Robert Farrar Capon 


Quote from "The Mystery of Christ … & why we don't get it," pp. 62-3. 

"Suppose for a moment that the work of Jesus—the manifestation of the whole Mystery of God's Incarnation—was taking place now rather than in the first century. Suppose that the Jesus in whom he became human had been born in an inner city to poor, Hispanic parents in 1959, that he began teaching when he was about thirty, and that after three years he ran afoul of the authorities and was condemned to death in 1992. Then ask yourself, How would he be executed? Most likely, of course, he'd die in the electric chair.

"But then, jump ahead to the year 3092 and ask yourself another question: What would his followers in that distant future be doing with that manner of death in terms of ecclesiastical symbolism? It's interesting, isn't it? The chosen sign of the saving Mystery of his death would be not a cross but an electric chair. There would be replicas of the Old Rugged Electric Chair in all the churches. Solid brass ones, fourteen-karat gold-on-silver ones, fabulous diamond-encrusted ones on cathedral altars, tiny silver-chained ones to wear around your neck, and even molded chocolate ones for Easter candy. Not only that, but those who were baptized would probably have their heads shaved and be strapped into a chair for the rite.

" But perhaps that's enough to make my point about the cross. All I want to add here is that Jesus' resurrection from the dead was just as non-religious. Nobody at all saw him actually do it. And only a handful of people witnessed the empty tomb—a witness that was written off by a good many others as fraud. true enough, his followers claimed to have seen him risen; but he didn't bother to stay around long enough to get any decent publicity. Instead, he disappeared after forty days and left a ragtag group of apostles and disciples to proclaim that this festival of irreligious mysteriousness was in fact the best news the human race had ever had. Weird; definitely weird. But not religious." 

Posted: Tue - March 24, 2009 at 04:07 PM          

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