Chapter 16, "The Role of Suffering and Death"

Now, more on how Albert Nolan reads the gospels in Jesus before Christianity. I've been reviewing the book's chapters in reverse order in a search for greater understanding of a message that often gets hidden in formal church theology and doctrine today.

In previous posts up to and including Chapter 17, "The Man Who Emerges", I've established what Nolan makes explicit in chapter 16, "The Role of Suffering and Death": "Jesus was determined to destroy ... the sufferings of the poor and oppressed, the sufferings of the sick, the sufferings that would ensue if the catastrophe were to come" (p. 138). That was his main purpose: to awaken faith in the kingdom of God which would come instead of the catastrophe (the predicted expulsion of Jews from their sacred homeland and the destruction of their Temple) if enough people had enough compassionate faith.

The poor, the downtrodden, and the oppressed would be first to enter the new kingdom, Jesus preached, ushered in by a solicitous and merciful God. But what of everyone else? Here, in this chapter, is where Nolan takes up "the paradox of compassion," for Jesus showed that "in order to enter the 'kingdom' with the poor and the oppressed ... one must deny oneself ... and be willing to suffer (p. 138; italics mine).

At the extreme, "a willingness to die for all people" is required, the ultimate "expression of universal solidarity" as preached by Jesus (p. 139; again, italics mine). "As [Jesus] understood it," writes Nolan, "one should be willing to give up one's life for exactly the reason as one gives up possessions, prestige, family, and power, namely for others."

And that's what Jesus did, in the end: gave up his life in service to others. Faced with two equally inappropriate alternatives of remaining in hiding after the incident in the Temple courtyard or coming out of hiding to be crowned secular Messiah-King, Jesus discerned the third — and right — option. He could make of his own execution "a service ... rendered to all people" (p. 139; italics Nolan's). His death would be "a ransom ... given to redeem or liberate others" and to awaken in them faith in the coming kingdom of God.


Jesus knew at that point that "there was no other way of saving people from sin, suffering and the catastrophe to come ... of enabling the 'kingdom' to come instead of the catastrophe." He found himself in "circumstances in which [he] could serve the world better by dying for it than by continuing to live for it. ... The only alternative was to die. ... Jesus died so that the 'kingdom' might come" (pp. 140-141; italics Nolan's).

When Jesus in the gospels predicted his own end to his disciples, "each of the three main '[passion] predictions' is followed by instructions about self-denial, the willingness to die, being a servant and taking the last place" (p. 141). And we are back to the riddle of riddles: "Anyone who saves his or her life will lose it; anyone who loses his or her life will save it" (p. 139; italics Nolan's). In other words:

The paradox is that the person who fears death is already dead, whereas the person who has ceased to fear death has at that moment begun to live. (p. 139; italics mine)

Accordingly, we who are not poor and oppressed gain the kingdom of God by our willingness to suffer with and even die for the downtrodden, where that will serve to ease or curtail their suffering. That realization is tantamount to the awakening of faith. For, as Nolan states in an endnote:

... the awakening of faith also makes God's forgiveness effective in a person. ... It follows that one of the results of Jesus' death would be the forgiveness of sin. This is the sense in which Jessus' death may be called an atonement for sin. Jesus did not have to placate an angry God who was unwilling to forgive. God is always willing to forgive and to forgive unconditionally. Jesus' death reveals this and awakens our faith in it, thereby allowing God's forgiveness to transform our lives. (endnote 11, p. 183; emphasis mine)


Thus is self-denial linked, albeit paradoxically, to the coming of the compassionate kingdom and to the soul-transforming effectiveness of forgiveness. I, for one, find that notion a bit difficult to take ... not really because it's so paradoxical, though it is, but because I have never been particularly keen on self-denial as a concomitant of my religious faith.

That I may be able to count myself now ready for more self-denial than I 've been accustomed to manifesting in the past 58 years is — if it's real and lasting — a function of increased spiritual maturity on my part, or so I imagine.

The idea of spiritual maturity is not one we hear preached in every sermon, from every pulpit, but I would say the Christian journey is ever one of "putting away childish things" — something I've had an exceptionally hard time doing.

In fact, when I talked about the crucial distinction between the "beast" and the fully humane human in Chapter 17, "The Man Who Emerges", what I had in mind was in part the notion that "childish things," in this usage, betokens not just the innocence of the infant but also the "beastliness" of much childhood behavior — an aggressive, self-centered, me-me-me tendency which, if you believe in evolution, comes from our red-in-tooth-and-claw, pre-human heritage.

One of my favorite spirtual gurus, Fr. Ron Rolheiser, speaks of "crucifying the ego" as the prime Christian desideratum. This would seem to be synonymous with "caging the beast" — the "beast" within us all, that is. This "beast" is the voice in our skulls which says don't be a sap. Don't even think about giving up possessions, prestige, family, power, and even your life for others. Don't for one moment imagine that such foolishness will bring you any lasting joy or peace.


"Crucifying the ego" or "caging the beast," clearly, demands spiritual maturity of us. Otherwise, we might have a tendency to "go off the deep end" and make useless sacrifices simply to prove to ourselves that we would and could. That's just another form of egoism, cleverly disguised.

So Nolan's version of the gospel message of Jesus demands that we accept "on faith" what our ego tells us is crazy: that our true mission in life is compassionate solidarity with and service to others. That's the real "role of suffering and death" in our lives: to vouchsafe our compassion, our solidarity, and our service.