The Crucifixion and Resurrection Narratives

Overview

Recall questions on Luke's crucifixion account, its use of scripture and symbolic details, the death as God's saving plan, the resurrection narrative and Emmaus, sacrifice, atonement and salvation, and Marshall and Matera on Luke's passion.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is distinctive about the way Luke tells the crucifixion?

   Model answer

   Luke's Jesus remains active and self-possessed. On the way he addresses the women of Jerusalem and turns their grief towards what is coming on the city; on the cross he asks forgiveness for those carrying out the execution and promises a place to one of the criminals beside him; and he dies with a prayer of trust rather than a cry of abandonment. The overall effect is a portrait of the innocent righteous one who dies in confidence.

2. 2

   How does Luke use Israel's scriptures in the passion account?

   Model answer

   Largely by allusion and pattern rather than by explicit citation. The mockery, the dividing of clothing and the words of trust at the moment of death all draw on the psalms of the suffering righteous, so that Jesus' death is placed within an existing scriptural shape. Luke then makes the point directly in the resurrection material, where the risen Jesus expounds the whole of scripture as leading to a suffering and glorified Messiah.

3. 3

   What symbolic details does Luke include at the death of Jesus?

   Model answer

   Darkness over the land during the middle hours of the day, and the tearing of the Temple curtain, which Luke places before the death rather than after it. The centurion's response is also distinctive: where another gospel has him confess a divine sonship, Luke has him declare the man innocent or righteous. Each detail supports Luke's reading of the death as a cosmic event and a miscarriage of justice at once.

4. 4

   In what sense does Luke present the death of Jesus as God's saving plan?

   Model answer

   Luke repeatedly uses the language of necessity, of what must happen, and has the risen Jesus explain that the Messiah had to suffer before entering glory. Luke also links forgiveness to the whole sequence of death, resurrection and exaltation, which is then proclaimed to all nations. Rather than concentrating the saving effect in the moment of death, Luke locates it in the completed event and in the mission that follows.

5. 5

   What happens in Luke's resurrection narrative, and in what order?

   Model answer

   Women who had followed from Galilee come to the tomb, find it open and are told by two figures that he has risen, and are reminded of what he had said in Galilee. Their report is dismissed by the others. Two travellers then meet a stranger on the road to Emmaus who explains the scriptures and is recognised at the meal. Only after they return does Jesus appear to the gathered group, eat with them, commission them and lead them out to be parted from them.

6. 6

   Why is the Emmaus episode so important in Luke's account?

   Model answer

   Because it sets out how the risen Jesus is to be encountered after he is no longer visibly present. Recognition comes through the exposition of scripture and the breaking of bread, which is to say through the two central practices of the worshipping community. Luke also uses it to establish the interpretive key that a suffering Messiah was always what the scriptures pointed to.

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