Dr. Curtis W. Freeman: Understanding redemption and renewal during Holy Week

This episode is the second installment of a three-part series on redemption and renewal. Dr. Curtis Freeman discusses the significance of how Christians keep time and why the events of Holy Week are integral to the Christian faith.

Dr. Curtis W. Freeman is a research professor of theology and Baptist studies and director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School. His research and teaching explores areas of Free Church theology.

Watch the video, here.

[00:00:00] George: Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public Life. I'm your host, George mason, and we continue in this episode, our three-part series on redemption and renewal focusing on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Because during this one month period, all three of our religious traditions will celebrate holy days that are important in understanding our faith traditions and in even understanding each other because there is overlap in the understanding of them. And so we have already explored Judaism and Passover and we will be talking about ramadan, that season of one month fasting and spiritual renewal in Islam.

But in this episode, I'm pleased to welcome Dr. Curtis W Freeman, who is a research professor of theology at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. And he is also the longtime director of the Baptist House of Studies there a terrific program within a Methodist school that has. So many good scholars and pastors and other ministers.

And so he is, I will confess a personal friend across many years. And we both being theologians have had lots of opportunity to talk with one another and to work out our theology in those conversations. So you'll be listening in on something that is just a long continuation of our friendship and our ongoing conversations.

But he'll be talking about the significance of how we keep time in the Christian faith. And how Maundy Thursday, good Friday, holy Saturday. That happened during what we call Holy Week commencing with Palm Sunday and then followed by Easter Sunday. Sunday of resurrection, how those are integral to our understanding of our Christian faith.

Also, the notion of redemption that is not just for Christians, but for in our conception, the whole world and how we do that, how we talk about that while standing alongside our Jewish and Muslim friends, not to mention our Hindu, Buddhist, and. Other traditions as well and, why it's important that we operate with this lens, with this focus that brings internal discipline for us and understanding about our own salvation, but also an outlook on what God is doing in everyone else's life at the same time. So we hope you'll enjoy this conversation. And with that I'll give you Curtis.

Well, Curtis it is a delight to have you with us, partly because of your expertise as a professor of theology and partly because of our longstanding friendship. And so anytime we get to talk, whether it's on Zoom or on one of our back porches, it's really a great talk. 

[00:03:19] Curtis: Yeah. Thanks so much, George. I always look forward to conversation with you.. 

[00:03:23] George: Terrific. So we'll get right into it and say that this is part of a three-part conversation with Judaism, Christianity in islam at this season of this year where significant holy days correspond. Now that's true generally with Christians and Jews around Passover and our Triduum the Good Friday, Monday, Thursday, good Friday and Holy Saturday.

That leads then to Easter. But it's also this year true, and it's not always true with Ramadan in Muslim the Muslim calendar. So we're talking about redemption and renewal, but before we get into sort of the, heart of the meaning of all of this, I think it's helpful for you, if you would, to give us a sense of the Christian calendar how it falls, where it does, and why this is so important given that.

I think most people might not realize even who are Christians, Easter is our highest holy day, right? I mean it's, the Of the Christian faith. Without Easter, you don't have the Christian faith, but a lot of people might think Christmas is and not really sure about that. So tell us something about the Christian calendar and what we're about to experience here in timekeeping.

[00:04:52] Curtis: Yeah. Thanks so much, George. It, is a really important thing in, churches like yours and, the church that I am a part of many, of the free church tradition does not observe a holy timekeeping. We, sort of go by other calendars. Sometimes they might be hallmark cars or cards or national holidays, and we sort of think, well, that's the way we keep.

But Christianity has a different way of keeping time and it is built as you said initially This whole calendar grows out of an understanding of Easter. Where, today when Christians get together, every Sunday is a little Easter. And every Easter is a big, Sunday. Nice. So that, becomes really the first day that Christians build around.

The earliest Christians kind of had. They, memorialized the death of Jesus, and they did it according to the Jewish lunar calendar because it coincided with Paska, the Jewish Passover. But took a little while, but Christians began to recognize that there was also the Lord's Day the, day of the resurrection.

And so it, it took a couple of, two or three centuries before that to sort of get worked out. But we. So that Easter becomes the, crucial day about keeping time. So that, and when I say keeping time, it helps us to understand what God is up to in the world. Because when we see things from that, Perspective, that's the end, that the, that time and eternity meet in that open empty tomb.

And time opens up to eternity. And, we, can talk more about that but, understanding and rendering our time according to God's time, a holy time. Really helps us to understand where we fit into this story and what is do, what God is doing with us and with God's people as we meet for worship.

[00:07:00] George: So let's keep going a little more into timekeeping because you mentioned that we moved from Saturday worship Sabbath worship to Sunday worship. And so there is a weekly timekeeping that is a little bit different from our inherited jewish tradit. And that has to do, of course, with the, the resurrection and jesus meeting his disciples and on, Sunday morning and on the the recognition that there was something new that took place in, his being raised. But we moved from a weekly rhythm to also an annual calendar. That has, as you like to say, more of a corkscrew or spiral effect rather than a circular effect. Right? Yeah. So explain that a little bit as well. 

[00:07:55] Curtis: Yeah. Well it's, So the Christian year is built around, as I said, Easter is the, central time.

It's not that the other seasons are, not important, but there, there is a a, rhythm to that. We have actually, there's six seasons in the church here, beginning with Advent as you approach the coming of Christ at Christmas. And as we focus on the opening of the future Christmas and then also epiphany, and then we move into lint and the Easter season.

And then toward Pentecost. And really what comes after Pentecost is an ordinary time. And it is cyclical. Whereas the biblical narrative and the biblical story and the biblical sense of timekeeping is more linear. That this, one is, cyclical, but it's not just going around and around.

It really is drawing us deeper into the life of God to know God more deeply and be drawn into God's love. Which moves us then out into the world in a sense of, meeting God through our encounters with, others. So yeah it's a, it is a, it's really an interesting thing and, when free churches like ours, the tradition that, that you and I have been a part of when we begin to, enter into this way of timekeeping it really can open up a new.

Of, life an awareness of what God is doing in the world. So I hope some of the listeners that might not have grown up with this or may not be in a church, might even begin to explore how they could order their own sense of spirituality around the church year in the seasons. 

[00:09:54] George: So it's taken some of us who grew up in the free church time to get into the rhythm of.

Liturgical calendar that has a focus on this sort of annual well rhythm. But in fact it, it's it's always that way in a sense because even Judaism was is root, the feast of Judaism are rooted in a sort of preis, Israelite agrarian cycles. That then they take over. And yet Israel's story and the biblical story as St.

Augustine said in the fourth and fifth century is a, whole new way of rendering time because it, it says it's really about history rather than just being caught in a loop of eternity that goes over and over again. So there's both this eternal sense. Of rhythm and there's, everything's going somewhere and that the story matters and you're, there are consequences to events.

And so we find ourselves doing both of those things, don't we? In other words, having a sense of time and eternity, both coinciding. 

[00:11:11] Curtis: Right? Right. 

[00:11:12] George: So to that effect, then let's go to the fact. You have a little story about when you were a young minister and, how a Methodist pastor sort of chided the evangelicals in the room.

Tell us more about that and that'll help us get into some of the significance of of the cross and Good Friday. 

[00:11:37] Curtis: Yeah. I won't reveal his identity, but his office. Probably about 20 feet from where I'm sitting now. But this was at a minister's conference down in Florida and. He happened to be the speaker and said he was glad to see so many Baptists there.

And Baptists were he, said Baptists do a wonderful thing. They're so evangelistic every Sunday they give an altar call. And he said, but the, church is not just about a good Friday, every Sunday. He said, there's more to the Christian story than that. And I, knew that because I had grown up in a in the episcopal church before I went over into the, to the Baptist tradition.

And so that was a point where I, began to recommit myself to begin to keep time differently. 

[00:12:31] George: Right. Well, I'm only guessing, but it's probably an educated guest to tell Will Willimon hello for us. That sounds just... 

[00:12:40] Curtis: He, he is somewhere even now headed to go preach a sermon. 

[00:12:44] George: I'm sure That's right.

Not a new one either, so. Well, in any case, so but, that takes us though to. The, tri of the church, and that is a just a sort of liturgical word for the three days that lead up to Easter and that coincide with the Passover in Jewish tradition. 

So, we have holy Thursday, or what's also called Maundy Thursday.

Maundy being a Latin corruption for commandment, a new commandment gi to you, Jesus said at the Supper. But then Good Friday is the day on which Jesus was crucified and holy. Saturday is the day in which he laying in the. Before before Easter, take us through the significance of those three days, which so many Christians in the modern world miss because they jump from little Easter on Palm Sunday, one celebration Easter eggs and all of that.

Right over to Easter and they sort of miss Holy Week altogether. Explain more about that to us. 

[00:13:58] Curtis: Yeah, so this is really, important. And when when Will said that the Christian year is more than just 52, good Fridays. I think what he was trying to help us remember is and it's something that if we pay close attention, No matter where within the Christian fam, which part of the Christian family we are in, which branch of it we want to try to say this, that it is the, entire life of Jesus that saves us.

not just the moment on the cross, but it's, it is his whole life. But in the the, those three holy. Moni Thursday helps us to focus on that. What, we see in the whole life of Jesus is love incarnate. We, learn in this simple story taken from John's Gospel which is the, it's the only time this story is mentioned in, all the gospels.

And incidentally John's gospel does not have an account of the last s. Right. We get this account of the washing of the disciples feet. And so we see enacted in, that humility that servant act really what the whole move of the incarnation is. And that is that that Jesus who was at home with the father left home and went into the far.

And he he entered that, God entered into human flesh in the life of Jesus and showed us what love looks like that we see it enacted in, his life. And, so it's not just that we see that Jesus loves, but then he says that this is, it is in a sense a new commandment, but it's in a sense the oldest command.

But we are to be like God, that we are to display love for, God and for our fellow human beings. And, to be, willing to, and really what it calls us to is a whole life of forgiveness. That, the Christian faith is one that reaches out to the other and welcomes the stranger serves and wash his feet, but so much more that, that's, that is the call.

And that that's the, sum of where this Christian life this life of Jesus is moving us into. So you have that. And then Good Friday, which is our, friend Willman. Trying to say Good Friday is unimportant at all. But we see here on the cross the the, death of the son of God.

Where, God in the flesh is fully human to the point that. In that God the son dies and that God in the Son experiences the frailty of, what it means to be human. Right. And, so, I mean, I in, the little book that I sent to you that I've been working on one of my, one of my favorite images is I look, at William Blake's images for various aspects and his, account of the cross.

Is so moving because it, it shows Jesus on the cross and all of the disciples with their heads cowering in fear. But it is and, but it's Mary and John that are looking up and, John in particular. That is paying attention to, to what what, is happening there. So you know you may have some other things.

We we, can also talk, also may want to explore what that third day is. 

[00:17:57] George: Yeah. I mean, to me, when I think of Holy Saturday, I see it almost as the period during which the world is in right now in a sense as we are awaiting. The the, great resurrection and the final sort of culmination of the work of the sun.

And so there's a sense in which we are always in this holy Saturday moment where suffering and death seem to prevail. And and, yet there's, also a sense in which that can be a time when. Understand the reckoning of where, people are actually when they're dead and what they Right. So, so tell us more about Holy Saturday and its significance. 

[00:18:42] Curtis: Yeah. I mean, so this is a really hard one to say much about because. There is so little said in the biblical narrative for one place. There is that passage in Peter that talks about Jesus descending and preaching to the dead.

What is that? The dead the, spirits in prison. He, describes them as there's a line from the Apostles Creed that, that says it's a difficult one to to translate because it says that that, Christ descended and some of the old translations. Translate this word Oin Faros, or a Aden Faros as into hell.

He descended into hell. It might be a better translation as he descends into the grave or descends into the dead. Those are some of the few places that we have any sort of reference, but there is a, long illusion to, this throughout Christian art and in many of the writings of, Christians throughout the, centuries.

So there's been a lot of speculation about it. Protestants tend to think about holy Saturday. In terms of the agony of the cross is a kind of looking and extension of that, that Jesus on the cross experiences this God forsakenness to the point of the finality of death where he is he is, he's separated from the Father at that moment of death, and yet it is the spirit that then raises him to life and reunites him with the Father.

As Paul says in Romans eight. There's another account of this. And you, you may well, I know you, you know about it. Hans or Bon Alza has it in a number of his writings about what happens on Holy si Holy Saturday, and He, he dips back into this earlier tradition of how Jesus literally does descend into the grave, into hell.

And he raises Adam and Eve, and you get the, in Istanbul, Turkey, there's this, great fresco where you see Jesus with his ha outstretched. Pulling Adam and Eve out of hell. So that there, so Von Blazar would say that this, entering into the grave is, Jesus entering into the very darkest place and emptying out hell.

So there literally is a hell, but it's, but no one is there. 

[00:21:24] George: Right, so this gets to a, really important question, I think we need to go to next. And, that is Curtis. As we talk with Jews and Muslims and people of other faith traditions. Yeah. We the, closer we get to them, the more we realize that in their faith traditions, there is always not only a sense of the uniqueness and particularity of their faith and their conception of what it means for them to be wholly and acceptable to God and whether or not they even have a conception of an afterlife of what should happen in the future in this life. But there is always a sense of allowance for those who are not Jewish, those who are not Muslim in terms of redemption I think you and I grew up in an era of evangelicalism where that wasn't necessarily true.

Where because we were preaching Good Friday, 52 Sundays a year it, it was an alter call for those designated ones that were to be saved to be sort of rescued out of the masses. And that heaven's quite a small place very, cramped with just people that you might know and very few surprises.

And and I think this Von Balthasar. Conception of, a holy Saturday. And this idea of what the work of Christ is it, has to have some universalizing effect. Now I realize that's a flash word for people but there is a sense in which redemption must be about the world, not only. Who understand it and who are followers of Jesus. So take us through that. How does the work of Christ across Good Friday and Easter affect not only those who are drawn to it to be his followers, but also have this larger effect in the world? 

[00:23:32] Curtis: Yeah. It's a really, important question. And because you've, walked with me through the writing of this little book to try to teach others about the Christian.

And the word that I use, which is an old word that Christians have used about this the, of, to speak of Christ's life and death. One Christian theologian from the second century calls it the the Pascal mystery. That redemption, God's redemption in Christ is, something that we can explore and discern.

But not something we can explain. Yes. We can enter into it. And so the fullness of trying to understand. How God in Christ was reconciling the world is something that we can only probe into that mystery. So one of the ways that I, like to think about it, and it's a, another theologian that you and I are, fond of karl Barth talks about if you think about the incarnation, which is the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity coming together in, in one life in Jesus of Naza. And, so Jesus is the one. If you think about the, question you said about election, Jesus is both the one who is the electing God, reaching out to redeem humanity.

But he is also the elected human. He is representative of all humanity. He is the, last Adam. We are all there in him. So. When he, bears for us the know the judgment of God. But yet he is the judge who is judged. Right. And he he is able to redeem us because as, I think the Apostle Paul says in, second Corinthians, I think it is where he says that in him is yes and amen.

Yes. And so that's the, final word that we meet in the cross is not one of. But it is one of yes because he bears the no of God that we might know the yes of God's love. 

[00:25:48] George: Well, I think that's a beautiful way of saying it. And, it is this, Christian notion of God coming to us in fullness in this one person is not that it is selectively a Christian. Concept, but rather that it is all of humanity. And because it is a fully embodied humanity, it is therefore all of creation coming together, which is to say that it's not then a transaction that happens. Christians are not just saying, here, if you do this, then you are. And other people are not, but rather that this is a drama that's being played out between God and all of nature and all of history and all of creation.

And then the tricky thing is that we don't actually say therefore, Jews are wrong. Muslims are wrong, Hindus are wrong, Buddhist are wrong. Atheists have no purchase on understanding life or participating in it, but rather that we have a lens through which we see how all the world might be included and still respect that we are not there yet and there's something to learn from others at the same time.

[00:27:12] Curtis: Right, right. You're exactly right. And one I was given a talk in a small Christian college, not too far from here. And. I simply made a statement I thought was uncontroversial, that Jesus was a Jew. this was shocking to some of the, students there. They came and took issue with me about that.

But what the, theologian, Robert Jensen uses this line and, it's one that, that I love that our stories as Christians and Jews and really Muslims as well are linked together as these Abrahamic. That whoever God is the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Having already raised Israel the servant of of God out of Egypt.

Right. So that, our life and our destinies are joined. Yes. It doesn't mean that Christians, our Jews or Jews have to be Christians. Or that Jews and Muslims and Christians are, all the same. I'm certainly not saying that, but we are bound together in some way because we share a common story.

Nice. And we identify God in very, similar ways because we're linked by that history. 

[00:28:36] George: So Easter corresponds. In Northern Hemisphere, at least to spring. And so there's always been a tendency to want to e explain this new life and resurrection in terms of this seasonal experience of renewal. We've talked about redemption. That is more of a sense of the work of God. In this story on behalf of a broken creation to heal it and purchase it back, to renew it, to restore it, and all of that. But there's also a spiritual dimension of renewal that comes in this process too. So help us see how we might make a connection to this time of year without sort of capitulating the story just to a kind of nature renewal. How, do we do both of those things? Right? 

[00:29:40] Curtis: Yeah. Or, to think of it at a third that, we, always at, these Christian holy days, we call them sometimes holiday.

And so we add other figures like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, and they sort of fill in the fun part and make it happy and good. So that we just kind of come together and the. The sense of, the, of spring that you, mentioned which I think is a very powerful one. Because one of the things that we think about what happens in Christ is that in Christ you have these words that Christ has risen, right?

Hallelujah. There is a new creation now that has already begun. Now we can see signs of that in nature we don't want to go too far down to that because every time we see some sort of analogy of, God at work in nature in one form, we can always say, but it's more than that.

And some of what we see is not what's going on, but it, I think it is wonderful to be able to look at Easter Lilies. And one, one of the things for me right now, One of my close colleagues said, I would like to give you been about 10 years ago. Some, Linton roses. They these, are you, know them.

They're, we have them here a lot. They're, these are hellebore is the official technical name. But they bloomed during the Linton season. They're, evergreen, but they bloomed in, in the length season. They're there. And just recently her husband. And we had this wonderful conversation because these were Dwayne's special thing that he cared for. And even in the, this moment of, sadness and what we're, what we've been going through the, days of Lent I, when I go into my garden, I begin to see already the beginnings of the new life that is in, that darkness. So it, I, think it's a, it's, it can be a good thing to, to look at those but, recognize their analogies, not the full.

[00:31:56] George: So this has been a fabulous conversation as I knew it would be, and I appreciate so much you being with us. I hope that this series will be profitable for people to think about the three Abrahamic religions at least during this month of the year. But I'm asking each one as concluding question, and I'm putting you on the spot now cause we didn't discuss this.

If, you had something to say as a, Christian theologian to jews and Muslims during this time and maybe to others who are overhearing who are not part of any of the three of our religions, and you were to say we are often misunderstood about this, or We'd really like you to understand that, we want to be clear about our faith tradition and what you understand about it.

What would you want to say? 

[00:32:46] Curtis: Yeah. I, think that's a wonderful thing, and I know your work there, George has, you've exemplified this. I have a Muslim colleague here on the hall and we gather frequently and, we pray together. And one of the things that I have said to him and to my Jewish colleagues here as well, is I, hope you will... our friendship will make me believe more firmly in God and be more faithful to my sense of an understanding of the Christian faith. And, I hope I will be a better friend to you because I'm a Christian and not see those as, rivals. But to see those in, in some ways is complimenting one another.

[00:33:30] George: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Curtis w Freeman. We're so grateful to have you on. Good God. And I'll be seeing you quite soon in person. 

[00:33:41] Curtis: Thank you George, and thank you for your listeners and the wonderful ministry that you have there. And God's blessings on all of you. 

[00:33:49] George: Terrific.

Thank you again for joining us for Good God. I hope you appreciated the conversation that I had with Curtis Freeman, the second in this three part series on redemption and renewal. It has implications for our relationships, not only with one another as Christians, but also with our Jewish, Muslim and Muslim friends.

Hope that you'll be thinking creatively now about where you are in your own faith tradition and how to think about those who are in other religious traditions. How to reco recognize what they are up to in their holy days or holidays. And if you'd like to understand more about that, You can do so not only by Googling wi Wikipedia or something of that nature, but also looking@faithcommons.org, our website where we have a religious calendar that includes the holy days of these three religions as well as those of Hindu and Buddhist and, other faith traditions.

As. So please check us out. Subscribe to the newsletter. You're welcome to donate. We'd always be happy to have you contribute and become a supporter of Faith Commons. But one way or the other, we wish you all God's blessings during this season, in whatever way that you will be celebrating, and we pray that it will be a deepening of your own.

And a renewal of your commitment to justice in the world and to seeking the peace among the religions. Thanks for being with us.