Good Friday March 29, 2024
Gen 22:1-18 Ps 22
Heb.10:1-25 John 18:1-19:37
The Gospels are placed at the front of the New Testament and since they present narratives of Jesus, the logical assumption is that they were written first. But in fact, they were written much later than the writings of St. Paul. Paul's writings were letters with teaching, practical administrative advice to the members of his churches, and I would say that Paul established the mystical teachings of the church. Paul did not see Jesus of Nazareth or walk or talk with him. He was not present when Jesus was seized and crucified by the Roman authorities in Jerusalem. He was not in the post-burial aftermath of Jesus in being privy to a post-resurrection appearance of the Risen Christ.
He did have a mystical experience of the Risen Christ, which was authoritative for him, and the mystical experience of knowing the Risen Christ through a spiritual presence became the standard experience for the early members of the Jesus Movement.
So, what was Paul's experience of the death and resurrection of Jesus? From the Pauline writings: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death." Also Paul wrote, I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
The history of Jesus for St. Paul was the history of his mystical experiences of the Risen Christ. When Paul met Peter and James, who had walked with Jesus, he did not regard his experience of Christ to be inferior to those who had been eye-witnesses.
The narratives of the Passion and Death of Jesus were written long after St. Paul wrote about his mystical practice which became the normative practice of the early Jesus Movement communities.
When the Gospel genre of writing happened, decades after St. Paul's writing, there has happened within the reading of the New Testament, a tendency to separate the mystical experience of Paul with the death and resurrection of Christ, with the seeming eye-witness narratives of the death and resurrection of Christ.
The Passion and crucifixion narratives can be given preference over the mystical theology of Paul, because they seem to be "before" the Pauline writings.
On this Good Friday, I believe that we need to assert the primacy of the Pauline mysticism of the death and resurrection of Christ, to the Gospel narratives. The Gospel narratives are in fact a genre of visualization narrative to serve the event of mystical identity of person with the life of Christ known through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
I believe that treating the Passion Accounts as merely historical events divorced from the mysticism of Paul, accounts for how church cultures in our history have slipped into anti-Semitic behaviors toward the minority Jewish communities. If one divorces the narratives of the Passion from the mystical theology of Paul, which actually preceded the writing of the Passion narratives, then one can feel justified in acting out against so-called "opponents" of Jesus who killed him. This involves making all Jews of all times be stereotypically identify with figures in a visualization of the Passion of Christ. The visualization was meant for spiritual practice and not for exactness of eyewitness account. Being crucified with Christ is to be on a path of love and reconciliation with all people including Jews and Gentiles.
Let us approach the reading of the Passion again as the visualization which occurred after the mystical theology of St. Paul, when he proclaimed, "I have been crucified with Christ." If we try to do the Passion without the mystical theology of dying and rising with Christ, then we will have merely externalized Jesus events, and missed the mystical process of transformation of our lives that is intended by those who were inspired to write the writings which became a part of the New Testament.
Let us accept our identity with Christ in his death, accepting our part of the world suffering because of the genuine freedom which is in our world needed to affirm moral and spiritual authenticity.
On Good Friday, let us once again affirm our Christ-identity and with Paul confess: "I have been crucified with Christ." Amen
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