“Jesus died at the ninth hour (three o’clock in the afternoon). Those who handed on such precise information were Jewish Christians. They knew the importance of the ninth hour as the official hour of Israel’s prayer. Jesus accomplished his work at that hour by praying.
Instead of resorting to the analogy of human justice that is so different from God’s, why doesn’t the theology of redemption let itself be guided by the analogy of prayer? The Epistle to the Hebrews placed the redemptive drama within the framework of a prayer being heard (cf. Heb 5:7-9). It compared Christ’s redemptive moment to the liturgy of entering the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. Hence, the mystery of salvation is a liturgy in which all sins are forgiven.
The redemptive act and prayer are very much alike. They are both an ascent to God. Jesus ascended there on behalf of all, becoming prayer for us, an eternal supplication for our salvation. Prayer is an entrance into communion. Through death, Jesus rejoined his Father, fulfilling in himself the covenant between God and his people. Prayer is an act of submission in which humans open themselves up to the fatherhood of God and let themselves become children to him. Jesus died begotten on behalf of all. He became redemption by becoming prayer.
Prayer results in grace, not because it offers gifts to God to which God has to respond with other gifts, but because prayer openly welcomes God’s gift. The grace of salvation is likewise gratuitous, and Jesus opened himself up to salvation both for himself and for the world. The prayer of a Christian obtains salvation for others because it opens itself to grace and thus becomes for others a source of that grace. Jesus said: “For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified” (Jn 17:19). The mystery of salvation is that a person (Jesus) became prayer for the whole world, and it was heard.”
F.-X. Durrwell, Christ Our Passover: The Indispensable Role of Resurrection in Our Salvation, p. 54.
Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one.
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