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Dear Father Angelo, 

What is the role entrusted to Jesus’s death on the cross by St. Paul?

Dear friend, 

1. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the future Messiah presenting him as a suffering servant.

Here is the most important text: “He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. 

But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; but the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all. 

Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth” (Is 53,3-7). 

2. However, Isaiah lived in the 8th century BC.

In late Judaism, that is, at a closer time to the coming of Christ, the Messiah was no longer expected in the guise of a suffering servant, but as an inexpressibly splendid, an earthly-celestial , warlike and political figure at the same time, superior to any human weakness, to infirmity and death.

Almost super human, such a hero would  have never allowed himself to be crucified.

He would have been distinguished by universal sovereignty, the annihilation of enemies, the establishment of an eternal and universal royalty. He would have brought peace forever among the peoples.

That expectation is described in the book of Enoch, an apocryphal of the 1st century BC: “Man will never be able to imagine how terrible his appearance is in front of his enemies. Wherever he directs his gaze great fear and trembling shall seize them; wherever the sound of his voice reaches those who listen to him, they “shall melt like wax before the flame” (Enoch 1,1,5-6).

In chapter 13 of the fourth book of his Revelation, a coeval apocryphal, Ezra likewise speaks of a multitude of men, who were gathered to fight against a mysterious person. When they come to deal with him, they are afraid.

That character (the Messiah) held none of all the weapons of war. But it sufficed that “he sent out from his mouth only as it were waves of fire, and out of his lips a breath of flame, and he was shooting forth glowing coals of storm“ and everyone remained burned and “nothing was visible save only dust of ashes and smell of smoke”.

3. For this reason Christ’s atoning passion caught psychologically unprepared the great mass of the Jewish people, and above all the official tutors of religion, the Scribes and Pharisees.

Also the very circle of disciples could not totally escape the dreamy fascination of earthly grandeur.

Therefore, Christ “was teaching his disciples and telling them, «The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.» But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him” (Mk 9:31-32).

Then, no surprise if the apostles aspired to occupy ministerial seats at the right and at the left of the Messiah (rf. Mk 10:37). And, St. Peter refused to accept Christ’s prediction about His passion for that reason (rf. Mt 16:22). 

4. This was also the image of the Messiah in Saint Paul’s mind before his conversion. The Messiah couldn’t suffer, he couldn’t die like that. The resurrection sounded to him like news spread by some interested people.

Saint Paul had witnessed the stoning of Saint Stephen who at the moment of his death said: “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Act 7,56). Certainly, Paul did not believe what Stephen was saying. But he kept it in his mind, as he reminded the testimony of Christians about the resurrection of Jesus.

And behold, right to the point when Jesus, whom Stephen had seen, appeared to him on the road to Damascus. He saw Him risen, saying to him: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Act 9:4). And Paul “Who are you, sir?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Act 9:5).

If He speaks to him, then He is risen. So, Stefano was right. And the Christians were right too.

5. It is in the light of the resurrection that St. Paul understood the death of Jesus on the cross. He would never have been able to overcome the scandal of the cross if he had not seen the risen Christ appearing to him, “last of all, as to one born abnormally” (1Cor 15:8).

The cross would have remained for him only infamous gallows, according to the Jewish conception.

6. In the letter to the Philippians, on the other hand, he expresses all his faith in the redemptive passion of Christ. He sees that as a necessary step to overcome man’s greatest evil, the death, and to let us enter with him into glory.

Here are his exact words: “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:6-11). 

7. Thus, the resurrection overcomes the scandal of the cross.

By virtue of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection, Paul considers as garbage what was relevant for the Jews, that is ritual observances. Now he has only one desire: to become conformed to Christ in death, in order to conform to him also in the resurrection.

“But whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:7-11). 

While wishing for each other, as St. Paul, to become conformed to Christ in His resurrection, and in what precedes it as well, I bless you.

Father Angelo