Theological Journal April 17: Easter and Resurrection

From Letters and Papers from Prison (Kindle edition)

Christian hope of resurrection . . .  refers people to their life on earth in a wholly new way, and more sharply than the OT [Old Testament] . . .  Christians do not have an escape route secured that will lead them out of earthly tasks and sorrows into eternity; like Christ . . . they are given the cup of earthly life, which they are to drink to the last drop, and only when they do this is the Crucified and Risen One with them, and they are crucified and resurrected with Christ.” (5838)

When is Christ with us? When do we experience his crucified and risen life? In drinking this cup of earthly life to the bottom. Or as Bonhoeffer elsewhere puts it in Letters and Papers it is through immersing ourselves in the tasks of daily life with our neighbors and fellow citizens and facing the struggles and issues together that we share in God’s suffering on this earth. In this way we live into what has traditionally been called “the Christian life.” Bonhoeffer embraces a “theology of the cross” so he does not parse this Christian life triumphalistically in terms of victory, success, prosperity, good reputations, and the like. Rather, it is in our struggles, sufferings, and losses in solidarity with those “below,” the marginalized, needy, and powerless. This, as I said above, Bonhoeffer calls “sharing in the sufferings of God in the world.” And where we find and experience Christ. Christian life takes on life in these places and deeds where Christ is and is found. This is where the reality and power (a cross-shaped power) of the crucified and risen One takes shape in and through us. His reality found in the reality of the sufferings of the world constitute our reality as Christ’s people!