Joseph Ratzinger's interpretation of

"Risen from the Dead"

from his Tübingen lecture

"Introduction to Christianity"

(Summer Semester 1967).

slide 2

Let's look at the same thing from a slightly different angle, starting with the words love and death:

• Only where for someone the value of love stands above the value of life, that is,
• only if someone is ready - indeed, if he longs for it deep inside, sees fulfillment in it - to put life behind love and for love's sake,
• only then can love be stronger and more than death.

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slide 3

If the power of love for the others would be so strong somewhere that it would be able to sustain not only man's memory, the shadow of his ego, but himself [the God of the philosopher's thought], then a new stage of life would be reached which would leave behind the space of biological evolutions and would mean the leap to a completely different level in which love would no longer be linked to biological life but would make use of it [to come into existence].

slide 4

Such a final stage of evolution would then itself no longer be a biological stage, but would mean the breaking out of the reign of the biological, which is at the same time the reign of death; it would open up that space which the Greek Bible calls "zoe," that is, ultimate life, which has left behind the reign of death.

The last stage of evolution, which the world needs in order to reach its goal, would then no longer be carried out within the biological, but by the spirit, by freedom, by love. It would no longer be evolution, but decision and gift in one.

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slide 5

1. The immortality of the human being, his continuing life, can come about through the fact that he continues to live in someone other than himself. 
2. Only love, which takes the beloved other into oneself, into one's own, can make this being in the other possible. 

These two complementary aspects are reflected, as it seems to me, in the two New Testament expressions for the resurrection of the Lord: 

1. "Jesus has risen" and 
2. "God (the Father) has raised Jesus". 

Both formulas meet in the fact that the total love of Jesus for the people, which leads him to the cross, is completed in the total transgression towards the Father and in this it becomes stronger than death, because in this it is at the same time total being held by him.

Love founds immortality, and immortality comes from love alone. This statement, which we have now worked out, then also means that he who has loved for all has founded immortality for all. This is precisely the meaning of the biblical metaphor, that Jesus' resurrection is our life.

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slide 6

Nevertheless, it remains that the way of our immortality will depend on our way of loving.

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slide 7

Christ did not return to his previous earthly life at the resurrection, as is said of the young man of Naim and Lazarus. He was resurrected into the final life, which is no longer subject to chemical and biological laws and therefore stands outside the possibility of death, in that eternity which love gives.

That is why the encounters with him are "appearances"; that is why the one with whom one had sat at table only two days before is not recognized by his best friends and also remains a stranger as the recognized one: only where he gives the sight, he is seen; only where he opens the eyes and lets the heart open, the face of the death-conquering eternal love can become recognizable in the middle of our world of death and in it the new, the other world: the world of the coming.

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slide 8

His mysterious appearance, his no less mysterious disappearance, the fact that even here he remains unrecognizable to the ordinary eye (he cannot be ascertained as at the time of his earthly life) show: he is revealed solely in the realm of faith; through the interpretation of the Scriptures he makes the heart of the two wayfarers burn, and through the breaking of bread he opens their eyes.

The encounter with the Risen One is on a whole new level.

He thus gives a theology of the resurrection as well as a theology of the liturgy: the Risen One is encountered in the Word and in the sacrament; worship is the way in which he becomes touchable to us, recognizable as the Living One.

And vice versa: liturgy is founded in the Easter mystery; it is to be understood as the approach of the Lord to us, who in it becomes our companion, makes our numb heart burn and opens our held eyes. He still walks with us, he still meets us brooding and despondent, he still has the power to make us see.

slide 9

With all of this, of course, only half is said; the New Testament testimony would be distorted if one were to stop there. The experience of the Risen Christ is something different than the encounter with a person of our history, but it must not be reduced to table talk and memories, which finally would have condensed into the thought that he is alive and that his cause continues. With such an interpretation the event is leveled towards the other side into the merely human and deprived of its actuality.

slide 10

The resurrection accounts are something different and more than disguised liturgical scenes: They make visible the foundational event on which all Christian liturgy is based. They testify to a coming that did not rise from the hearts of the followers, but approached them from outside and, against their doubts, overpowered them and made them certain: The Lord is truly risen. He who lay in the tomb is no longer there, but He - truly He Himself - is alive. He, who had been transformed into the other world of God, nevertheless showed himself powerful enough to make it clear to the point of palpability that he himself was facing them again, that in him the power of love had really proved to be stronger than the power of death.

slide 11

One cannot have Christian faith and religion within the limits of mere reason. To the one who believes, however, it will become more and more visible how full of reason is the confession of that love which has overcome death.

Version: 18.7.2023

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Jochen Gruber