Gott ist Tot

In Star Trek, the Klingons are a warrior and spiritual people. They have a religion that includes gods and an afterlife (think Valhalla). Yet they no longer worship their gods. In Klingon lore, the people killed their creators. As Worf says, “Our gods are dead.” 

In 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we killed him.” And it’s been misrepresented ever since. I won’t try to fully unpack the statement, because I really don’t know much Nietzsche. But really it has more to do with culture and how we approach concepts of God, creating theology in our own image. Yet, the phrase is shocking and sticks in the mind. I want to refute it, but after Good Friday, I can’t. 

In 1966, Time magazine asked, “Is God Dead?” This time, the phrase was addressing the rise of atheism. This year, a (poorly written by the looks of the trailer) movie came out titled God’s Not Dead. It’s about a Christian student building the case for the proof of God after a challenge from his anti-theist philosophy professor. Judging for the trailer, it’s as predicable and cheesy as you would expect from such a plotline. 

I guess the Christian response is supposed to be “of course God isn’t dead!” He’s the creator of all that’s living. He’s eternal. Alpha, omega, without beginning or end. And yet, here it is, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The time of the crucified Christ. Our God is a god who experiences death. Christ became man through the Incarnation. He suffered death and was buried. Holy Saturday is a tricky time. We know the ending, and it is good. But for a day we must forget that we know. We must mourn. We must look to a future with a body decaying in a tomb and try to make sense of a creation without a creator. We must acknowledge the destruction we’ve caused. God is dead. We killed him.

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?” -Neitzche

First Council of Nicaea (325)

The Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council, and it was big one. Emperor Constantine, a recent convert to Christianity, called for the council in the summer of 325. Bishops from all over the empire as well as Asia, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, and Greece met at Nicaea. St. Athanasius counted that 318 bishops attended, as well as several hundred priests and deacons. Constantine opened the session but did not participate in any of the doctrinal matters. He real interest was uniformity across the empire.

Issues

Constantine called the council for bishops to settle on a universal statement on the relationship between God the Father and Jesus. There were two predominate camps at the time. Trinitarians believed that the Father and the Son were both God, separate persons of the same substance. Arians, named after the Libyan priest Arius, believed that the Father was greater than the Son. It also called into question Christ’s divinity by suggesting that there was a time before which Christ was created. Arius was not the only person with nontrinitarian beliefs, but he was the one who defended those beliefs at the council. 

The council also addressed the dating of Easter. Originally, Easter was observed according to the Jewish calendar, falling on 14 Nisan. However, as Christianity grew away from Judaism, it was determined that Easter should not rely on the Jewish calendar and that it should always fall on a Sunday. Different areas found different ways of determining the date for Easter, meaning that the Church did not celebrate it on the same day. 

Results 
On the Trinitarian issue, Arianism was condemned. The Nicene Creed was developed to explicitly clarify the Church’s position on basic beliefs, including the consubstantialism of the Father and Son. The Creed continues to be the basic statement of faith of the Church almost 1,700 years later. The council also determined that the Church should have a universal way to determine the date of Easter. However, it did not present a calculation, so different areas continued to follow different methods. The East and West continue to celebrate Easter on different dates (except when they happen to fall on the same day, like this year). The council also ruled on some finer points of the priesthood (age of ordination, marriage rules, grounds for excommunication). This doesn’t seem to be the result of a certain debate, but was perhaps brought about by the bishops getting together and seeing the differences of protocol between sees. 

Heresies

While Trinitarianism was widely accepted, Arianism continued to have support, mainly in the Germanic north through the sixth century. As a heresy, it grows and fades, but has never really gone away. The Nicene Creed is still used to this day as a basic doctrinal threshold, but there are still groups that disagree over the Trinitarian ruling of Nicaea. Most notably are Jehovah’s Witnesses and Oneness Pentecostals.

Misc.

This was the council were St. Nicholas infamously punched Arius. While I think it’s good to note that we should keep disagreements nonviolent, it’s still fun to think of badass Santa Claus. After all, there’s always that one heretic that you just want to punch in the face.

Part of the Crowd

As the priest mentioned this morning, Palm Sunday is a little schizophrenic. It starts with joyful waving of palms, but we don’t get to dwell on Jesus’ donkey ride into Jerusalem. We sing, “Hosanna!” But then we immediately turn to the passion and cry, “Crucify him!” There is a reason to the contrast. Everything is happening too fast; it’s confusing and jarring and uncomfortable. And it’s supposed to be. How quickly the crowd turned from “Hosanna” to “Crucify him.” 

The reading of the passion is done dramatically, with a reader representing Pilate, the priest representing Jesus, and the congregation representing the crowd. We participate in yelling “Crucify him.” The words fall out of my mouth, and there is no denying my culpability. We are all guilty in the passion. Humanity is guilty. We are all responsible for the arrest and death of Jesus. How do we get from praising Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to calling for his death in less than a week? 

The word “hosanna” means “save us” or “save now.” It is a request for salvation. The Jews believed the Messiah would be a royal warrior, a triumphant leader who would liberate them from Roman rule. But he wasn’t that kind of leader. He was a humble pacifist who rode in on a donkey and upset the religious leaders. He promised liberation from death but not liberation from Rome. He wasn’t what they expected or wanted. So “hosanna” turns to “crucify him.”

Jesus fulfilled the “hosanna” request. He did save us, through his death and resurrection. We called for his death, and he saved us anyway. We have guilt on our lips, and he forgives us. Palm Sunday is the beginning of the confusing, chaotic, uncomfortable time that is Holy Week. It’s dark and solemn, but it begins and ends in beautiful triumph.