The immortality of Christ
Time is a river relentlessly surging from what unknown beginning to what incomprehensible end. Time is a timeless flow, absolutely beyond the grasp of men.
What then is this impertinence of dividing time into seconds and minutes, hours and days? What is this impertinence of stating that one year ends and another begins?
It may be an impertinence, we reply, but clocks and calendars, while indeed they do not control time, do however immeasurably help us to
control ourselves.
We know when to begin, when to continue, and when to end. Clocks and calendars tell us when best to plant and when to harvest the abundance of the earth.
For 2,000 years we have subdivided time by the emergence of one man. He stands at the intersection of our time, and we reckon the past from him and view the future through him. But what was he?
Whatever he was, he was in his own life certainly no example of what constitutes a success in our time. Born in a stable, condemned as a heretic, he was crucified to death between two thieves. And yet, in that moment of utter failure, there was yet some incredible credibility that evoked a confession of utter faith: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Crucified as he was, he still had all his certitude, as he could still say “Verily I say unto you, you shall be with me this day in paradise.”
He began much as he ended, by pardoning an adulteress and then pardoning a thief.
What meaning shall we read into this? That the adulterers and the thieves among us are better
assured of heaven? Or could we also say, rather, that there is a message of hope in these incidents for even the most depraved and the meanest of
all men?
Our perplexity in resolving these questions is a measure of that man. “I have come with a sword,” he said, and yet we know him as a man of peace. “O, you generation of vipers,” he raged at his enemies, and we call him gentle. The sign by which we all recall him is his hand, lifted in benediction, and it was the same hand which grabbed a whip and scourged the money-changers from the temple. Fierce he could be, he also could be compassionate beyond justice. As time and circumstances warranted, he was a fighter—and also a builder of peace.
The baby and the whip—he was both. The
inspiration of legions of saints and legions of armies—he is both.
If we lived by him, and say we do, we follow a demanding model. We are supposed to value truth and kindness, fairness and compassion, and only, perhaps, to find, as he did, the cross. And, in this materialist world, we are enjoined to value virtue above the price of rubies and pearls. A
difficult model, indeed.
But besides these ways of the cross, what are the alternatives? A world without truth, without kindness, without fairness, and without compassion? A world where only brutal might holds sway? A world where most children, our children, are to grow up into misery? At some point in the history of humanity, we made a choice,
imperfectly but steadily expressed, that the constraints of his cross are better than the wild freedom of anarchy.
Would that man had been more precise in his definitions. For example, he said, “Love thy neighbor,” without going any further, and so here we are 2,000 years later wondering: What is love and just who is our neighbor? Did he, perhaps, deliberately leave these words vague? Did he decide that we must evolve our own definitions and then test them in and with our lives? Has he forced us to affirm that humanity, that civilization, is not given but earned?
There is another perplexity about his birth. What really did those voices sing? “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men”? Or was it “Peace on earth toward men of goodwill”?
The difference may not be insignificant. “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men” sounds like an effortless gift. “Peace on earth toward men of goodwill” sounds more like a condition to be earned.
To reckon by his way of demanding the best from his people, even at the cost of their lives, we rather incline to the second concept of earning a grace. He had, after all, the rather unique habit of assuring his people revilement, martyrdom and the cross, while demanding at the same time that his people convert all the world to his way of life.
No, indeed, such a man confers no easy gift. He may assure us that peace is a reality that can be gained, that it is no cruel illusion, but peace must be earned.
The terrible point about access to heaven is that hell is just as free for us to choose. Another terrible point about these choices is that heaven calls for self-denial and virtue under stress, while it always seems so damned nice and easy to go to hell.
But lest we become too philosophical, let us go from the sublime to the business of daily life.
In this year, we see before us a lot of ground, and there are on it a lot of mud and blood. These have to be cleaned up because we need this ground, this land, for farms and playgrounds, for homes and factories, and for churches and mosques, too.
That is what all our efforts are all about. There are battles to be won. There is a peace to be built. There is a past to be changed. There is this day in which to work. There is a future to assure.
We, just as he, are fighters, and just as he, we are builders of the Peace. His life did not end in defeat, actually, because his vision guides us still.
And just as he, we aspire to no more than being just as remembered in our children’s hearts.
Reynaldo V. Silvestre is a retired Army colonel and a multiawarded writer.
