“Patristic” Elders

The Elusive Biblical Idea of Ransom

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In late 1987, two American college students were exploring the jungles of Columbia. After obtaining a canoe, they embarked upon the Putumayo River and strayed into territory held by a Marxist rebel army. Formally known as FARC, these guerrilla soldiers abducted the students and held them captive for ten months in various jungle camps.

At first, the FARC guerrillas thought the two men were CIA agents, though the students corrected this. But then their captors came to see them as hostages having economic value. Soon, their parents hired an American explorer, who found the hostages and their captors. After four months of negotiations, conducted by a Roman Catholic Bishop, the students were released and taken to the American Embassy in Bogata.

Release for the young explorers surely came about through the payment of money, probably a lot of it. Ransom is a way to describe this kind of payment, where something valuable is exchanged for the freedom of captives. John Everett Millais’ painting (above), The Ransom, depicts a father handing over of fistful of jewelry and a bag of coins to some men who have taken his daughters hostage. Revolutionaries, terrorists, and criminals have long used ransom as an efficient means of fund-raising, especially when their captives come from wealthy families or are politically well-connected.

Clearly, when payments are made to captors, the purpose is not to honor or reward the hostage-takers. Instead, these payments reflect an abiding concern for those who are held-captive, awaiting redemption.

This concept of ransom is deeply rooted in our Judeo-Christian tradition, and it shapes how we understand redemption. Think of the beloved Advent hymn, which begins this way: “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel…” In the Old Testament, in many passages like Psalm 49; Isaiah 35, 43, and 51; Jeremiah 31; and Hosea 13, we hear about how God’s promises inspire hope for the possibility of ransom from the power of death.

These insights help us understand Jesus’ words about ransom in Mark’s Gospel (in 10:45; parallel in Mt. 20:28). After predicting his suffering and death three times, Jesus tells the oblivious disciples that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Yet, instead of a ransom-based understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice and death, many Christians think of Jesus’ saving work in a largely legal or juridical way. In this view, our sin involves a degree of corruption and guilt so bad that it’s beyond what we can make right. And so, human captivity to sin means that ‘a penalty must be paid, and punishment meted out.’ By this reckoning, only a ‘sinless one’ could pay the uncountable price, and bear the penalty for all. Therefore, Christ as a substitute for us, paid the price and endured the punishment so that we, ourselves, don’t have to, even though we are the ones who deserve it. Yet, according to this very common theory, the ‘price’ was paid to God, to satisfy God’s justice!

This legal or ‘punishment-substitution’ understanding of Jesus’ death did not become widespread for at least a thousand years after his crucifixion. Instead, during the first millennium, a different concept of Jesus’ mission was preeminent. It springs from the ransom words in Mark, as well as from 1st Timothy 2:5, where Paul writes, “…there is … one mediator between God and human kind, Christ Jesus… who gave himself [as] a ransom for all.”

According to this ransom view, ever since Creation, we have placed ourselves in the hands of Satan, by refusing to ‘delight in God’s will or walk in God’s ways.’ In effect, we have strayed into ‘the jungles of sin,’ and have allowed ourselves to be taken hostage by the Devil. We are held captive by our sin, and by our inclination to follow our own will. Like the two student hostages, we might have ‘paid’ our way to freedom ~ if we and they had had the means to do so. But we did not.

And so, showing his great love for us, Jesus offered himself to the Devil, as a ransom for our freedom. Jesus allowed the Devil to take him, as someone of even greater value than all of us. For Satan received as a ransom the sinless One, God’s own son. C.S. Lewis employs a similar ransom metaphor in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In this biblically-derived approach, the ‘price to be paid’ was a concession to the power of an enemy, and compensation for a loss, rather than (as in the later and more prevalent legal view) a payment to satisfy God’s sense of justice.

An image of Aslan’s self-sacrifice, from a film version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

 

This post is adapted from some material previously published in this space, with some additional imagery. It is based on my homily for Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, which may be accessed by clicking here.

Chora Church: A Byzantine Treasure

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Dome over the Side Church (or parecclesion), Chora Church

 

We missed being able to visit this remarkable place by a day! Sadly, after staying in Istanbul for four nights, the historic Chora Church that had undergone four years of renovation would not reopen until the day after our departure.

Dating back to the time of Constantine in the early fourth-century, the Chora Church was built as part of a monastary outside the walls that were constructed when Constantinople became the new capitol of the Roman Empire in 330 A.D. Its rural location led to its formal title, Church of the Holy Savior in the Country (or Chorai, in Greek).

Interior of the original central nave (naos) in use as a mosque, with Christian mosaics and frescoes covered over

Chora, like the later Hagia Sophia, has over its history served as a church, a mosque, a museum, and now once again as a mosque. As I have noted in prior posts, the fact that buildings like Hagia Sophia and Chora have been able to transition from church to mosque without significant structural change helps us perceive how what became normative in mosque architecture had its origins in churches from the early Christian, pre-Islamic era. As a precursor to Hagia Sophia, the original walls of Chora may provide one of the earliest examples of what would develop into the cruciform plan for churches, a design pattern that became predominant in the Christian East. This approach to design for worship spaces is centered on a square, covered by a dome, a departure from the early rectangular basilica plan favored in the western Roman region.

Floor plan of the Chora Church

In the floor plan above, note the subtle Greek Cross pattern of the central nave (or naos) below the large dome. As this plan indicates, the original, late Classical period Chora was significantly expanded during the Byzantine period, between the 11th century and the 14th century.

Section drawings of Chora Church showing the location of some murals and frescoes

In addition to its cruciform plan, and the church’s great antiquity, another feature that distinguishes Chora is its impressive collection of well-preserved Byzantine mosaics and frescoes, largely from the early fourteenth-century.

Visitors to Chora admiring the murals in the Byzantine-added “side church”

The bulk of the surviving mosaics and frescoes are located primarily in the side church (or parecclesion). This may be due to the central nave or naos having been used for Islamic worship during a significant portion of the building’s history. One of the many beautiful frescoes depicts a common theme found in works of art from the Christian East, that of the Harrowing of Hell. Images based on this theme depict the Christian belief concerning the first saving actions of the Risen Christ: pulling Adam and Eve out of their tombs and the clutches of the underworld (image below).

A fresco in the Side Church – Anastasis (or Resurrection): The Harrowing of Hell

A beautiful example of the Chora mosaics depicting Joseph and Mary’s enrollment for taxation in Bethlehem

Interior view of the side church

Like the later Hagia Sophia, Chora Church – for a time as a museum and now a mosque – still serves as an edifying spiritual place for Christians and people of other faiths to visit. For Orthodox Christians in the East, Chora’s numerous mosaics and frescoes provide multiple opportunities to (re)engage with biblical stories and with articles of faith in a way that the contemporaneous art in the much larger Arena (or Scrovegni) Chapel in Padua, Italy, provides enrichment for Western, Latin, Christians.

Exterior view of the southeast corner of Chora Church (note the later addition of a ‘flying buttress’)

A 1903 photograph of the west entrance to Chora in the late Ottoman period

 

Fully Alive: The Beauty of Human Nature

A photo of a print given to us years ago

 

Those familiar with my writing and ministry may not be surprised by how I choose to address the theme of beauty in relation to the human nature we all share.

My response is captured in a quote with words I have long loved and have frequently cited. The quote is from the second century Christian theologian and Bishop of Lyons (in present-day France), Irenaeus. “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” To which he added, “and to be alive consists in beholding God.”

What an audacious statement! I believe that the fundamental insight here, latent within Irenaeus’s words, stems from the Gospel of John, with whose author Irenaeus likely had a personal connection. That would have been through Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (presently, Izmir, Turkey), the city where Ireaneaus was born. One writer has described Irenaeus as the spiritual grandson of the apostle John.

Another calligraphy print, this one featured on the website of Holy Cross Monastery

What does it mean for any one of us to be ‘fully alive’? I believe that the Gospel writer, John, would respond by echoing words from Paul, whose letters frequently employ the phrase, “in Christ.” Through Baptism, we come to be in Christ. Through Baptism, we are re-born in Christ; we live in Christ – and he in us – and we will leave this mortal life in Christ. Indeed, in John’s  compelling witness to Jesus’ teaching, we are told that those who believe in Jesus have already died, and now, will never die! All of the Gospel readings appointed for funerals in The Book of Common Prayer are from John. This is the Gospel that is so centered upon the themes of God’s incarnation within our shared human nature, giving us God-given light, and eternal life.

Words found in the daily pattern for Morning and Evening Prayer, as well as in the Eucharistic pattern used on most Sundays in Episcopal Churches, help amplify this point but in a subtle way. These several patterns for corporate and individual prayer include forms for confession. Using these forms, and after we acknowledge our sin, we pray that we may delight in God’s will , and walk in God’s ways. In the absolution that follows, we hear these remarkable words:

Almighty God, have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.

In words that may be easy to overlook, we pray that by Holy Spirit power, God will “keep us in eternal life”! Being fully alive involves delighting in God’s will, walking in God’s ways, and being kept by God in eternal life.

Christians believe that the beauty of our human nature was and is found in the Gospel Jesus, and as the Risen Christ comes to be found in us. Our human nature, created in the image and likeness of God, and transformed to become an icon of Christ, is therefore all about the fulfillment of our divinely-given and imbued potential. When by grace we see it happen in people’s lives, it is a beautiful thing to behold.

Yet, human nature, being still what it is, prompts us to look for beauty in outward terms when we view others, as well as ourselves. Jesus, as the Gospels imply, always looked for beauty within – the kind of beauty it was his vocation to share and re-enable in us. This is what we should be looking for, both within ourselves and in others.

The archetypal biblical example of the glory of God beautifully manifest in human nature is found in the Gospel Transfiguration stories. James Tissot, one of my favorite painters, offers us glimpses of Jesus manifesting this same glory on several occasions, a glory that was otherwise often hidden within him.

James Tissot, Jesus Goes Up Onto A Mountain to Pray

Tissot, Jesus Being Ministered to by the Angels

Paul’s remarkable words to the Corinthians bring these themes together nicely. For we want to be among those who are:

seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God… For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

And, by God’s generous grace, the same may be seen in our faces, as well.

 

Note: Kenneth Kirk, the esteemed 20th century Bishop of Oxford, and former Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the historic university in that city, titled one of his still-used books (The Vision of God) based on the Irenaeus quote, featured above. Kirk presents Irenaeus’ words in this (now dated) way: “The glory of God is a living man, and the life of man is the vision of God.”