Let us take a break for a moment or two from the events in Jerusalem.
Let us consider a couple of images of the crucified one from closer to home.
A few weeks ago, I took a funeral. After the service here in the Cathedral, we went to Clydebank Crematorium. I got there just before the time that the service was due to start and witnessed a strange ceremony that I have never seen before.
On either side of the chapel there are metal grills and on the grills, hang crosses. The crosses are attached with clips making them removable. There is nothing surprising in that these days – plenty of people want to have a funeral without religious imagery.
However, I witnessed the changing of the crosses. Plain crosses were being taken down. They were replaced with almost identical ones which bore the body of Christ on them.
Crosses were being substituted for crucifixes. The undertaker had rightly given instruction that we would want a crucifix rather than a cross.
The point is, though, that the image of the man on the cross could still this day move people to behave as an angry mob.
So ingrained is sectarianism in the society in which we live, that they have a routine at our place of death. Someone is paid to change over the crosses to crucifixes to make sure that the mob don’t get provoked into their riotous behaviour at a funeral.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting that the angry mob in Jerusalem was made up of angry protestants or fundamentalists or angry catholics either for that matter. Of course not. The mob was made up of people like us. A mixed up bunch of mixed up people.
Fickle people who could be whipped into a frenzy at a moment’s notice. The crowd that had so recently cried hosanna and welcomed him into the city now turned on him and cried crucify.
No doubt there were good people in that crowd. No doubt there were people who wanted the best for Jerusalem, for Israel, for God.
They believed with all their hearts that it was right for Christ to be taken away and killed.
Isaiah hinted that the suffering servant would be taken away by a perversion of justice. For my mind, capital punishment is always a perversion of justice.
For what does it achieve?
What did this death achieve?
There has been a petty squabble in the church this week – nothing new. A Lent Talk was given on the radio on Wednesday night by Jeffrey John – a man who knows his own share of suffering and betrayal.
He said, in reference to the crucifixion:
The explanation I was given went something like this. God was very angry with us for our sins, and because he is a just God, our sin had to be punished. But instead of punishing us he sent his Son, Jesus, as a substitute to suffer and die in our place. The blood of Jesus paid the price of our sins, and because of him God stopped being angry with us. In other words, Jesus took the rap, and we got forgiven, provided we said we believed in him.
Well, I don’t know about you, but even at the age of ten I thought this explanation was pretty repulsive as well as nonsensical. What sort of God was this, getting so angry with the world and the people he created, and then, to calm himself down, demanding the blood of his own Son? And anyway, why should God forgive us through punishing somebody else? It was worse than illogical, it was insane. It made God sound like a psychopath. If any human being behaved like this we’d say they were a monster.
Well, I haven’t changed my mind since.
And even before Jeffrey John gave this radio talk, the mob got going again. Spluttings could be heard coming from those who needed to defend this understanding of the cross as being the only one possible.
It isn’t the only possible understanding of the cross, and I wouldn’t believe it even if it were. For I agree that it paints a monster in the place of God.
So what was going on as Jesus was taken away to suffer and to die.
For me, the whole events of Good Friday are testimony to the reality of Christ’s incarnation rather than a way of hoodwinking the devil out of a payment for sin.
For me, the point about Jesus coming was that he came. The point about the Saviour being the saviour of the world is that he came into the world. He was not of the world, but entered in. He was that God who joined in. The God who came amongst us.
And being human, becoming human meant sharing all that human life can bring.
It means knowing what birth is, what death is, what pain is.
Westerners have a problem with suffering. People sometimes wonder aloud how a good God can allow suffering. The truth is that a good God knew the reality of suffering and came to share it, came to experience it.
That Life is suffering was one of the teachings of the Buddha and I think that it is something that has to be accepted and acknowledged to be the truth before we can make much progress in the spiritual life.
The worst thing that can happen to anyone is that they be betrayed by a friend, falsely accused. Taken. Misunderstood. Tried on trumped up charges and killed slowly, unjustly and despicably.
What does a good God know about the suffering that you and I know is part of life.
Every last thing there is to know.
Amen
Hey Kelvin,
I responded to your sermon titled “Sermon – Passion Sunday” http://thurible.net/20070326/sermon-passion-sunday/
I finally got the time to respond to your post.
I just want to know how you respond to the problem of pain in this world. Is all you have to say is that Christ came down to experience the pain?
How do you respond to the passages in the Old and New Testament that portray God as a God of Judgment (such as Romans 3:23, 6:23)? Would God really be a God of love if he wasn’t Just? What if he was an earthly judge and let everyone go free. The rapist, murderer, the man who molestes children. Is that loving?
I wouldn’t classify that judge as loving. I would think that judge was being a devil to the girl who was raped to the family of the man murdered to the boy who was molested.
“What sort of God was this, getting so angry with the world and the people he created, and then, to calm himself down, demanding the blood of his own Son? And anyway, why should God forgive us through punishing somebody else?” –Jeffery John
These arguments to me are very weak. They are feeble. What is he basing his thoughts and opinions on? Where is his authority here? Does he try to use scripture to prove them? If so I’d like to look further into what he has to say.
When God created us he created a people that were pure, free from “sin” free from the junk that we have to deal with in this world. Free from the pain of this earth.
We man (Adam) brought “sin” to this world. We corrupted the world. We corrupt it every time we fall and don’t follow the basic laws of loving God and loving others. So whenever we put ourselves before others, by greed, manipulation, addiction, etc. (I could go on about that for days).
God has been working through this world since then so restore his people to Him. To restore them to the quality of relationship that they had before the “fall” of man. God is a God of love. He therefore doesn’t want to see us in pain. He doesn’t want to see people hurt or hurt one another. Because he is a just God He couldn’t ignore the wrongs that we have done to Him and to others. Just like a good judge just can’t let a guilty man go free.
Therefore the only way he could satisfy both of his attributes, Love and Justice he had to substitute his Son. The substitution seems crazy to us as westerners, but actually it wasn’t that crazy in the Ancient Near East. If a vassal king didn’t pay homage to the suzerain kingdom, his son could be the one to pay the penalty.
The idea of the Kinsman redeemer is a similar idea. That if a man fell in dept and became a slave then another could buy him out of slavery. This is what God did, he bought us out of slavery, slavery to the prince of this world. He bought us with the price of his son. The court room imagery described by Jeffery John is just that imagery. Not a one on one comparison. If the imagery doesn’t make sense to him let him thing about the kinsman redeemer imagery.
Hey Kelvin have a great day!
Your brother in Christ
Derek
Did my last comment make any sense to you. Thanks
I understand substitutionary atonement very well. I don’t believe it is an adequate way of expressing much that is worth saying about God. No God who needs that kind of sacrifice is worth believing in or worthy of our worship.
There is a range of ways of thinking about the atonement in the Bible and the experience of the church. They each move me in different ways and at different times.
Will you explain your ideas further. Thanks
Maybe a better question would be. Where does your Authority for this idea lie?
Like many Anglicans, my understanding of authority lies within the interplay between scripture, tradition and reason.
Hence my statement above: “There is a range of ways of thinking about the atonement in the Bible [scripture] and the experience of the church [tradition]. They each move me in different ways and at different times [reason].”
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but do you think your tradition and reason outweigh the scripture in this case? The scriptures teach substitutionary atonement. Why do you think otherwise. Could you outline it a little better for me. Sorry about my lack of knowledge in the Anglican Church.
To me it makes sense to me as far as reason goes. I outlines my reasoning above. Will you outline yours a little better? Thanks Kelvin
Your Brother in Christ
Derek
To clearify that second paragraph, In relation to reason substitutionary atonement makes sense to me. I outlined my reasoning above.
Have a great day in Scotland today. I wish I was there right now, what a beautiful country.
There is, of course, quite a difference between your saying, Derek, that substitutionary atonement makes sense to you and that the scriptures teach it.
They don’t exclusively teach it. There are other images of atonement in the biblical witness and in the experience of the church and it makes little sense to lots of us who are Christians.
What I was saying about the relation of Substitutionary atonement and scripture it that it is scriptural. Just because it isn’t the only teaching doesn’t mean it is false. The scriptures refer to Jesus as a teacher or rabbi and they also refer to him as the Messiah. Just because he is a rabbi doesn’t mean he isn’t the Messiah or vise-versa. This is a simple explaination, but just because there is multiple descriptions of Jesus in scripture doesn’t mean that you can divorce one idea from the other.
Please tell me what you believe in relation to Christ? You seem to be dodging my actual questions. All you have told me is that you don’t agree with subtitutionary atonement. Very well then, will you tell me why? Here are some other things
What about sin? (how do you deal with sin and the problem of pain. It is part of the world, how do you deal with it?)
What do you think about hell? (I know you told me that you don’t think it exists, why? Seeing that Jesus talks about it more than anyone else.)
Why don’t you think a “God who needs that kind of sacrifice is worth believing in or worthy of our worship”
Why was Jesus Crucified?
Why was Jesus Raised?
What seperates what you believe from any other religion?
I don’t want to take up all your time this week so if you can only answer some of these questions at a time I’d be fine with that. Thanks Kelvin!