Jesus of Nazareth: From His Transfiguration Through His Death and Resurrection

by Pope Benedict XVI

  Yet at the same time it must be understood that the Resurrection does not simply stand outside or above history. As something that breaks out of history and transcends it, the Resurrection nevertheless has its origin within history and up to a certain point still belongs there. Perhaps we could put it this way: Jesus’ Resurrection points beyond history but has left a footprint within history. Therefore it can be attested by witnesses as an event of an entirely new kind.

  Indeed, the apostolic preaching with all its boldness and passion would be unthinkable unless the witnesses had experienced a real encounter, coming to them from outside, with something entirely new and unforeseen, namely, the self-revelation and verbal communication of the risen Christ. Only a real event of a radically new quality could possibly have given rise to the apostolic preaching, which cannot be explained on the basis of speculations or inner, mystical experiences. In all its boldness and originality, it draws life from the impact of an event that no one had invented, an event that surpassed all that could be imagined.

  To conclude, all of us are constantly inclined to ask the question that Saint Jude Thaddaeus put to Jesus during the Last Supper: “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” (Jn 14:22). Why, indeed, did you not forcefully resist your enemies who brought you to the Cross?—we might well ask. Why did you not show them with incontrovertible power that you are the living one, the Lord of life and death? Why did you reveal yourself only to a small flock of disciples, upon whose testimony we must now rely?

  The question applies not only to the Resurrection, but to the whole manner of God’s revelation in the world. Why only to Abraham and not to the mighty of the world? Why only to Israel and not irrefutably to all the peoples of the earth?

  It is part of the mystery of God that he acts so gently, that he only gradually builds up his history within the great history of mankind; that he becomes man and so can be overlooked by his contemporaries and by the powers that shape history; that he suffers and dies and that, having risen again, he chooses to come to mankind only through the faith of the disciples to whom he reveals himself; that he continues to knock gently at the doors of our hearts and slowly opens our eyes if we open our doors to him.

  And yet—is not this the truly divine way? Not to overwhelm with external power, but to give freedom, to offer and elicit love. And if we really think about it, is it not what seems so small that is truly great? Does not a ray of light issue from Jesus, growing brighter across the centuries, that could not come from any mere man and through which the light of God truly shines into the world? Could the apostolic preaching have found faith and built up a worldwide community unless the power of truth had been at work within it?

  If we attend to the witnesses with listening hearts and open ourselves to the signs by which the Lord again and again authenticates both them and himself, then we know that he is truly risen. He is alive. Let us entrust ourselves to him, knowing that we are on the right path. With Thomas let us place our hands into Jesus’ pierced side and confess: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28).

  EPILOGUE

  He Ascended into Heaven—He Is Seated at

  the Right Hand of the Father, and He Will

  Come Again in Glory

  All four Gospels, as well as Saint Paul’s Resurrection account in 1 Corinthians 15, presuppose that the period of the risen Lord’s appearances was limited. Paul was conscious of being the last to whom an encounter with the risen Christ was granted. The meaning of the Resurrection appearances is also clear from the overall tradition. Above all, it was a matter of assembling a circle of disciples who would be able to testify that Jesus did not remain in the grave, that he lives on. Their testimony is essentially mission: they must proclaim to the world that Jesus is alive—that he is Life itself.

  The first task they were given was to attempt once again to gather Israel around the risen Jesus. For Paul, too, the message begins with testimony to the Jews, the first to be destined for salvation. But the final command to those sent out by Jesus is universal: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:18-19). “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And as the risen Lord said to Paul: “Depart; for I will send you far away to the Gentiles” (Acts 22:21).

  Included in the message of the witnesses is the proclamation that Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead and to establish God’s kingdom definitively in the world. There has been a substantial trend in recent theology to view this proclamation as the principal content, if not the very heart of the message. Thus it is claimed that Jesus himself was already thinking in exclusively eschatological categories. The “imminent expectation” of the kingdom was said to be the specific content of his message, while the original apostolic proclamation supposedly consisted of nothing else.

  Had this been the case, one might ask how the Christian faith could have survived when that imminent expectation was not fulfilled. In fact, this theory goes against the texts as well as the reality of nascent Christianity, which experienced the faith as a force in the present and at the same time as hope.

  The disciples undoubtedly spoke of Jesus’ return, but first and foremost they bore witness to the fact that he is alive now, that he is Life itself, in whom we, too, come alive (cf. Jn 14:19). But how can this be? Where do we find him? Is he, the risen Lord now “exalted at the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33), not for that reason completely absent? Or is he somehow accessible? Can we penetrate “to the right hand of God”? Within his absence is there nonetheless at the same time a real presence? Is it not the case that he will come to us only on some unknown last day? Can he come today as well?

  These questions have left their mark on John’s Gospel, and Saint Paul’s letters also attempt to answer them. Yet the essential content of this answer can be gleaned from the accounts of the “Ascension” at the end of Luke’s Gospel and the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles.

  Let us turn, then, to the end of Luke’s Gospel. Here it is recounted that Jesus appears to the Apostles gathered in Jerusalem, who have just been joined by the two disciples from Emmaus. He eats with them and issues instructions. The closing lines of the Gospel are as follows: “Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God” (24:50-53).

  This conclusion surprises us. Luke says that the disciples were full of joy at the Lord’s definitive departure. We would have expected the opposite. We would have expected them to be left perplexed and sad. The world was unchanged, and Jesus had gone definitively. They had received a commission that seemed impossible to carry out and lay well beyond their powers. How were they to present themselves to the people in Jerusalem, in Israel, in the whole world, saying: “This Jesus, who seemed to have failed, is actually the redeemer of us all”? Every parting causes sadness. Even if it was as one now living that Jesus had left them, how could his definitive separation from them not make them sad? And yet it is written that they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, blessing God. How are we to understand this?

  In any case, it follows that the disciples do not feel abandoned. They do not consider Jesus to have disappeared far away into an inaccessible heaven. They are obviously convinced of a new presence of Jesus. They are certain (as the risen Lord said in Saint Matthew’s account) that he is now present to them in a new and powerful way. They know that “the right hand of God” to which he “has been exalted” includes a new manner of his presence; they know that he is now permanently among them, in the way that only God can be close to us.

  The joy of the disciples after the “Ascension” corrects our image of this event. “Ascension” does not mean departure into a remote region of the cosmos but, rather, the continuing
closeness that the disciples experience so strongly that it becomes a source of lasting joy.

  Thus the ending of Luke’s Gospel helps us to understand better the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, in which Jesus’ “Ascension” is explicitly recounted. Before Jesus’ departure, a conversation takes place in which the disciples—still trapped in their old ideas—ask whether the time has yet come for the kingdom of Israel to be established.

  Jesus counters this notion of a restored Davidic kingdom with a promise and a commission. The promise is that they will be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit; the commission is that they are to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.

  The questioning about times and seasons is explicitly rejected. Speculation over history, looking ahead into the unknown future—these are not fitting attitudes for a disciple. Christianity is the present: it is both gift and task, receiving the gift of God’s inner closeness and—as a consequence—bearing witness to Jesus Christ.

  In this context belongs the statement about the cloud that takes him up and withdraws him from their sight. The cloud reminds us of the hour of the Transfiguration, in which the bright cloud falls on Jesus and the disciples (cf. Mt 17:5; Mk 9:7; Lk 9:34-35). It reminds us of the hour of Mary’s encounter with God’s messenger, Gabriel, who announces to her the “overshadowing” with the power of the Most High (cf. Lk 1:35). It reminds us of the holy tent of God in the Old Covenant, where the cloud signified the Lord’s presence (cf. Ex 40:34-35), the same Lord who, in the form of a cloud, led the people of Israel during their journey through the desert (cf. Ex 13:21-22). This reference to the cloud is unambiguously theological language. It presents Jesus’ departure, not as a journey to the stars, but as his entry into the mystery of God. It evokes an entirely different order of magnitude, a different dimension of being.

  The New Testament, from the Acts of the Apostles to the Letter to the Hebrews, describes the “place” to which the cloud took Jesus, using the language of Psalm 110:1, as sitting (or standing) at God’s right hand. What does this mean? It does not refer to some distant cosmic space, where God has, as it were, set up his throne and given Jesus a place beside the throne. God is not in one space alongside other spaces. God is God—he is the premise and the ground of all the space there is, but he himself is not part of it. God stands in relation to all spaces as Lord and Creator. His presence is not spatial, but divine. “Sitting at God’s right hand” means participating in this divine dominion over space.

  In a dispute with the Pharisees, Jesus himself provides a new interpretation of Psalm 110, which points toward a Christian understanding. He contrasts the idea of the Messiah as a new David ushering in a new Davidic kingdom—the very idea that we have just encountered among the disciples—with a grander vision of the one who is to come: the true Messiah is not David’s son, but David’s Lord. He sits, not on David’s throne, but on God’s throne (cf. Mt 22:41-45).

  The departing Jesus does not make his way to some distant star. He enters into communion of power and life with the living God, into God’s dominion over space. Hence he has not “gone away”, but now and forever by God’s own power he is present with us and for us. In the farewell discourses of Saint John’s Gospel, this is exactly what Jesus says to his disciples: “I go away, and I will come to you” (14:28). These words sum up beautifully what is so special about Jesus’ “going away”, which is also his “coming”, and at the same time they explain the mystery of the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. His going away is in this sense a coming, a new form of closeness, of continuing presence, which for John, too, is linked with the “joy” that we saw in Luke’s Gospel.

  Because Jesus is with the Father, he has not gone away but remains close to us. Now he is no longer in one particular place in the world as he had been before the “Ascension”: now, through his power over space, he is present and accessible to all—throughout history and in every place.

  There is a very beautiful story in the Gospel (Mk 6:45-52 and parallel passages) where Jesus anticipates this kind of closeness during his earthly life and so makes it easier for us to understand.

  After the multiplication of the loaves, the Lord makes the disciples get into the boat and go before him to Bethsaida on the opposite shore, while he himself dismisses the people. He then goes “up on the mountain” to pray. So the disciples are alone in the boat. There is a headwind, and the lake is turbulent. They are threatened by the power of the waves and the storm. The Lord seems to be far away in prayer on his mountain. But because he is with the Father, he sees them. And because he sees them, he comes to them across the water; he gets into the boat with them and makes it possible for them to continue to their destination.

  This is an image for the time of the Church—intended also for us. The Lord is “on the mountain” of the Father. Therefore he sees us. Therefore he can get into the boat of our life at any moment. Therefore we can always call on him; we can always be certain that he sees and hears us. In our own day, too, the boat of the Church travels against the headwind of history through the turbulent ocean of time. Often it looks as if it is bound to sink. But the Lord is there, and he comes at the right moment. “I go away, and I will come to you”—that is the essence of Christian trust, the reason for our joy.

  From a very different perspective, something similar emerges from a story that is extraordinarily rich in its theology and anthropology, namely, the risen Lord’s first appearance to Mary Magdalene. For now, I shall concentrate on just one aspect.

  After being addressed by the two angels in white garments, Mary turns around and sees Jesus, but she does not recognize him. Now he calls her by name: “Mary!” Once again she has to turn, and now she joyfully recognizes the risen Lord, whom she addresses as Rabbuni, meaning Teacher. She wants to touch him, to hold him, but the Lord says to her: “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (Jn 20:17). This surprises us. We would have thought that now, while he is standing before her, she can indeed touch him and hold him. When he has ascended to the Father, this will no longer be possible. But the Lord says the opposite: Now she cannot touch him or hold him. The earlier way of relating to the earthly Jesus is no longer possible.

  It is the same phenomenon that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17: “Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation.” The old manner of human companionship and encounter is over. From now on we can touch Jesus only “with the Father”. Now we can touch him only by ascending. From the Father’s perspective, in his communion with the Father, he is accessible and close to us in a new way.

  This new accessibility presupposes a newness on our part as well. Through Baptism, our life is already hidden with Christ in God—in our current existence we are already “raised” with him at the Father’s right hand (cf. Col 3:1-3). If we enter fully into the essence of our Christian life, then we really do touch the risen Lord, then we really do become fully ourselves. Touching Christ and ascending belong together. And let us not forget that for John the place of Christ’s “exaltation” is his Cross and that our own ever-necessary “ascension”, our “going up on high” in order to touch him, has to be traveled in company with the crucified Jesus.

  Christ, at the Father’s right hand, is not far away from us. At most we are far from him, but the path that joins us to one another is open. And this path is not a matter of space travel of a cosmic-geographical nature: it is the “space travel” of the heart, from the dimension of self-enclosed isolation to the new dimension of world-embracing divine love.

  Let us return once more to the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The content of the Christian life, we said, is not speculating on the future, but it is, on the one hand, the gift of the Holy Spirit and, on the other hand, the disciples’ worldwide testimony to Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord (Acts 1:6-8). And when Jesus was taken from their sight by the cloud, this does not mean that he was
transported to another cosmic location, but that he was taken up into God’s very being, participating in God’s powerful presence in the world.

  The text continues. As happened earlier at the tomb (Lk 24:4), so now there appear two men dressed in white, and they pronounce this message: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). With these words, faith in Jesus’ return is strengthened, but at the same time it is stressed once more that the disciples are not to gaze into heaven or to know times and seasons, which are concealed in the mystery of God. Their task at this moment is to proclaim to the ends of the earth their witness to Christ.

  Faith in Christ’s return is the second pillar of the Christian confession. He who took flesh and now retains his humanity forever, he who has eternally opened up within God a space for humanity, now calls the whole world into this open space in God, so that in the end God may be all in all and the Son may hand over to the Father the whole world that is gathered together in him (cf. 1 Cor 15:20-28). Herein is contained the certainty of hope that God will wipe away every tear, that nothing meaningless will remain, that every injustice will be remedied and justice restored. The triumph of love will be the last word of world history.

  Vigilance is demanded of Christians as the basic attitude for the “interim time”. This vigilance means, on the one hand, that man does not lock himself into the here and now and concern himself only with tangible things, but that he raises his eyes above the present moment and its immediate urgency. Keeping one’s gaze freely fixed upon God in order to receive from him the criterion of right action and the capacity for it—that is what matters.