Welcome back to the Word on Fire show.

I'm your host, Matthew Petrusig.

Today we're wrapping up Bishop Barron's lecture series

on the influential 20th century theologian

Hans Orr's von Balthasar. Enjoy. Well, it's appropriate that we bring

this consideration of the Mysterium Pascale and all these lectures to a close by talking about

the most important event in Christianity, namely the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We've been following

Baltazar's analysis of the three days, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, the downward

trajectory. But see, Baltazar agrees with the mainstream of the tradition in saying,

if Christ has not been raised, then all of it is just a waste of time. If Christ is not raised from the dead,

then the best we could say is, well, this was a noble, idealistic figure from the first century

who was put to death by the Romans. End of argument. Maybe he's of mild interest to a few

specialist historians of religion. The resurrection now is the indispensable event that makes sense

of everything we've been talking about. Without the resurrection, who cares about the form of

Christ? Why would you give yourself over to it? Without the resurrection, who cares about the

theodrama? There is no theodrama. Who cares about the acting

space that he opened up? It doesn't really matter. I could choose any other inspiring, you know,

religious teacher or figure. What brings all of it together is this surprising, strange,

very difficult to explain event of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Baltazar is very uneasy with colleagues of his in the 20th century who tried to reduce the resurrection

to a myth, to a legend, a symbol, a literary device. Think of someone like Boltman, who was very

influential during Baltazar's lifetime. Bulltman would see the resurrection as kind of a symbolic

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