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