BREAK THE CHAINS OF OPPRESION AND THE YOKE OF ...

world: the oppressed, the poor, the marginalized people. How do they become
agents of change? Do we sufficiently understand the dehumanizing aspects of
poverty, of oppression, of injustice? 21
Liberation and hope
HopE
The starting point for a theology of hope lies in the meaning of the cross and the
resurrection of Christ. In the person of Christ, the age to come, which alone will
endure for all eternity, has arrived. It arrived in his person and was redemptively
present in his work on the cross. The cross of Christ is the judgment of the end
of time now exhausted within time. For the people of God the ‘end time’ judgment
has already happened. ‘Empire’ has already been conquered. The cross of
Christ is the ultimate judgement on the powers in this world. This radical message
means that we are liberated from all powers. We do not depend on them.
We are free. Christian hope means learning to live in freedom. We are also freed
of the burden to realize salvation in this world or to even change the world. The
church does not change the world. The church proclaims that this world and its
powers have been judged by the death and the resurrection of Christ. “And having
disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing
over them by the cross’’ (Colossians 2: 15). This creed is the most radical
criticism of ‘Empire-like’ powers. Are these just words? The church lives
from this reality and in doing so she gives shape to this new era. That is why the
proclamation of the realm of Christ will inevitably lead to ‘signs’ in which the
new reality of the Reign of God becomes apparent. Moltmann calls these signs
‘anticipations’ : they are sacraments of God’s real presence in reality. 22 These
sacraments are provisional: � � they �remind us of the �eschatological � reality, but they
are not that reality itself. They also have a character of ambiguity. The road towards
the future is not linear and progressive. This has also to do with the character
of the eschatological reality itself. God’s reign is not the reality present at
the end of the road of human history. The eschaton is not the result of human
enterprise and or the efforts of the church as the resurrection of Christ is not the
foundation for the progress of history. It is on the contrary the ultimate crisis of
history. The cross and the resurrection of Christ point to the eschaton as the
transcendent reality of God, breaking in in our history. We should also notice
that the signs or the sacraments of the Reign of God bear the shape of the cross.
Not only because they are controversial and critical, but also because the charac-
21 An impressive view on this reality can be found in T.A. Mofokeng, The crucified
among the crossbearers, Towards a Black Christology, Kampen, 1983
22 J. Moltmann, Theologie der Hoffnung, 314.
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– THEOLOGY OF HOPE IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION – 67