In the last essay, we examined the logic of mediation in the Five Books of Moses through the image of fire. Specifically, we saw how the theophany of the burning bush reveals the core of the problem of union with the divine. The living God, as infinite vitality, is like the raging fire that instantly consumes whatever opposes its action. Physically, the bush is able to enter into direct contact with the flame because its own microscopic chemical structure is perfectly attuned to the dynamism of the fire, like a superconductor that transmits electrical energy without resistance. Adam was created in this state of perfect attunement to the divine fire (in God’s “image,” participating in his “breath”) in order to serve as the vicarious ruler of the rest of creation, governing it in God’s name. When the Tempter convinces him to see God as a rival, Adam falls from this state, and proximity to God becomes dangerous. This situation necessitates a new structure of mediation, by which God can remain close to his creatures while maintaining the necessary distance. Although “no one can see God’s face and live,” Moses is allowed to see God’s “back,” and in a certain sense to “speak with him face to face.” He is also empowered to communicate his unique and risky divine intimacy to the rest of the people throughout all their history through a precise set of sacred objects and ritual actions. But this mediation cannot restore the state of perfect resonance, and the people are continually falling back in to the suspicion of God and his representatives that occasioned the original fall.
Today, Holy Thursday, Christians begin a three-day memorial celebration of God’s solution to this problem. We have been preparing for this moment with 40 days of prayer, fasting and works of mercy, which little by little open the mind and heart to see and accept what is about to happen. To drive home the fundamental change in the structure of mediation, many places in the Catholic West veil all the images in their churches, and from tomorrow through Saturday night all other forms of religious mediation are suspended (except in danger of death). The message is clear: the event we are celebrating in these days is the definitive act of mediation, and all these other things only have value as means of making contact with this act.
So what happened, what are we celebrating? Clearly, there is no satisfactory answer that can be communicated in a single Substack post. For a Christian, the whole Bible and all the rites and ceremonies of the Church are primarily expressions of the content of this mystery, and even all of them taken together do not exhaust it. But the way we have posed the problem in the commentary on Moses sets up just enough context to glimpse the essence of the solution. God wants to be close to his people, but human sin has made the relationship dangerous. And God found a way to make himself the vulnerable party, reversing the Mosaic formula that “no man shall see God’s face and live.” The interaction remains fatal, but this time God is the one who dies.
This is not a tragic act of desperation – it actually solves the problem at its root in a positive way. In the first place, it repairs the suspicion of God that disrupted man’s original state of divine friendship. God’s willingness to make himself vulnerable – to the extent of being executed like a criminal – definitively proves that his friendship is authentic. Secondly, through the bonds of solidarity that link the whole human race, the suffering of the God-man actually burns away the impurities that still render humans incapable of supporting the divine gaze. This does not totally replace the suffering that is necessarily entailed by the process of purification, since losing something you were formerly attached to is always painful. But it radically changes its character, making it an act of friendship and communion with the one who freely suffered first. He has already brought the human body into the glory of definitive divine communion, and shows us the way through death to life. Finally, this act restores the relationships of men to one another and to the rest of the cosmos, which were ruptured as a consequence of the fundamental break with God. Specifically, human society and the elements of material creation become the means of bringing people of all times and places into contact with the event, and are thus elevated to the dignity of active participation in the core of the divine plan.
This final dimension defines the basic structure of religious mediation in Christianity, which is always a matter of radiating the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. But it also opens many questions about the precise nature and logic of this radiation. In the following essays, we will see how some of these questions are handled by the great theologians of the Christian tradition, starting with St. Paul.