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Link to share: https://hanglberger-manfred.de/en-destruction-of-jerusalem.htm |
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Does our Christian worship correspond
to Jesus' intention? - or had it been changed by the early
Church because of the destruction of Jerusalem in a way that the intention of Jesus
is no longer recognizable? It is astonishing that this tremendous catastrophe of the destruction
of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple by the Romans in 70 AD is not reflecting
the effects on the Christian image of God and on Christian worship. The answer to these questions could make
it understandable why the celebration of the Eucharist and the protestant
celebration of the Lord's Supper no longer play a role for more than 90% of Christians. The reasons why in the Catholic
celebration of the Eucharist and in the Protestant celebration of the Lord's
Supper the view of man as a sinner and the rites and prayers as a celebration
of the redemption from sin play such a central and thus a one-sided role: 1. Because the leaders of the early Church experienced
"salvation" primarily as redemption from sin and guilt. 2. Because Christians interpreted the destruction of Jerusalem in
70 A.D. as an act of vengeance and punishment by God, which led to the loving
and merciful "Father-God" of Jesus suddenly being seen again as a
stern, cruel, and terrifying God of vengeance. To point 1: For almost two thousand years,
the Church has placed the problem of human sin and guilt at the center of its
activity, its sacramental celebrations, and its proclamation. If we read the Gospels in
the New Testament and consider how Jesus dealt with so-called
"sinners" and that he took the problem of guilt and sin very
seriously, but did not place it at the center of his efforts to help people
in their fears, needs and sufferings, then this is first of all
incomprehensible. The reasons for this are to
be found in the earliest phase of the formation of the Church. Because in
connection with the death of Jesus, his best friends, the apostles, felt
afterwards cowardly, fearful and above all guilty. Especially the guilty
behavior of Peter, the leader of the early Church, is treated extensively in
the texts of the Bible. He, who had previously promised before the eyes of
all the apostles to go with Jesus and if it was demanded to the point of
death, had later denied knowing Jesus when he was asked about it by a maid at
the courthouse after Jesus was arrested. The profound experience of
guilt on the one hand and divine mercy on the other, which the apostles had
in their relationship with Jesus beyond his death and resurrection, placed
the issue of guilt and forgiveness at the center of their faith. Even more dramatic was the
same experience of guilt on the one hand and of God's mercy on the other with
the other great leader in the early Church, namely Paul. He had persecuted
Christians in his radical Jewish piety and wanted to destroy them beyond
Israel, thus protecting the Jewish faith from the "new teaching" of
the Christians. The total change in his attitude of faith from being a
persecutor of Christians to a tireless missionary of the Christian message,
which he himself traced back to a visionary encounter with the risen Christ
(Acts 9), was also connected with his perception of his own guilt and with
the experience of being deeply loved by God. This led him to place the theme
of "guilt" and "redemption from guilt" at the center of
his Christian proclamation. To point 2: A terrible historical event
in Israel may have exacerbated this focus of Christianity on the problem of
guilt: The national, socio-political and religious catastrophe of the Jewish
people, the destruction of Jerusalem and especially of the Jewish sanctuary,
the Temple, in the year 70 AD by the Romans. Similarly to the destruction
of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. and the subsequent deportation of
the people into exile in the distant Babylonian empire was understood as a
punishment of God, this new catastrophe was also interpreted as a punishment
of God. And the Christians, who at the beginning of the Church came largely
from Judaism, were also convinced that God had intervened here through the
Roman soldiers to take revenge for the death of Jesus, whom they proclaimed
as the Son of God. God had thus taken cruel
vengeance on the Jewish people for the crucifixion of his Son. The
Jewish-Christian author of the Gospel of Matthew clearly expresses this idea
in his additions to the parable narratives he puts into Jesus' mouth: Matthew 22:5-7 In the
parable of the royal wedding feast: Some (of the invited)
ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his
business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed
them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers,
and burned their city. Similarly in Luke: „Everyone who falls on that
stone will be dashed to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it
falls." Luke 21:20-24 "When you see Jerusalem
surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is at hand. Then those in Judea must
flee to the mountains. Let those within the city escape from it, and let
those in the countryside not enter the city, for these days are the time
of punishment when all the scriptures are fulfilled. Woe to pregnant women and
nursing mothers in those days, for a terrible calamity will come upon the
earth and a wrathful judgment upon this people. They will fall by the edge
of the sword and be taken as captives to all the Gentiles; and Jerusalem will
be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the
Gentiles are fulfilled.” The same recollection of the
destruction of Jerusalem and the interpretation as God's judgment resonates
in the Letter to the Hebrews: Hebrews 10:28-31: “Anyone who rejects the law
of Moses is put to death without pity on the testimony of two or three
witnesses. Do you not think that a much
worse punishment is due the one who has contempt for the Son of God,
considers unclean the covenant-blood by which he was consecrated, and insults
the spirit of grace? We know the one who said:
"Vengeance is mine; I will repay," and again: "The Lord will
judge his people." It is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God.” This interpretation of the
destruction of Jerusalem transforms the merciful Father-God, whom Jesus had
proclaimed, again into an avenging, punishing and relentlessly angry
ruler-God. At that time, many Jews and also Jewish priests were convinced by
this proclamation of the Christians and sought forgiveness of their "guilt"
by converting to Christianity: Cf. Acts 6:7: “The word of God continued
to spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly; even
a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith.” But these priests brought
their Jewish understanding of guilt and forgiveness into Christianity. And it
seemed to be so necessary and appropriate again because of the events that
had happened in Jerusalem in the meantime: the angry God must be reconciled. About 1900 years later,
Josef Frings, who was ordained Archbishop of Cologne in 1942 and was
appointed Cardinal in 1946, formulated it similarly in the pastoral letter he
published on the occasion of his episcopal ordination. Since the Second World
War was raging at the time, he interpreted the horrors of that time in the
following way: "God's hand is heavy
upon us: he is tearing up the soil of our people, of our souls, with a
terribly cutting plowshare. It must already be the case
that the nations have deeply angered the all-holy God. It is truly necessary
for priests and bishops to raise their clean hands to heaven to appease God's
wrath and to plead for a shortening of the time of suffering, to continually
offer the sacrifice of the covenant to appease God's majesty." In order to save Cardinal
Frings' honor, it must be said that 20 years later he became one of the great
reformers in the Second Vatican Council. Such beliefs, which see in
every dark epoch in the history of peoples and in every natural catastrophe a
punishment of God for human guilt, still exist in the currently used missal
of the Catholic Church: There it says in the prayers
for a service "In every distress": "Thou hast
visited us with deserved punishment;" and "For the sake of
Christ's suffering, turn away the hostage of thy wrath, which we deserve for
our sins." The most consequential effect, however, was the change in Jesus' words
at the Lord's Supper, which Matthew added to the chalice words with “shed
for the forgiveness of sins". Thus, the rite of the Lord's Supper,
which was a "covenant rite" in the oldest textual traditions, was
changed to a "rite of atonement." This obviously happened as a
reaction to the change in the image of God after the destruction of
Jerusalem: Comparison oft the Words of Institution in the Last Supper >>> One has to be afraid of such
a cruelly avenging God again and ideally ask him in advance for mercy and
reconciliation because of our offenses. Thus the death of Jesus on the cross
was reinterpreted as a sacrifice of atonement. This subsequently inserted
text variant in Jesus' words of the Lord's Supper became the basic central
text of the Eucharistic celebration as well as of the Protestant celebration
of the Lord's Supper and based on this text the most important Christian
service became a kind of "penitential service" or a celebration of
redemption, in which, however, the Christian message of redemption was
reduced to redemption from sin and guilt. This not only changed the Christian
image of God, but also the image of man: Man was seen primarily from the
point of view of his sinfulness, and this was internalized for centuries.
Therefore, "being a Christian" meant first and foremost
"avoiding sins" and "celebrating worship" meant
performing a rite of atonement. >>>
The Eucharist as "Celebration of the New Covenant" >>>
The role and the task of a Priest A
common exegetical, Church-historical and liturgical clarification of the
image of God in our worships could become a valuable way to a greater unity
in faith. Manfred Hanglberger (www.hanglberger-manfred.de ) Link to share: https://hanglberger-manfred.de/en-destruction-of-jerusalem.htm |
