Good Friday musings
When it comes to the cross of Jesus, some
people like a lot of blood—the more blood, the better. Some of our hymnody
reflects this tendency. I’m not hemophobic, but this preoccupation with blood
misses the point. This isn’t a matter of aesthetics, or how much blood you can
stand. The point of the Hebraic sacrificial system was the life in the blood,
given up for the covenant community. The blood was a symbol of that life given.
Same for Jesus: it was the life in his blood, given up for you and me, that
matters.
Some Christians are also big fans of some form
of the penal-substitutionary theory of the atonement. In fact, many believe
some form of that theory of atonement is the essence of the gospel: we sinned
and therefore brought a grievance against God. We should have to die and suffer
eternal judgment for our sin. God gave us his only Son, the perfect sacrifice,
to atone for our sin and to remove our guilt. The problem with that theory of
atonement is that it grew out of a medieval feudal setting where sin was
understood as a dishonoring of some lord. The death of Jesus became a means of
atoning for the grievance God felt over our sin. It was as though God needed
Jesus’ death, not us.
In critiquing these missteps in thinking about
the cross, I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water or to engage
in some sort of theological reductionism that sells short the death of Jesus. I
do not think that the cross of Jesus was merely an expression of God's love for
us--although it was certainly that; nor was it merely a model for us of how to
confront hostility and violence--although it is that too. There is more to it
than that. Something mysterious and wondrous happened on that cross that set
things straight between God and us and makes it possible for us to be
reconciled to one other.
So I would just say this: the cross of Jesus
was and is sacrificial (Jesus gave up his life freely, though not without
anguish); it was and is vicarious (it was done for us); it was and is salvific
(it is for our salvation); and it was efficacious (God in Christ truly did
reconcile the world to God). That wondrous reality is what we must ponder this
day.
There is much about the cross that remains a
mystery to human understanding. This should not excuse us from wresting with the
meaning and implications of Christ’s death. Still, it is mystery is to be
embraced rather than explained, for in attempting to explain it we stand in danger
of explaining it away. This is one reason why we need art and music and poetry—to
probe the depth of this mystery, and to give expression to that which
ultimately can only be a matter of praise and thanksgiving.
--Richard A. Kauffman
