THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION DOULA
Rediscovering the Cross
On Death and a Theology of the Cross


The Very Rev. Dr. John Behr makes a critical point regarding what we risk when death is taken from our sights:
 
"In the latter part of the last century, there has been much discussion of our ‘denial of death.’ But it would seem to me that the problem is deeper and more difficult.
If it is true that Christ shows us what it is to be God in the way that he dies as a human being, then, quite simply, if we no longer ‘see’ death,
we no longer see the face of God" (1).

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays in such agony over His death that His sweat turns to blood (Luke 22:44).  Death is real, even for God.  God can do what He pleases, and God chose to plunge into the misery of death and demonstrate dying in front of the world, nailed to a cross.
The idea that Jesus came to us to teach us to be like him is a theological concept that is not limited to Christian denominations.  Many “spiritual” non-Christians won't deny Jesus’ goodness as theoretically pleasing.  Yet it is a concept that quickly loses its appeal once we understand the reality of Christ's earthly mission, which is to lay down His life for His friends (John 15:13).  The last thing we anticipate to learn from Christ is to be like him in his death.
When a death occurs, is not always the physical loss of a human being.  When we are baptized as Christians, we die with Christ (Romans 6:3-4). This means that our time on earth is a continual experience of the death of our former selves, which makes room for renewal in a faithful Christian Life. Theologically speaking, this is understood as sanctification.

In the second century and the early days of the Church, a theologian named Irenaeus of Lyons formulated from Scripture a systematic response in order to protect Church doctrine from the heretical beliefs of Gnosticism, a mystic and divine knowledge of God made apparent through the senses.  Irenaeus' recapitulation theology, emphasizes Christ as the new head of mankind, which is emphasized throughout both the Old and New Testaments.  In fact, the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the restoration of humanity back to God’s image and likeness that was lost through Adam and Eve’s apostasy or disobedience recorded in Genesis 3.

Ireneaus envisioned salvation as a single economy or a continuous arc from the creation of all things to the return of Christ, or the parousia. Our individual lives are lived within this economy, and our experience on earth cannot be separated from the actual transformation and completion in Christ.  Adam (the standard of the human being) was created only as a "pattern of the one to come" (Romans 5:14), and therefore, the original formation of Adam is brought to completion in Christ, which is the life he is to grow into “by learning through experience” (2).

Ireneaus' theology will be joined with the work of several more recent theologians (16th century - Present) creating a refreshing theological foundation desperately needed in a culture that has dismissed death from a holistic understanding of what it means to be a human being. Without a comprehensive understanding of recapitulation -- the renewal of life in Jesus Christ -- a post-modern re-acceptance of death will lack the most fundamental aspect of well-being, which is to be made complete in Christ. 

Such a theological program must emphasize faith:
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8).

(1) John Behr, “The Christian Art of Dying,” Sobornost 35,1-2 (2013): 137.
(2) John Behr, “Irenaeus of Lyons,” In Christian Theologies of Salvation, ed. Justin Holcomb (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 44.

THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION DOULA


​There is a direct correlation between seeing death and the stability of our faith. 
If death is a reality we wish to deny, then our faith for healing will be at risk. 
If the ability to see death is taken away, in the context of a faith healing,
  1. we might ask, "With our faith, how were we not able to raise the dead?”
​