I’m reading a new book by Benedict XVI (B-16, “the Bomber”) entitled Jesus of Nazareth. It’s just a delight to read because it reads SO much like something from Hans Urs Von Balthasar (only more readable!). It is theologically profound, spiritually deep, and pastorally sensitive.
Over the last couple of days I’ve been revisiting one particular section (p. 21ff) that I believe is worth sharing briefly:
“Why is Jesus called the Lamb, and why does this Lamb take away the sins of the world, so thoroughly vanquishing them as to rob them of any substance or reality?…”
First, that line STUNNED me; it’s so, well, Lutheran! What a delightful idea and phrase – that Jesus “thoroughly vanquished” our sins, so much as to “rob them of any substance or reality”!!!
He continues the page with a quote from the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (a Protestant work, by the way – everyone praises this pope for his ecumenical intellectual scope), a book also known among Bible students as “Kittel’s”:
“Jeremias makes the further observation that the Hebrew word talia means both ‘lamb’ and ‘boy’ or ’servant’ (TDNT, I, p. 339). In the first instance, then, the Baptist may have meant his words as a reference to the Servant of God who bears the sins of the world by his vicarious atonement [cf. Is. 53.7]. But this reference also identifies him as the true Passover lamb who expiates and wipes away the sin of the world: ‘The Savior, dying on the Cross, went to his vicarious death patiently like a sacrificial lamb. By the expiatory power of his innocent death he blotted out…the guilt of all mankind’ (TDNT, I, p. 340). If at the extreme hour of Israel’s oppression in Egypt, the blood of the Paschal lamb had been the key to its liberation, now the Son who became a servant – the shepherd who became a sheep – no longer stands just for Israel, but for the liberation of the world – for mankind as a whole.”
And so, Benedict XVI does two things here that in my mind are astonishing for a Roman Pontiff to do: first, he makes a BOLD statement of the definitive work of GRACE that occurred on the cross: “thoroughly vanquishing” our sins, “robbing them of any substance or reality”; “expiates and wipes away the sin of the world”. Secondly, he recognizes the global/universal dimensions of this sacrifice: “the liberation of the world – for mankind as a whole.”
This summer I’ll finish the book, and write a review of the whole thing. But I just wanted to share now how delightful a read it is, and what a great thinker/theologian/pastor B16 is turning out to be. Ratzinger – lots of folk nicknamed him Rottweiler – is turning out to be, not a mean dog, but a good shepherd. A good German Shepherd.
