A blessed Palm Sunday to you all!
Today is the beginning of Holy Week for many Christians around the world. This week, we remember Jesus' last leg on the road to the cross. The events recorded in Scripture that we remember this week brings to mind the question my children have asked me repeatedly, "Why did Jesus die on the cross?"
This is a disturbingly simple question. Why did Jesus die a tortuous death on a Roman instrument of shame? The traditional answer is simple on the surface: Jesus died to take away our sins. This story of Christianity states that humans fell from a right relationship with God with Adam and Eve, that God requires blood to forgive sin (thus the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament), and that Jesus as the sinless Son of God became the final, perfect sacrifice for sin (the purpose of the cross). Therefore, the good news is that Jesus forgives you all of your sins and you will go to heaven when you die. So, the plot of this story is basically SIN-> FORGIVENESS-> HEAVEN. This is a personal transaction between you and God and whether the transaction takes place in a baptism (infant or adult), confession/prayer (Sinner's Prayer), a repentant life, etc is the main issue of debate. So, to "spread the good news" you need to either find someone who is in guilt and shame for their sins or to make someone feel guilt and shame for their sins and then tell them what they need to do to receive forgiveness (or possibly just announce their forgiveness).
This is not the only plotline in Scripture, and it is not the plotline accepted by the eastern part of Christianity (Eastern Orthodoxy). And, I don't know that it is the most compelling story, if all of Scripture and experience are taken into view. I will make the bold statement that Western Christianity (Catholic and Protestant) has settled for a soloist, while God had intended a symphony.
Thoughts? Questions? Arguments?
I'm coming a little late to this party, but I had to reply. I just read Nadia Boltz-Weber's Palm Sunday sermon, and I think you're on a similar vein. I think we like this penal substitution theory—the idea that Jesus paid for our sins with his blood, that he took the punishment that was rightly ours—because it's in our nature. As a seminary professor of mine used to say, "In the West, we're all lawyers," meaning that we get too hung up on the facts and the rationality. Well, we're also accountants. We see all the bad, and we think that *somebody* has to pay for this, and those few metaphors in scripture of Christ 'paying' for our sins with his blood appeal to us. We want a way to buy ourselves out.
ReplyDeleteThis is what Boltz-Weber is saying: that we are trying to understand God in human terms; that we think God is like us. If we demand payment and restitution, so must God. But God doesn't. God forgives freely, even while dying. A few early theologians, while trying to explain what Christ had done on the cross said, "Think of it this way, it's like the only sacrifice you'll ever need, one that works forever." An ancient reader sees this and says, "Oh, I understand what sacrifice is, so I get it." A modern reader sees this and says, "God must demand blood for sin, and the only way to pay that huge debt was through Christ. God must be a real accountant, just like me." Wrong. This is just one way to read the story. As you say, we settle for a soloist when Scripture presents a symphony.
Thanks, Seth!
ReplyDeleteI think that it is an act of God's grace that he comes to us in human terms, but we can mistake God's gracious condescension for the reality of God.
Blessings!