Threatened by ResurrectionKarl BarthThe essence of Easter is: Jesus is victor! Jesus - is it not he who was born in humblest lowliness, who died on the cross crying the cry of a derelict of God, he who forgave sins but who collapsed under the burden of sin, he, the humble, smitten by his fate; and of all those laden with grief, is he not the most burdened man of Nazareth? And he is to be victor? Yes, it is a difficult, a dark truth, a word that scarcely can be tolerated by our ears - that word "resurrection." Not that it is hazy - its meaning is only too clear. It means what it says: something mighty, crystal-clear, complete. It signifies: That is the world, that is life with its imprisonments and tragedies of sorrow and of sin, life with its doubts and unanswered questions, life with its grave-mounds and crosses for the dead: a unique enigma, so immense that all answers are silent before it. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can one do who is fated to this life of sin and death, with its thousandfold festering needs; nothing can one do to amend it; nothing fills up this vacuum. Admit it; there is no way out! Unless it is the possibility of a miracle happening - no, not a miracle, but the miracle, the miracle of God - God's incomprehensible, saving intervention and mercy, the all-inclusive renewal that leads from death to life that comes from him, God's life-word, resurrection from the dead! Resurrection - not progress, not evolution, not enlightenment, but a call from heaven to us: "Rise up! You are dead, but I will give you life." That is what is proclaimed here, and it is the only way that the world can be saved. Take away this summons, and make something else of it, something smaller, less than the absolute ultimate, or less than the absolutely powerful, and you have taken away all, the unique, the last hope there is for us on earth. We do not like to see that we are deeply imprisoned, and that we absolutely cannot in any way help ourselves; that we are a people who live in the shadow and darkness of death; that this is proclaimed to us in the word "resurrection" - oh, that is for us the bitter, unendurable truth which stirs us to rebellion. That is the darkness in the clear word "resurrection." Nevertheless, wherever that crystal-clear word "resurrection" shall be heard and understood, a prior word must be heard and perceived: "Death." It must be seen that in the midst of life, even in blooming and healthy life, there is a yawning chasm, a deep pit that cannot be filled by any art or power of man. Only one word is sufficient to cover this chasm, to fill this pit: "Jesus is victor!" - that is, "resurrection." We must realize that all the paths of life upon which we walk are the same, now or at any later time, in that they all lead to the edge of the precipice. We cannot bridge this precipice but its bridging has been made manifest in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Who would partake in this resurrection must first have seen this chasm, have discovered this pit. And life is not easy; on the contrary, it becomes deadly earnest and difficult wherever this word "resurrection" resounds. Resurrection proclaims true freedom to us and lets us painfully discover our prison chains. It tells us that the one and only refuge is God. But it tells us that only because it shows us that all our positions on life's battlefield are lost and that we must vacate them. Against this fact we try to defend ourselves. We do not tolerate this pronouncement upon our lives, inherent in the resurrection proclamation. For that reason we deny the resurrection, or we at least minimize it. We alter it into something human. And then, in our preaching on Easter Day, we say something about the rejuvenation of nature, or the romantic reappearing of the blossoms, or the revival of the frozen torpid meadows. We interpret the message that Jesus is victor, not in its literal sense, but we interpret it as a symbol or a human idea. In that case the message tells us that the world is not so bad off. After each and all evils there naturally follows something good. One must hope, and not lose courage! We may be satisfied with this sort of resurrection. We may get along very well for some time with the comfort that death is not so terrible: "One must just not lose one's courage!" We may be satisfied for a long time with the romantic reappearing of the blossoms and the rejuvenation of spring, and thus forget the bitterness of present reality. It may be that, even as we stand beside the graves of loved ones, we find contentment in the thought of a spiritual continuation of this life. But the remarkable thing about it is that the real truth of the resurrection seems to be too strong for us, because it will not suffer itself to be hidden or concealed in these harmless clothes. It always breaks forth; it rises up and shouts at us, asking: "Do you really think that is all I have to say to you? Do you really believe that is why Jesus came to earth, why he agonized and suffered, why he was crucified and rose again on the third day, to become merely a symbol for the truth - which really is no truth - that eventually everything will be all right?" No cultural education, no art, no evolutionary development helps us beyond our sins. We must receive assistance from the ground up. Then the steep walls of our security are broken to bits, and we are forced to become humble, poor, pleading. Thus we are driven more and more to surrender and give up all that we have, surrender and give up those things which we formerly used to protect and defend and hold to ourselves against the voice of the resurrection's truth. Karl Barth, “Threatened by Resurrection,” from Come Holy Spirit: Sermons, by Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen. Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark Ltd. Used by permission. Your turn. Tell us what you thought about Threatened by Resurrection.
4/17/2003 -- dr. bryan burton, seattle United States 4/9/2003 -- Barbara Bell, Dalton, GA United States 4/8/2003 -- bonnie b, wichita, kansas Full Text of All Responses
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