An Introduction to ‘The Day the Revolution Began: Rethinking the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion’
I use the word ‘introduction’ advisedly. I think I can accomplish this in one article. A ‘review’ would take longer and may never be done.
The book is by Tom Wright. He is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews. He has written many books, but for the purposes of this article, we mention the series The Bible for Everyone, co-written with John Goldingay, as commentaries on the New Testament books. Clearly the writer is not satisfied to write academic texts for colleagues in other ivory towers. He wants to address lay readers, whether churchgoers or ‘outsiders’ curious about what contemporary religious teachers might think about the serious questions of the day.
The book is organised into four sections: Introduction, The Stories of Israel, The Revolutionary Rescue (focused on the Gospels and Paul’s letters with focus on Romans), and The Revolution Continues (the Holy Spirit and the continuing life of the church).
As a teacher, Wright introduces what each section is about, and then concludes summing up what has been said. If you get lost in the middle – and I certainly did especially in the exposition of Paul’s theologising in Romans – you will be enlightened by the closing summaries.
While the subtitle suggests the book is about the Cross as ‘atonement’, the writer avoids using this word if possible. As he writes: ‘I shall use the word sparingly as my argument proceeds…I want to try to promote the focus on the ultimate question, the question has to do with the launch of the revolution. By six in the evening on the first Good Friday, according to the early Christians, the world was a different place. What was different? Why was it different? And how might that revolutionary difference challenge us today, summoning us to our own vocation as followers of the shameful, scandalous crucified Jesus?’
This book is about more than the Cross as ‘saving me from my sins so that I can go to heaven’, though the writer doesn’t dismiss this completely. It is a revolutionary idea! But it demands a much deeper understanding. As suggested in the outline of the four sections, ‘atonement’ unwraps the history and stories of the Jewish people, offers the insights of the Prophets and the poetry of the Psalms. And that’s just the Old Testament. Four gospel writers give a multi-faceted portrait of Jesus’ life and teachings, while the gospel of John and writings from Paul lay the theological groundwork to a reasoned Trinitarian faith.
While the scholar John Dominic Crossan gives us a symbolic interpretation of the Cross, Tom Wright argues for a historic basis. Both scholars have shared publications, stating where there is both agreement and disagreement. Or, to put it more kindly, where there is room for further thought and discussion.
In my preparation for lay preaching, I’ll find more depth of meanings in this book.
I conclude by quoting some concluding words, which have a poetic ring that strongly appeals: ‘We lift up our eyes and realise that when the New Testament tells us the meaning of the cross, it gives us not a system, but a story; not a theory but a meal and an act of humble service; not a celestial mechanism for punishing sin and taking people up to heaven, but an earthly story of a human Messiah who embodies and incarnates Israel’s God and who unveils his glory in bringing his kingdom to earth as in heaven. The Western church – and we’ve all gone along with this – has been so concerned with getting to heaven, with sin as the problem blocking the way, and therefore with how to remove sin and its punishment, that it has jumped straight to passages in Paul that can be made to serve that purpose. It has forgotten that the gospels are replete with atonement theology, through and through – only they give it to us not as a neat little system, but as a powerful. sprawling, many-sided, richly revelatory narrative in which we are invited to find ourselves, or rather to lose ourselves and to be found again on the other side. We have gone wading in the shallow and stagnant waters of medieval questions and answers, taking care to put on the right footwear and not lose our balance, when only a few yards away is the vast and dangerous ocean of the gospel story, inviting us to plunge in and let the wild waves of dark glory wash us, wash over us, through and through, and land us on the shore of God’s new creation.
The message for us, then, is plain. Forget the ‘works contract’ with an angry, legalistic divinity. Forget the false either/or that plays different ‘theories of atonement’ against one another. Embrace the ‘covenant of vocation’ or, rather, be embraced by it as the Creator calls you to a genuine humanness at last, calls and equips you to bear and reflect his images. Celebrate the revolution that happened once and for all when the power of love overcame the love of power. And, in the power of that same love, join in the revolution here and now.’
John Thornley