Padah is the Hebrew idea behind redemption. It alluded to an obligation one was under. It was also a self-imposed restriction, something that someone knowingly walked into. Someone who was fully aware of what they were 'tying' themselves to.
It wasn't accidental.
Redemption then is being saved from our self-imposed restrictions. Redemption is seeing that there is more to what is now. Joseph sitting in the well somehow believed in redemption. His belief in it kept him living life with an eye on redemption.
"Biblica Judaica states that 'redemption is salvation from the states or circumstances that destroy the value of human existence itself'". Redemption then is about what it looks like to be a better humanity. Redemption than is about what we're intentionally doing to liberate people from situations and circumstances that denigrate their humanity. This idea doesn't remove the cross, it however, does displace it outside of the sphere of orthodox views.
In light of this, Christ than shows us each of us how to be Christs to others. It also shows us that we will all at one time or another need redemption, either individually or communally.
On the cross, Christ becomes Christless, because in that moment, he is in need of a christ.
He knows this, and He looks to God who 'turns his back' on him. God can't become Christ, because God leaves room for us to fill the wanted ad. When we find what our crosses are, we must be willing to be rendered christless to allow others to come and redeem us. When we live out our lives as Christ we then perpetuate the message of THE Christ. This isn't to deny that Jesus was the Christ, it is imply that we all have a role in being Christ.
Now, I don't want to seem like I am devaluing Christ's contribution to our redemption. I think his redemption of mankind can be explained a bit differently though. I see Christ much like Martin Luther King Jr., in that MLKJ came to redeem the world from racial indifference amongst other things.
Much like that, I think the redemption of Jesus was to demonstrated to us that love is stronger than death, that the way to counteract oppression was through love. That love itself is another reality that we all aspire for.
That love is the ultimate ethic that brings all of humanity together in harmony with one another and God. If you study the idea of Messiah in the time of Jesus, Jesus wasn't the only messiah, in fact, the term messiah was used by prophets even in the Old Testament.
In this instance, for example, I believe the Conversation in Emergence is redeeming the Church from its self-imposed restrictions. I believe in a purely salvific sense, this conversation might be one of many needed saviours to get the Church out of the mess its gotten itself into.
A parent who saves their child from a fire they accidently started is one of many saviours in that child's lives, that parents play a large role in that child's developmental understanding of what it means to be redeemed.
Much like in my story, my adopted parents redeemed me from a life that could have been hell on earth. They were one of my many saviours. The ancient Jews use the word avengers. Someone who comes in and avenges the death or memory of the person who is being avenged.
In light of this new information the cross takes us in a different direction than the idea of sin. It isn't about how bad we are, or how we need to redeem us from the bad its about how we are redeeming good. Another place described redemption as Glory returning back to God. That all is as it should be.
What about personally though, what does it say to us now? It means we have to be willing to be estranged from our prisons. We get very used to the things that make us feel safe even if they aren't the best for us. We get used to the cells we have somehow had a hand in making. Redemption is the willingness to pry through those bars. It it being released from something we think we don't need releasing from.
Redemption also brings us into unknown/uncharted territory. It brings you into the places of the beyond. Beyond what was. Beyond what is. Beyond the statu quo. Beyond the proven paths of convention. It strips you from all of the things that you called home and leaves you in the barren wasteland* - redemption leaves you without nothing more than yourself and an open canvas to discover what it looks like to journey into barreness. Redemption is the hope that is in the dry land that spurs us even beyond itself.
Redemption calls us from the beyond to journey to the beyond.
Source(s):
Bablyonian Talmud --http://www.scribd.com/doc/5533605/The-Babylonian-Talmud-Complete-Soncino-English-Translation
www.bloomington.in.us/~okolicko/definitions-2.html
http://www.kolhamevaser.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/khm-halakhah-and-minhag-iii-72_r.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/115/3/76
*barren land is in place of theology proper, I speak of this in my upcoming article over at Emergent Village, be on the look out!
