Well, as a Christian, Christ’s death doesn’t mean much without the Resurrection since that’s the triumph. The hero dying for his people is a wonderful dark-tragic, vaguely Norse-feeling myth. The hero rising again and ruling, that’s the Christian part.
Of course, God could resurrect Himself... He is after all the Supreme Being; He can do anything He chooses. What is more of a beautiful miracle to me is that He would want to suffer and die for humanity.
“The hero dying for his people is a wonderful dark-tragic, vaguely Norse-feeling myth. The hero rising again and ruling, that’s the Christian part.”
Norse pagan heroes don’t die for their people’s sake; they die because of their own pride and vanity (i.e. Beowulf and Siegfred). On the other hand, Christianity is littered with saints who seek to emulate Jesus by giving their lives for their faith and for others. This tradition therefore has a strong undertone in Western literature, with most authors choosing to emphasize the martyrdom of their “Christ-figure” over his/her resurrection.. Think Santiago in The Old Man in the Sea, Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath, Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings, etc., etc.... In most Western literary classics, the “Christ-figure” suffers either a real death or a metaphorical death... They don’t marry their high school sweethearts and raise their three children in suburban London.