beginning his proclamation was evangelium, Gospel, “good news.” We have seen that Jesus saw himself as the messenger of joy in Isaiah 52:7. He summarized his activity with elements of Isaiah’s text: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matt 11:5). The blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf, and the dead represent the suffering and misery of Israel and the world. Jesus acts against that suffering. He desires that God should be master of the world so that creation might become what it is really supposed to be. That is the impetus of his message and his actions.
This transformation of the world does not, however, come about by magic. It is brought about by Jesus’ surrender to the will of God, his surrender to Israel, his living with his whole existence for the sake of the people of God. This “for” is realized in a great many ways, for example, in his healings of the sick or in the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. These instructions, such as love of enemies, Jesus not only preached; he lived them. The disciples he gathered around him learned from him trust, forgiveness, reconciliation, compassion, service, turning away from the self, and turning toward the people of God. They are to make God’s concern for the world their own.
So Jesus’ message is thoroughly good news, but from the very beginning it contains within itself a radical “for others,” “for Israel,” “for the world.” This “for” is inextricably bound up with the message itself. If one were to take it away, the message would be an empty husk.
What happens when such a message encounters indifference, resistance, even the will to destroy? Then it still remains good news, but at the same time the giving-oneself-for-others that is inherent in the message from the beginning emerges more clearly and sharply, even harshly.
The New Situation
We have to consider the whole matter still more radically. It is false, to begin with, to reduce Jesus’ preaching of the reign of God to a timeless message about the timeless essence of God. That is as unbiblical as anything can be,8 for the nearness of the reign of God is not something timeless, as far as Jesus is concerned. The reign of God is not something to be had always and everywhere. It has its hour. For him it is unique, self-contained, to be grasped now, not something that can be repeated at will, an eschatological offer from God. In that, it resembles John’s baptism, which also had its unrepeatable hour. Jesus could build on the movement the Baptizer had begun. Without his call for repentance the good news would not have been possible. Like John’s baptism, Jesus’ preaching is a once-and-for-all address by God to Israel. The salvation offered by Jesus must therefore not be detached from its historical situation.
If Jesus encountered more indecision than faith in Galilee, and if n
ow in Jerusalem Israel’s representatives rejected him—indeed, made sure that he would be killed—then Israel was rejecting the reign of God. But if Israel refused to accept the reign of God it abandoned the whole meaning of its existence, squandered salvation for itself and the nations, and made God’s action in choosing Israel absurd. That is the only way to explain the terrible seriousness of the judgment sayings Jesus spoke over Israel toward the end of his public activity. He must have reckoned with the definitive refusal of the people of God when, for example, he said:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. (Matt 23:37-38)
“Your house” is the temple. The “your” only sharpens the point of the judgment saying. It is no longer the common sanctuary, the holy house for all Israelites, but “your house.” It is abandoned to Israel; that is, it is abandoned by God.9 At the hour when God’s eschatological messenger was done away with there had to arise a situation in which nothing was any longer as it had been at the beginning of Jesus’ appearance in Galilee—a situation in which Jesus’ proclamation, “the reign of God has come near,” could never again be simply repeated. Because in that case grace itself would have been rejected.10 Indeed, we have to phrase it even more sharply: not only would grace have been rejected, but in the very moment in which God gives himself totally to his people Israel in Jesus, when, so to speak, he shows his innermost self and does his utmost—in that very moment the highest religious authorities of that very people he had cared for over the centuries and struggled for since Abraham reject him.
Jesus of Nazareth Page 34