When I first began to think about the theme for this posting, I admit initially feeling at something of a loss. Given that today is the beginning of Passover and Easter arrives this Sunday, it seemed like an appropriate idea to observe both holidays in some way. Deciding to simultaneously honor both holidays did little, however, to solve the problem of finding a common theme, as these two holidays are really quite different in many ways.
The difference between the two holidays is even more obvious when viewed from the Jewish perspective. After all, Christians openly acknowledge that Jesus was in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and most Christian scholars recognize that the Last Supper was, in fact, a Passover Seder. But for Jews, Easter has no significance at all.
As I reflected on this problem, however, I remembered the phrase “redemption from bondage” from the Haggadah, the text which is read during the Passover Seder. I also remembered that Moses was sometimes referred to a redeemer, a fact celebrated when African slaves likened Abraham Lincoln to Moses during their struggle for emancipation. I also know that Christians often describe Jesus as the Redeemer. So, I thought, perhaps exploring the idea of redemption might be a way of meaningfully reflecting on both Passover and Easter.
In the process of exploring the theme of redemption I learned that this idea can be found — in one sense of another — in many of the world’s religions. Exactly what one is being redeemed from and how the process of redemption works, however, differ a great deal from tradition to tradition.
Indeed, the two traditions I’m drawing upon today, Christianity and Judaism, view both redemption and redeemers very differently. For most Christians, Jesus is the one and only redeemer and sin is what one is redeemed from. For Christians, Jesus’ death was the price paid to redeem humankind from its fallen state and, if one believes this, one is redeemed.
None of these ideas are part of the Jewish concept of redemption. For Jews, redemption is an ongoing project requiring both the involvement of the Divine and action on the part of humankind. It is related to the practice of atonement and the idea of returning to a more righteous way of life. Jews may differ as to whether the Messiah — the final and ultimate redeemer Jews have waited for — is a charismatic human figure or a symbol of the redemption of humankind from the evils of the world. But there is general agreement among Jews that every person must live as if he or she, individually, has the responsibility to help bring about the messianic age.
That Jews see redemption as a joint project between the Divine and the Human can be seen in the figure of Moses. Indeed, Moses offers a pointed challenge to the idea that deliverance from Egypt was purely a divine project. Whatever miraculous properties the staff of Moses may have possessed, it did not walk into Pharaoh’s palace on its own. So the Haggadah invokes the hands of God and Moses, emphasizing that both have a share in the rebirth of freedom. And Moses’ staff reminds us symbolically of the unique role in the redemptive process we each hold in our hands. The question is whether we can overcome our reluctance, as Moses did, to fully embrace the ongoing work of liberation.
Comparing the Jewish and Christian perspectives on redemption, it seems that the emphasis in Judaism is on world redemption, while the Christian focus is on personal salvation. While the essence of Christianity is the saving the individual soul, the essence of Judaism is “tikkun olam,” saving the world. Happily, I don’t need to choose between these two perspectives, but can opt instead to integrate what I view as the best of both. I can appreciate the unique needs and yearnings of my soul and seek wholeness and transformation as an individual. I can also help to transform the world into a more whole and evolved place in which to live. Indeed, I don’t see how I can do one without the other.
As a person who seeks to understand religious concepts in mythic and archetypal terms, I see both the Passover and Easter stories metaphorically, meaning I believe that they’re really telling us something important about ourselves and our own experience of being alive. In thinking about the story of the Exodus from bondage in Egypt, of the Israelites, Pharaoh, and Moses, I ask myself about the ways in which I’m still unfree, about the inner forces of resistance that keep me enslaved to old ways of being, and of how I might to become my own liberator.
When I consider the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection from a mythic perspective, I am always reminded of Joseph Campbell’s question: Does it matter if someone died and rose from the dead two thousand years ago if you aren’t rising from the dead today? Like all of the dying and rising gods of the ancient world, the death and resurrection of Jesus symbolize nature’s endless capacity to regenerate itself. Viewed mythically, Christ consciousness is born anew in us whenever we seek, like the mythic serpent, to shed outworn and outmoded ways of being and embrace emerging possibilities for renewal and rebirth in our lives.
Sometimes redemption begins within us, with our own efforts to be agents of positive change in our lives, the lives of others, and the larger world. Alternatively, others in our lives may awaken transformational potential which is latent but dormant within us. Perhaps most powerfully, redemption might manifest as the sudden and mysterious intrusion of a deeper, higher awareness, an intuitive knowing arriving from outside our everyday consciousness to alter our sense of who we are and what ultimately matters.
Based on this last approach, it might be more beneficial to speak of the process of redemption as the emerging of redemptive moments. Though we cannot command or control the arrival of such moments, we can choose to mindfully open ourselves fully to their arising. In doing so, we may find both the renewal, rebirth, and transformation we seek for ourselves as well as opportunities to share these precious gifts with a world desperately in need of redemption.