Resurrection Life
“Resurrection of the dead” first of all excludes any idea of a revivification of the dead Jesus which might have reversed the process of his death. Easter faith can never mean that the dead returned to this life, which leads to death…. The symbol of “resurrection from the dead” means a qualitatively new life which no longer knows death and therefore cannot be a continuation of this mortal life…. On the other hand, “resurrection of the dead” excludes any idea of “a life after death,” of which many religions speak, whether in the idea of immortality of the soul or in the idea of the transmigration of souls. Resurrection life is not a further life after death, whether in the soul or the spirit, in children or in reputation; it means the annihilation of death in the victory of the new, eternal life….
The Christ-event is not to be understood only as the inauguration of the future of God, but also as the incarnation of the future in the misery of history. In him the future of new being is historically opened. This opening is itself already the incarnation of new being….
The resurrection was not for Jesus an exit from our brutal world into heavenly bliss above…. The first witnesses identified the risen Jesus by the marks of his crucifixion. The body of the risen Jesus can be identified by us in the bruised and bleeding body of mankind with which he identified himself…. Not the corpse that we can dissect objectively, but the body with which we identify in love, stands in the horizon of the resurrection hope. There is no meaningful hope for the body we have, but only for the body we are….
Consequently the Messiah will not appear in Jerusalem, nor in Rome nor in Geneva. He will come among the poor, the mourners, those who hunger for righteousness and are persecuted for it. He will appear among the “beggars and lepers,” in Jerusalem, Rome, Geneva and other places. Only when the suffering of those who have the messianic hope becomes the hope of those who suffer with this world will Jews and Christians really understand their provisional finality and honour godforsaken mankind’s Messiah….
From The Crucified God (1974),“Antwort auf die Kritik der Theologie der Hoffnung” (1967) and “Messianic Hope: In Christianity” (1974)
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