Good Friday is not the day we as Christians celebrate death. Death is not
what we hold up victoriously in our processions at the Mass. If that
were true, we would in essence be celebrating the power of Hell, which
would clearly be at odds with what it means to be Christian. If that
were true, then we would scoff at the Resurrection, for the Resurrection
is the ultimate slap in the face to
death. So what are we celebrating on this most Holy Friday? In a sense,
we are celebrating a death. But we are not celebrating Death. Rather, we
are celebrating the death of a very specific, particular, concrete
death. We are celebrating the death of Death by death. Before we unpack
this mystery, we must answer, what is Death?
Death is hard to
define. Even with our advanced medical knowledge, the ontology of death
has never been pinned down justifiably by our modern dictionaries. Is it
the functional cessation of neurological activity? Near Death
Experiences at least seem to indicate to an extent a possibility for the
contrary. Is it the functional cessation of the heart? That is not
universally fatal. The point is that death is ambiguous and shrouded by
mystery. We cannot pin down death, even if we can prolong bodily
sustenance. Death, rather, pins us down. It is the consumption of Being
by non-Being. It is, therefore, the perfect manifestation of evil. For
what is evil but the privation of Being? With this in mind, what greater
evil could there be than for a being whose Nature is called to be
elevated to an exponentially higher level of Being to immediately
descend to the pit of privation? No evil could be greater, indeed. Death
is the epitome of evil. It is that which separates the beloved from its
lover; it is that which separates a created being from Being Itself.
If this evil could receive its own medicine, by being put to Death
itself, would not that be greatest act of charity conceivable? The
greatest Love imaginable? Yet this is precisely what we tacitly profess
every time we make the sign of the cross. Christ, who is the sheer act
of Being Itself, participating in our human nature, took upon Himself
the greatest evil conceivable, that greater than which no evil can be
conceived, the manifestation of the supreme instance of privation,
swallowing it up and, being overwhelmed by that which is contrary to His
very Nature, breathed His last, sharing utterly, therefore, in our
humanity. Every instance of sin and darkness was on display at the
Crucifixion (stupidity, violence, betrayal, mockery, sloth, wrath, etc),
and Christ swallowed every instance of it by doing the only thing He
knows how to do, by fighting with love, even when confronted with the
greatest evil conceivable. That Christ was willing to share so utterly
in our humanity, even in its greatest instance of privation, truly
proves that human nature has been divinized, that now we can be hopeful
towards OUR divinization, towards our participation in God's own way of
Being, because God's own way of Being shared utterly in our lowly human
nature, displayed most fully at Calvary. But, of course, that is not the
end of the story. The crucifixion alone is not how Death died. It was
necessary in order to unite humanity with divinity, but the true
divinization of the human race also called for human nature to become
like God. This could only happen through the Resurrection of the body.
The Resurrection is the completion of the crucifixion, destroying the
supreme instance of evil with the supreme instance of the Divine Life,
made whole through the paschal mystery of Christ.
Now we can
understand why Paul says that neither death nor life, nor angels or
principalities can separate us from the love of God. Because we killed
God. God consumed the supreme instance of evil, yet his existential love
non-violently conquers death with the Resurrection, finalizing the
purpose for becoming Man, "that Man might become God" (St. Athanasius).
No comments:
Post a Comment