Preface to the English Edition T he high quality of Ken Jones s and Mark Mattes s sensitive translation has made me fully aware of the difference of the horizons not only between the languages but also between the situations and the mindsets for German- and English-speaking audiences. There are a number of points and phrases in my original text that seemed virtually untranslatable into any foreign language. In my eyes, that they have bridged this gap is the foremost merit of this translation. In spite of German allusions or references to items that are not common knowledge in the United States, the English text thus reads clearly and cogently, and the original book s demanding character remains present and accounted for. Indeed, because of the topic itself and the conditions of our era, the cross and resurrection of Christ do not, like a song on the pop charts, make themselves immediately accessible. They require that we open ourselves to them, or rather, to the Lord. Perhaps this sounds hard or even embarrassing. But it is a common experience that works of art, for example, require our commitment so that we become able to grasp their message. And when we devote ourselves to them, our hearts grow. In the same way, no person of sound mind would assume we could find or meet God as a coincidence vii
viii Preface to the English Edition or in passing. To put it bluntly, the people the Lord met never heard him say, Think of it sometime this afternoon, or Have a nice day and, if there is time left, remember me. Instead, he said to them, Follow me. And in contrast to the dime-a-dozen junk we find just about anywhere, Jesus declares the gospel to be a treasure hidden in the field; there it at least takes the trouble of hard digging to gain it. My goal in this book is to make sure that the gospel in the cross and resurrection is a real treasure and that it is valuable enough for us even to struggle for it. We will not be able to prove it like an algebraic equation, but we can be sure of it like a connoisseur is certain of a painting s quality or like the beloved knows that she or he is loved. We can only hint at these subtle events and hope that we succeed in conveying at least some taste of it.
Preface T he Stuttgart Hospitalhof was the site for the exhibit The Cross as a Sign from June 8 to 14, 1992. The invitation to deliver an address on the cross and resurrection in connection with the exhibit provided a chance for me to view the artwork in advance. 1 I will never forget that summer day: I was at a loss in viewing the richness of the paintings and sculptures. To a great extent, they did not speak to me. If they had something to say, it was something with which I had been familiar for a long time but now appeared completely alien. If my address were to relate to the exhibit, I would have to take up the difficult and fruitful task of delving into this world. Thus I came to see the cross in a surprisingly new way, and with it the resurrection, as well as their common inner coherence. It was a rocky path upon which the exhibit was gradually made accessible to me and a new perception was opened. It allowed me to reflect on the old insight that the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ open themselves only to those who are open to them. Those who continue to expect that the cross and resurrection must open themselves up will fail to find any access to them just as art is not opened for mere consumers. The address that arose from the discussion connected with this exhibit forms the basis of this ix
x Preface book. The theme required me to take on the extra work of dealing with the task and methods of current exegetical scholarship whose traditional procedures have proved to be inadequate, as seen in Gerd Lüdemann s theses on Easter. Especially in view of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the weaknesses and questionability of this scholarly tradition come into glaring light: The methodological instruments are too crude, the horizons too narrow, the fundamental assumptions too paltry, and, as a whole, the manner of questioning too one-sided. When we repeatedly get stuck on particular historical problems (for instance, the actual proceedings in the case against Jesus or the empty tomb), our gaze is diverted and blurred. What the cross and resurrection consist of and encompass thereby becomes covered over or falls completely out of view. Thus a clear boundary of what the cross and resurrection do in fact consist of and encompass is required. But this only happens in passing. I am much less concerned with going beyond the traditional understanding of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ than in seeing their relationship to our own experiences, realities, and quandaries. Yet this also means wrenching them from the grip of ecclesiastical definitions and theological assertions. These seemingly self-evident misappropriations restrict Good Friday and Easter to mere pious edification or diminish them to rationalistic explanation. Above all, they produce a false dichotomy: either they are verifiable and thus real, or they
Preface are events in the parochial world of a Christian perspective and thus unreal and are at best interesting as religious phenomena. Piety and life are not the only things broken apart this way; reality and faith are also hollowed out. Reality is reduced to facts and logic and thus brutalizes. As a result, because it increasingly withdraws to its own reality, faith becomes ghettoized. For some time, both have become familiar on a day-to-day basis as a mania for opposing facts to dogma. Thus our view of what happened on Good Friday and Easter becomes clouded, and their wonder fades into the distance. They become unreal for us, like a pious myth. The exhibit compelled me to speak to the bedrock, thus putting aside sterile alternatives and, especially, opening God s wonder to us. We will only understand what happened at Golgotha and on Easter eve if we have become fully aware of this truth. Yet this will never happen if we only ask narrowly and stubbornly about what may have actually happened on Good Friday and Easter. As Joachim Ringleben has asserted, it requires that we open ourselves and risk more. 2 For him, an increase in our understanding is evoked by dealing expressly with more expansive theological relationships and the theological debate itself. I take a different approach. In my view, our increase in understanding has more to do with bringing Jesus Christ s cross and resurrection to the fore as God s mystery and wonder, both as comfort and vexation. Therefore we will need to dispense with the xi
xii Preface ongoing debate in scholarly literature. In its place I have expanded a few points thematically. It is true that this makes a balanced essay impossible. But this balance is an admittedly two-edged sword that can also result in leveling and thus neutralizing what is essential. The exhibit, however, forced this on me. I was provoked precisely by the unity of the works, to the point of their being subjective in an expressionistic way although, strangely enough, in certain ways also objective. This unity and subjectivity led to a clearly contoured impression of the breadth and content of the exhibit s theme. If art and science are two very different things, then, because science seeks a balanced approach, it must certainly consider what remains unspoken, though in doing so it speaks even more impressively. But if only a whiff of God s mystery and wonder have moved us, then it poses the overarching question of whether one can speak about them in any balanced way. Hence, the task of this volume is to explore God s wonder and mystery in light of the cross and resurrection.