Who was saved on the Cross?

Easter is about to arrive. I already wrote about the historical origins of Christmas¹. Now it is time to write about the origins of Easter.

For the church Easter always played a higher role than Christmas because the birth of Jesus matters less for the faith than his death on the cross. The reason is that only if Jesus actually died on the cross and was resurrected by God the Christian faith has any validity. This event is the pinnacle of the entire Christian faith, while the life of Jesus is seen as secondary. Paul said: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”² This delivers the theological foundation for the wide-spread ignorance for the life of Jesus compared to his death among the church and many believers.

The biblical placement

According to the synoptic gospels (therefore all except the Gospel of John) the Last Supper is the Passover meal³. This makes Easter effectively a Christianized version of the Jewish Passover (Pesach). This stresses the fact that Jesus and his apostles were Jews and shows that Christianity grew out of a branch of Judaism.

According to John the Last Supper happened a day earlier already⁴. In this gospel the symbolism of Jesus as the “Pesach lamb”⁵ is of high importance. This is why the timeline was set that he died at the same time the Pesach lambs were slaughtered. It was even said in the Gospel of John that none of his bones were broken⁶, which is of importance according to the Book of Exodus for the Pesach lamb⁷. What does it show? That Jesus is literally seen as a Pesach lamb, not just as an allegory.

This is more in line with the later Pauline theology. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians Paul wrote: “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.”⁸ Peter wrote in his first letter that Jesus was a “lamb without blemish and without spot”⁹. And still, this is somewhat in relation to Pesach, even though the author of the Gospel of John places the Last Supper a day before Pesach (even though it makes no sense from a Jewish perspective).

What all gospels agree on, is the fact that Jesus was crucified and resurrected. But there are important details for the Christian doctrine in which not only the synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John differ in their storytelling but even the synoptic gospels themselves.

Obvious contradictions in the biblical story

Now we get to questions related to the title. Questions related to minor differences in the general story could be asked but these details don’t make a theological difference. Therefore let’s focus on the relevant differences:

Who was saved on the cross?

This question might seem odd to most Christians. Like for Christmas the tale from Luke is seen as the mainstream version, also here the version of Luke is taken for the mainstream theology as basis. According to Luke Jesus was crucified with two criminals alongside him. One blasphemed against Jesus, while the other stood to Jesus and was saved¹⁰. According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus their names were Dimas and Gestas¹¹, which was later adopted in the church tradition. This is the wide-spread mainstream version. The problem is, that this is only one version in the Bible, just like the version of the birth of Jesus according to Luke.

In the Gospel of Matthew both criminals slander Jesus¹². According to the Gospel of Mark as well¹³. So 2/3 of the synoptic gospels reject the notion of a salvation on the cross of one of the criminals. According to the Gospel of John, which is otherwise written in a more prosaic style, only mentions the crucifixion of two criminals along Jesus, but no interaction at all¹⁴.

Why is it of importance? Because the salvation in the Gospel of Luke creates foundation for the theological reasoning that converting to Christianity just shortly before your death would wash away your sins. But when this event never happened (like the other gospels indicate), then this reasoning is not built on rock but on sand.

The Irish writer Samuel Beckett pointed out this specific contradiction among the gospels in his play “Waiting for Godot” and lets Vladimir discuss this issue with Estragon in their dialogue. 

What did Jesus say on the cross?

According to the Gospel of John Jesus spoke the words: “I thirst!”¹⁵ and just a short time later: “It is finished!”¹⁶ In general in this gospel Jesus is in a clear state of mind about that he will end up on the cross to fulfill the prophecy. Even during his arrest, when the Romans searched for Jesus, he clearly told them: “I am He.”¹⁷ This is in contrast to the synoptic gospels.

According to the Gospel of Luke Jesus said: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”¹⁸ This is a more reconciling saying missing in many manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke, so it might have been added later. He said before his death: “Father, ´into Your hands I commit My spirit.´”¹⁹ This is a quote from Psalm 31:5 which shows that Jesus fully trusts in the salvation by God. Despite that, he begged in a prayer in the Garden Gethsemane that God might “take this cup away” from him, but that God’s will and not his will shall happen²⁰. This shows a moment of desperation due to his destiny, but still also trust in God.

In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus also quotes a Psalm on the cross as a shoutout, but a different one: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”²¹ This is a quote from Psalm 22:1 and obviously shows the desperation of Jesus. Just like in the Gospel of Luke he prayed in the Garden Gethsemane that “this cup” might be taken away from him, but that God´s will and not his own shall happen²².

According to the Gospel of Mark the same happened as in the Gospel of Matthew: Jesus shouts out on the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”²³ And the prayer for taking the cup away from him, but that God´s will and not his own shall happen was spoken in the Garden Gethsemane²⁴.

Why is this detail so important? Because it shows the state of mind of Jesus during his death. Some Christian theologists don’t like the notion of seeing Jesus in a weak moment not only physically by being crucified but also mentally by shouting out such words of desperation and fear of death.

Who stood at the tomb?

According to the Gospel of John only one person witnessed the empty tomb: Mary Magdalene²⁵.

According to the Gospel of Matthew it was Mary Magdalene together with “the other Mary”²⁶.

According to the Gospel of Mark Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome went to the tomb²⁷.

According to the Gospel of Luke Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, Joanna and “other women” went to the tomb and told the apostles that it is empty²⁸.

Why is that so important? Because it is the question who witnessed the empty tomb. As we can see, the only person all gospels agree on is Mary Magdalene. Probably the “other Mary” in the Gospel of Matthew is meaning Mary, the mother of James. That would mean that she is according to the synoptic gospels the one accompanying Mary Magdalene consistently. But all other women vary. This makes the historical record according to the Bible very weak because it contradicts even more than the crucifixion itself.

What we can state for sure is: The resurrection itself was not witnessed by anyone, only indirectly by finding the tomb to be empty. This is why there is a tale that Jesus survived the crucifixion and had children with Mary Magdalene. Another tale is that he survived and went to India. For both there is no evidence, just like there is no evidence for his resurrection.

This shows that the death on the cross and everything related to it is somewhat disputed within the Bible. There is even the theory that the chapters related to it in the Gospel of Mark were added later, so that they are not original.

The heathen traditions

Uganda is a tropical country around the Equator. This is why the date for Easter is rather a day like any other. In the northern hemisphere it is obvious that the celebration of Easter is at the beginning of spring, after the first full moon in spring. This is why Easter is always between 22nd March and 25th April and not on a fixed date. The date does not fully correlate with the Jewish calendar, so that Easter does not fall together with Pesach nowadays.

The Easter Bunny bringing Easter eggs has no relation to Christianity at all. According to the Bible a hare is even regarded as “unclean”²⁹. There are speculations of a pre-Christian origin but there is no evidence for that, just like there is no evidence that the term Easter itself would come from a Germanic goddess of spring named Ostara. Uganda has no tradition for the Easter Bunny, but is also affected by the import of Western culture. This is why this topic should be mentioned.

What can be said is that the celebration of Easter as a folk festival is not entirely Christian.

Conclusion

Paul wrote: “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.”³⁰ There is no scientific evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Even according to the Bible this event has different stories surrounding it. But all prove that nobody has seen the resurrection itself. From the perspective of Sola Scriptura we don’t get a step closer to the truth due to all these contradictions.

Can we regard the resurrection of Christ as a historical fact? We cannot. Should we therefore give up celebrating Easter? Not at all! We should be conscious about the unlikeliness of this event. What is likely is that Jesus died as a martyr of a messianic denomination of Judaism which would later become Christianity. We should focus on the good deeds during his lifetime more unlike the church having a focus on his death first of all. Engels said: “Christianity was originally a movement of oppressed people.”³¹ Due to the focus on the death of Jesus rather than his life Christianity turned from a faith of the oppressed into a rather tool of the exploiting classes with its vague hope of a better condition in the afterlife than on earth. This is what Marx really meant when he called religion “opium of the people”³².

We should learn from the positive sides of the life of Jesus to actually improve the lives of the people instead of letting them rot in poverty and misery by making vague promises for the afterlife. According to the Gospel of John Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world.”³³ This is used as the justification to focus on the afterlife rather the life on earth. According to the Gospel of Luke Jesus said a very different thing: “The kingdom of God is within you.”³⁴ This reminds of the notion in Mahayana-Buddhism from the Nirvana Sutra that buddhahood is not to be achieved from outside but that every being already has the Buddha Nature within³⁵. Faith is embraced by good deeds, otherwise it is dead³⁶, as the Epistle of James clearly states.

Let us improve the livelihoods of the people and follow Jesus as a role model in good deeds, not in void words of piety!

Let us embrace the life of Jesus first of all, not his death!

Let us follow what he lived for!