Good Friday, 2022 - Looking at the Cross through a Different Len

Today is Good Friday, the day we remember Jesus’s death on the cross. As we remember, we reflect. We attempt to give meaning to his horrific, tortured death. How are we to understand his death on the cross?  “Jesus died for our sins” is how we commonly explain it.

What do we mean when we say “Jesus died for our sins”?

The widely accepted understanding is that Jesus died because of our sins and on behalf of our sins. This way of explaining Jesus’s death on the cross follows this line of thinking. We humans sin, falling short of the life for which we were created. As Paul said, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Following our own will, we disobey God and violate God’s laws. Because of our sins, we stand under God’s condemnation and judgment. We deserve to be punished for our sins. In his death on the cross, Jesus took our place. He took on the punishment we deserved. He stood in for us, dying on our behalf and on behalf of our sins. He died so God would forgive our sins.

This theology is called substitutionary atonement. Jesus was our substitute, experiencing what we deserved. His death atoned for our sins, satisfying God’s righteous judgment and freeing God to forgive us.

This understanding — theology — is reflected in many of our hymns and praise music. Most of the hymns about the cross and about Jesus’s blood reflect this line of thinking. It is captured in the words of the popular praise chorus “He Paid a Debt He Did Not Owe”:

He paid a debt he did not owe,
I owed a debt I could not pay,
I needed someone to wash my sins away;
And now I sing a brand new song,
Amazing grace all day long,
Christ Jesus paid a debt
That I could never pay.

We have heard this interpretation of Jesus’s death on the cross so much that we assume it is true. Few of us have stopped to actually examine it.

What would it look like to view the cross through a different set of lens? Why would we?

Allow me to address the last question first: why would we look at Jesus’s death on the cross any other way? There are actually a number of reasons.

(I recognize most of us have difficulty accepting anything that challenges what we believe. We cling to what we believe is true. After all, we have built our lives upon this understanding. It has shaped how we think and live. So naturally, we will have difficulty understanding Jesus’s death on the cross any other way.)

This understanding of Jesus’s death on the cross did not surface until the eleventh century. It was formulated by Anselm, arch-bishop of Canterbury. It reflected the feudal structure upon which English life was built at that time. The land was owned and managed by lords, the ruling class, on behalf of the king. The common man worked the land for their particular lord. Whenever a common man did something that wronged his lord, he was punished for his wrongdoing. The punishment was an attempt to make right the wrong that was done. The wrongdoing, however, was also an offense to the lord’s honor. That honor had to be appeased, a balm applied to the lord’s wounded ego. In addition to being punished for his wrongdoing, the wrongdoer was subjected to some kind of greater humiliation and punishment to atone his lord’s honor. Once the wrongdoing had been punished and the offended honor atoned, the lord could once again be gracious in his dealings with the underling. Anselm used this cultural practice as a way of explaining Jesus’s death on the cross. The wrongdoing had to be punished; God’s honor had to be atoned; only then could God forgive. Anselm viewed Jesus’s death on the cross through the lens of his hierarchal, feudal culture.

Not only is this understanding built upon a cultural practice of eleventh century England, it is also built upon merit-based thinking. Merit-based thinking demands that we get what we deserve. Wrongdoing and failure have to be punished. Jesus, following the teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, taught that God “does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (Psalm 103:10). Instead, God relates to us out of who God is, particularly out of God’s steadfast, faithful love.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

So great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

As far as the east is from the west,

So far he removes our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:11-12).

Merit-based thinking and relating is our human default, but it is not God’s.

Consider what this common understanding of the cross says about God. It portrays God as an angry, offended God who must be appeased before he will forgive. That is not who Jesus said God is nor is it in line with what God revealed to Moses. At Sinai, the LORD described himself as merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That steadfast, faithful love is expressed in being slow to anger and in forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin (Exodus 34:6-7). As seen in the life and ministry of Jesus, God relates to us out of grace and forgiveness. This popular way of understanding Jesus’s death on the cross does not align with the revealed character of God.

Additionally, this way of understanding the cross keeps the focus on me: my sin, my wrongdoing, my debt, my need, God’s love for me, my salvation. It produces a me-centered, man-centered salvation. Lurking beneath this way of thinking about the cross is the ego-centric self.

Finally, this way of understanding Jesus’s death on the cross was not the way the New Testament writers understood it. Nevertheless, because it is the way we have been taught to understand Jesus’s death on the cross, we read the New Testament writings through the lens of God punishing Jesus for what we deserved.

Which brings me (finally) to my first question and the thrust of this musing: what would it look like to view the cross through a different set of lens? Specifically, what would it look like to view Jesus’s death on the cross through the lens of God’s character?

I have already identified God’s character as being merciful and gracious. The central, defining characteristic of God’s character is steadfast, faithful love that refuses to give up on or abandon us. God’s love is expressed in two primary ways: God is slow to anger and God forgives our sins. The writer of 1 John understood God’s revealed character when he wrote “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Paul used the word grace to express what such love looks like. Jesus was the in-the-flesh embodiment of such love, extending grace and forgiveness to all.

So, viewing Jesus’s death on the cross through the lens of God’s character, how are we to understand it? 

Paul helps us. Paul saw Jesus’s death on the cross as an expression of God’s faithful love that refused to give up on us or abandon us. For Paul, the cross was God being faithful to the divine character and to his covenant with us, that is, God being righteous. “For in it (the gospel of Jesus’s death and resurrection) the righteousness of God is revealed” (Romans 1:17). The cross was God loving us, refusing to give up on us or abandon us … even when we crucified his Son on the cross.

I like the way Richard Rohr speaks of the cross. For me, it captures the idea of the cross being an expression of God’s faithful love. Rohr says, “Jesus did not die on the cross to convince God to forgive us. Jesus died on the cross to convince us that God has already forgiven us.” Rohr’s understanding puts the focus back on God. It leads to a God-centered Christianity.

Viewing the cross through the lens of God’s character, one might ask, “From what, then, does Jesus's death on the cross save us?”

Jesus’s death on the cross does not save us from God’s judgment. God’s love displaces judgment. (See Hosea 11:8-9.) The cross is an expression of love, not judgment.

If not judgment, what then? Jesus’s death on the cross — or, rather, God’s faithful love that refuses to give up on us or abandon us — saves us from ourselves, from our merit-oriented thinking, from our stubborn self-reliance, from the natural outcome of our self-destructive choices (what Paul calls the wrath of God, Romans 1:18-32). In other words, Jesus’s death on the cross saves us from our sins.

In addition to Jesus’s death on the cross, God’s steadfast, faithful love is seen at Pentecost in the outpouring of the Spirit to live with us and in us and among us. The Spirit works in us, transforming our hearts and minds, conforming us to the image of Christ. Before the Spirit’s work is done, we will have been recreated in the likeness of Jesus. Living out of steadfast, faithful love, God will continue to be faithful to us, bringing us to Christ-like maturity.

What new ways of thinking, what new ways of living might we discover if we viewed not just the cross, but the entirety of our relationship with God through the eyes of God’s character?