Why Doesn’t the Risen Jesus Appear to Each Generation?

Author(s):  
Matthew Levering

If Jesus is risen, why does he not manifest his risen flesh to each generation? This chapter’s answer is twofold. The first section of the chapter, drawing upon Hans Urs von Balthasar, explains that fallen humans cleave to our lives in this world. Since this is so, ascension—Jesus’ and ours—is necessary. Given our need to “ascend,” the second section examines the work of the biblical scholars Michael Morales and Brant Pitre. Morales’s Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? carefully explores how Jesus fulfills the Temple sacrifices. Pitre’s Jesus and the Last Supper describes a New Passover and New Exodus by which the crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus seeks to draw Israel and the nations into his transcendent kingdom. Ascending with and toward Jesus in self-sacrificial love, we are sustained eucharistically by Jesus so that our Passover may be complete.

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huub van de Sandt

AbstractIn the institution accounts of the New Testament Jesus declares the bread to be his body and the wine his blood. In the passages of the Didache referring to the eucharistic ritual (Did 9-10 and 14) the words of institution are lacking. Wine is not related to Jesus’ blood and bread is in no way linked to his physical body. If the Didache does not even suggest that the eucharistic ritual is related in any way to the tradition of the Last Supper, why then is the communal meal in the Didache considered holy? This paper argues that the meal was conceived in terms of holiness in order to show that it related as much to the Divine as did the temple service. Since a temple setting was generally seen as the natural context for religious rites, temple concepts and temple thinking were used to describe and define non-temple ritual settings.


2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-134
Author(s):  
Joshua Kulp

Emerging methods in the study of rabbinic literature now enable greater precision in dating the individual components of the Passover seder and haggadah. These approaches, both textual and socio-historical, have led to a near consensus among scholars that the Passover seder as described in rabbinic literature did not yet exist during the Second Temple period. Hence, cautious scholars no longer seek to find direct parallels between the last supper as described in the Gospels and the rabbinic seder. Rather, scholarly attention has focused on varying attempts of Jewish parties, notably rabbis and Christians, to provide religious meaning and sanctity to the Passover celebration after the death of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple. Three main forces stimulated the rabbis to develop innovative seder ritual and to generate new, relevant exegeses to the biblical Passover texts: (1) the twin calamities of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the Bar-Kokhba revolt; (2) competition with emerging Christian groups; (3) assimilation of Greco-Roman customs and manners. These forces were, of course, significant contributors to the rise of a much larger array of rabbinic institutions, ideas and texts. Thus surveying scholarship on the seder reviews scholarship on the emergence of rabbinic Judaism.


Author(s):  
Eyal Regev

This chapter discusses Jesus's attitude toward the Temple, which plays an important role throughout the gospels' narratives. The gospels seemingly describe a relationship of conflict between Jesus and Temple authorities but lack any straightforward statement by the evangelists about Jesus's attitude toward the Temple. The chapter focuses on three episodes upon whose authenticity most scholars agree: the act of “cleansing” the Temple; the accusation that Jesus says he will destroy (and rebuild) the Temple; and the Last Supper. These episodes offer sufficient opportunities to reconstruct Jesus's understanding of the problems related to the Temple of his day, his expansion of cultic symbolism, and the reactions he engenders as a potential enemy of the Temple. The chapter then considers how the Jewish establishment responds to Jesus's approach to the Temple.


Author(s):  
Наталия Ивановна Сазонова

В статье анализируется взаимодействие сакрального и мирского элементов в пространстве христианского храма, проблема границы мирского и сакрального и варианты ее решения в истории христианской церкви. Характер взаимодействия сакрального и мирского определяется космическим характером христианства. Христианство стремится к освящению окружающего мира и изменению его на Божественных началах, так как мир сотворен Богом и несет на себе Его образ. Высшей формой преображения мира является таинство Евхаристии. Конечное преображение мира, согласно христианскому учению, возможно после Второго Пришествия Христа. С первых веков существования христианства граница сакрального и мирского пространств в храме была подвижной, а богослужение предполагало активное участие мирян. В первые века христианства алтарь храма выделялся из его пространства, но не отделялся от верующих. Миряне имели возможность видеть происходящее в алтаре и участвовать в таинствах через приношения. Такие черты характерны как для Византии, так и для Руси X–XIII вв. В дальнейшем возникает проблема нарушения баланса мирского и сакрального элементов, которая по-разному решается на Западе и Востоке. Христианский Запад пошел по пути интеграции сакрального пространства в мирскую жизнь. Первоначально это проявилось в совершении молитв и тайнодействий «лицом к народу». Возникло представление, что такое совершение молитв соответствует Тайной Вечере Христа и апостолов. По той же причине место епископа в храме было перенесено ближе к молящимся мирянам. Позже произошел переход к богослужению на национальных языках. Все это привело к прогрессирующей десакрализации богослужения. По-другому развивалось богослужение на Востоке. Здесь приоритетным стало разделение священного и мирского пространств, что проявилось в увеличении высоты алтарной преграды и появлении высокого иконостаса. В дальнейшем снижается активность участия мирян в богослужении, а в XVII столетии происходит окончательное разделение сакрального и мирского пространств. В результате литургической реформы патриарха Никона изменяется положение священника. Священник понимается как носитель благодати, положение которого выше положения мирянина. Из текстов богослужения удаляются слова, имеющие мирское значение. Так возникает сфера мирской жизни, отдельная от церковной жизни. Это ведет к секуляризации культуры. Таким образом, западные и восточные христиане от христианской идеи освящения мира разными путями пришли не к освящению пространства жизни людей, а к секуляризации культуры и богослужения. Но богослужение и устройство храма на христианском Востоке, имея тенденцию к отделению своего пространства от мирского, все же в большей степени, чем Запад, сохраняет сакральное содержание христианства. The article analyzes the interaction of sacred and secular elements in the space of the Christian Church, the problem of the boundary between the secular and the sacred, and options for its solution in the history of the Christian Church. The nature of the interaction between the sacred and the secular is determined by the cosmic character of Christianity. Christianity seeks to sanctify the surrounding world and change it by divine principles, since the world was created by God and has His image. The highest form of transformation of the world is the sacrament of the Eucharist. The final transformation of the world, according to the Christian doctrine, is possible after the Second Coming of Christ. Since the first centuries of Christianity, the border of the sacred and secular spaces in the temple was mobile, and the service involved the active participation of the laity. In the first centuries of Christianity, the altar of the temple stood out from its space, but was not separated from the faithful. Lay people were able to see what was happening in the altar and participate in the sacraments through offerings. Such features are typical for both Byzantium and Russia of the 10th–13th centuries. Later, the problem of disturbing the balance of the secular and sacred elements appears; it is solved differently in the West and East. The Christian West has taken the path of integrating the sacred into its secular life. Initially, this was manifested in the performance of prayers and sacraments “facing people”. There was an idea that such a performance of prayers corresponds to the Last Supper of Christ and the apostles. For the same reason, the bishop’s place in the church was moved closer to the praying lay people. Later, there was a transition to perform liturgy in national languages. All this led to the progressive desacralization of liturgy. In the East, liturgy developed in a different way. The separation of the sacred and secular spaces became a priority, which was manifested in the increase in the height of the altar barrier and in the appearance of a high iconostasis. Then the activity of lay participation in liturgy decreases, and, in the 17th century, the final separation of the sacred and secular spaces takes place. As a result of Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical reform, the position of the priest changes. A priest is understood as a bearer of grace, whose position is higher than that of a lay person. Words that have a secular meaning are removed from the texts of the service. The sphere of secular life that is separate from church life appears. This leads to the secularization of culture. Thus, Western and Eastern Christians came from the Christian idea of sanctifying the world in different ways to the secularization of culture and worship rather than to the sanctification of the space of people’s lives. But liturgy and the arrangement of the temple in the Christian East, with its tendency to separate its space from the secular, still preserve the sacred content of Christianity to a greater extent than the West.


Author(s):  
Emmanuel Falque
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The One ◽  

This chapter analyzes the problem of the sacrificial lamb. Ever since Vatican II, public discussions of the eucharist have been dominated by reflections on the eucharist either as a meal (a “repast”) or an “action of grace” (eu-charis): the food that gives us strength; the sharing with fellow guests; the one who presides, and so on. However, a curtain has been drawn over the meaning of what is to be eaten—probably because the significance of transubstantiation, something inherited from medieval categories, is not simple to explain. For the bread to become the body and the wine to become the blood, in the Christian staging of consecration during the repast of the Last Supper, we need to connect with and transform the flesh sacrificed and the blood offered in the Jewish staging of the sacrificial lamb (on the altar of the Temple).


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