After Jesus was baptized and spent 40 days in the wilderness, he appeared among the people and proclaimed:
“The kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the good news.”
And then he immediately began saying things and doing things that so angered those in positions of authority, things that eventually got him killed.
Jesus’ death on the cross is so central to the Christian faith that the cross has become the very symbol of our faith. However, the way that the cross is understood by many Christians today is not the way it’s always been understood. And it’s not the way that it is always understood in scripture.
According to the way many Christians understand Christianity today, all humans are sinful and therefore deserve God’s punishment. But God sent his son Jesus into the world to take our place, to take the punishment we deserve, to pay the penalty for our sins.
This understanding of the cross is known as substitutionary atonement; substitutionary, because it describes Jesus as a substitute, who took our place upon the cross, who bore the cross so that we might be spared, who died so that we wouldn’t have to die.
Here is how one modern theologian describes substitutionary atonement:
Imagine that I have a 4 year-old daughter who disobeys me one day, so I tell her that she will be spanked. Imagine that I also have a teenage son who steps forward and offers to be punished in her place. I agree to the substitution, and I punish him…. At this point, punishment is done and I am satisfied…. Jesus made a substitutionary sacrifice in our place….He received a punishment which the Father felt was appropriate and which was satisfactory to the Father. [quoted by Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish: Christianity for People Who Don’t Like Christianity]
Probably, this is the version of Christianity that you were taught. I know that this is the version of Christianity that I grew up with. It’s the version that I shared with people. It’s the version I tried so hard to believe.
But somewhere deep down in my soul, I was not satisfied with this explanation of the cross. It took me a long time to figure out why, or what it was. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense to me that a loving, merciful, compassionate God would demand the punishment – the death – of his only son as a substitute for me. Couldn’t God do better than that?
When I hear this analogy of the teenage son making a substitutionary sacrifice for his 4 year-old sister, I see several problems. First of all, when I punish my sons, it is never for my satisfaction. If I do find myself seeking satisfaction by punishing my children, I know right away that I am wrong.
The punishment of a child is never done for the parents’ satisfaction. Punishment is always done for the child’s own good. Punishment is for the child’s benefit, to help the child learn and grow. How is this accomplished by letting the teenage son take the punishment of the 4 year-old girl? The only thing this does is appease the Father’s anger.
Also, the punishment endured by Jesus is death. Now, which parent among us would find satisfaction in killing our child as punishment for their disobedience, or for the disobedience of their brother or sister? Would that be satisfying to you?
Of course not. We know better. We know better than to give a stone if our child asks for bread. We know better than to give a snake if our child asks for fish. And we know better than to kill our child if they disobey us.
If you, then, know how to do what is right for your children, how much more will our Father in heaven do what is right for his children [Matthew 7:9-11].
Even with my limited, human understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong, I know that it’s wrong to punish a child with death, even if he’s volunteering to take that punishment for another. And if I did give such a punishment, I’m sure every judge in the country would agree that what I did was wrong.
So why would we think that what is so obviously wrong for humans be morally acceptable for God?
Fortunately, this is not the only way of looking at the cross. In fact, there are other ways to understand the crucifixion, ways that are in line with how the earliest Christians understood the crucifixion. Because the idea of substitutionary atonement is not the most ancient way of understanding.
How did the earliest Christians view the death of Jesus? The earliest Christians focused on the crucifixion and the resurrection as victory over the powers of sin and death. It was more than 1,000 years later, in medieval times, that a theologian named Anselm introduced the idea that humankind needed to pay for its sins but was unable to, and thus Jesus became the substitute.
For the first twelve centuries or so of Christianity, the idea of Jesus as the substitute was not a prominent part of the Christian faith. That idea was introduced by Anselm.
And it took another couple of centuries after Anselm for the idea to really take hold, when John Calvin in the sixteenth century focused his attention on humanity’s sin, God’s wrath, and punishment.
Earlier Christian thought can be seen in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa, who lived way back in the 4th century. He said that Jesus’ death was an act of liberation, freeing humanity from enslavement to Satan. And another theologian named Abelard, writing at about the same time as Anselm, said that the cross was Jesus’ response of pure love in the face of violence, hatred, and death, meant to reorient us toward similar lives of sacrificial love for humanity.
A demonstration of love. A love so strong that it is willing to do whatever it takes to express itself. A love so strong that not even death could keep one from sharing that love.
Now that sounds more like the God I know.
What difference does this make? It’s the difference between a God of wrath, vengeance, and violence, and a God who’s love is so powerful that God will do whatever it takes to demonstrate how much he loves you. That’s a big difference.
It’s amazing to learn that this alternative way of understanding the crucifixion is much older than the idea that Jesus died in our place, as our substitute, in order appease God’s wrath and desire for punishment.
But, you might ask, doesn’t scripture say that Jesus had to die? Indeed, in this morning’s scripture, Jesus says that he must suffer, that he must be rejected, and that he must be killed. Doesn’t that imply that it was God’s will that Jesus die, that God would not be satisfied until Jesus was crucified on the cross in our place?
To answer this, let’s go back to when Jesus emerged from the wilderness proclaiming God’s kingdom at hand, and calling upon people to repent and believe in the good news. What do you think Mary, his mother, thought of all this?
In the third chapter of Mark – not long after Jesus made that proclamation and began his ministry – it says that Jesus’s family went out to restrain him, because folks were saying that he had gone out of his mind. His mother and his siblings, it says, came to get him, to take him home … and presumably talk some sense into him.
In my imagination, I picture a conversation between Mary and Jesus going something like this….
Mary says: “Jesus, my son, you’ve got to stop all this talk about the kingdom.”
Jesus: “But it’s what I’m called to do.”
Mary: “Yes. But the way you’re doing it, so … publicly … it’s dangerous. I mean, look at what happened to your cousin John.”
Jesus: “Well, this truth isn’t something I can just keep to myself. Caesar has enslaved the minds of God’s people, if not their bodies. He has oppressed them so that they don’t even feel whole. He, and the kings and rulers who serve him, have taken away nearly every right we once had.
Caesar has declared himself Lord and Savior, and not even the priests speak against that declaration. Caesar claims that he is the Prince of Peace, and yet Roman soldiers are stationed in every town and village. Caesar claims that he is the benevolent provider, the one who gives to the people their daily bread. How can I keep quiet?
“God’s people are suffering. They’re hurting. They need to be set free. They need to know that they belong not to Caesar, but to a loving God; they need to know that they belong to God who is their true Lord, the true giver of peace.”
Mary: “Jesus, don’t you see? I’m so worried about you.”
Jesus: “Mother, don’t you see? I can’t not do the work I’m called to do.”
Mary: “Jesus, the Romans will kill you. They will put you to death.”
Jesus: “Then I must die. For the sake of the people, if that’s what it takes, then I must die.”
It wasn’t Jesus’s death that was a part of God’s plan; it was his life. That was God’s plan: a life that challenged the ways of the world, a life that challenged the oppressive ways of those in authority.
It was God’s will that Jesus be a bold, daring, and courageous witness to the kingdom of God. It was Caesar’s will – not God’s – that Jesus die upon the cross. It was God’s will that Jesus’s love be so complete that it would not stop even in the face of death.
And because death is not God’s will, God would not let death be the final word. Life – that is the will of God. Resurrection – that is the will of God.
You might also ask: Why didn’t God just get rid of sin altogether? Why doesn’t God just keep us from making mistakes in the first place?
In the movie “A Walk in the Clouds,” the Aragon family owns a large vineyard. The elder Don Pedro Aragon has turned over control of the vineyard to his son, Alberto Aragon.
Don Pedro could hover over his son and always tell him what to do, and could even take back control of the vineyard. But as he says in the movie, “It's not easy being in charge. It's not easy for me. It's not easy for him. Every man has to find his own way. But I have faith in my son.”
God has faith in us. God allows us to make mistakes, trusting that we will learn and grow because of them, and eventually find our way. It’s what any loving parent would do for their maturing child.
Now what about scriptures that refer to Jesus’s death as a sacrifice? Does the word sacrifice imply that it was God’s will, or that Jesus’s crucifixion was a substitute for our own punishment?
No. In scripture, sacrifice does not imply substitution. One could just as easily refer to the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Oscar Romero, as sacrifices for the people. But that doesn’t mean that their deaths were a part of God’s plan. And it doesn’t mean that King or Romero were punished instead of us, in our place. What it means is that their love for humanity was so great, that they were willing to make of themselves and their lives a sacred offering.
If Jesus died in our place, instead of us, then the message to us would be: “It’s okay, it’s all taken care of. You don’t have to do anything, I’ve done it for you.” But that’s not Jesus’s message to us. His message to us is this: “take up your own cross, and follow me. Make of your life a sacred offering, just as I have. Let your love be so complete that not even death will prevent you from showing your love to your neighbor.”
Now, maybe loving completely without holding back will require you to sacrifice your very life. More likely, it will require you to sacrifice your way of life. It will require you to live less for yourself, and more for others. It will require you to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It will require you to live every moment for God, and to passionately work for the fulfilling of God’s kingdom, working for peace and justice and equality, bringing wholeness to our fragmented world.
It means living the way of the cross, the way of transforming, radical love, dying to your former way of life.
Those earliest Christians who understood this often built baptismal fonts in the shape of sarcophagi. Sounds creepy to us, but they believed that baptism was a deeply metaphorical act symbolizing one’s death and rebirth. It meant dying with Christ – not letting him die in your place, but dying with him – so that you may be reborn to a new way of living, a way of radical, transforming love. For “we have been crucified with Christ” [Galatians 2:19]; there is no substitution, no taking our place. We share in Christ’s crucifixion.
“For all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” [Romans 6:3-5].
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