MF21 Theology of the Cross – Did Jesus Die for Us?

Did Jesus Die For Us?
Bishop Richard Randerson

A rather gloomy looking person once said to a stranger : “No, I’m not a Christian : it’s my ulcer that makes me look like this”. The story conveys what many often think of the Church and its teachings – a heavy emphasis on sin, evil, punishment, the hopelessness of the human condition, and a helpless dependence on God for salvation and the avoidance of hell.

Indeed two of our readings this morning make reference to the blotting out or taking away of sins. All in all it adds up to a pretty bleak and depressing view of the Christian faith, and one which I believe is the total opposite of the joyous, generous and celebratory life of Christians and the Church.

There are several problems with the “Jesus dies to save me from my sins” approach :

1. It conveys a very negative view of life and people. Human beings are seen as hopeless and chronic sinners, always operating on the negative side of the ledger, and never on the positive. The most we can expect is for God to bring us back to a neutral position week by week, from whence we sink again into the dark swamp of sin. Many people have felt
   this to be a destructive recipe for living, psychologically crippling, and one to be avoided for the sake of their mental health.
2. It conveys a totally wrong view of the nature of a loving God. Does a God of love require that someone be punished for our sins? Parents want the best for their children but don’t see punishment and retribution as the way to achieve it. They take wrongdoing seriously, but want to find positive ways to attract children into those ways. A concept of positive
   attraction is far preferable to punishment, and in line with the deepest concepts of love, both divine and human.
3. Even within the context of punishment is it just for one person to suffer for the sins of all? The concept of Jesus being punished for the sins of the whole world fails to meet the criteria of both justice and love.
4. The concept is also contrary to the whole nature of Jesus’ life – a life of generous love, breaking the strait-jackets of religious and social conventions, offering freedom and hope to the down-trodden, and new life and opportunities to rich and poor alike.

In Jesus’ time the concept of animal sacrifice was well-established, and images of scapegoats, or Jesus as the “paschal Lamb who was sacrificed for us”, were obvious ones whereby to talk of Jesus being sacrificed so we might be saved. But the concept of animal sacrifice died away and, while we may recognise the historical context of that concept, it is one we must abandon
if we are to convey the fullness of God’s love to 21st century people for whom animal sacrifice conveys the very opposite of a Gospel of justice and love.

I believe we need a new understanding of Jesus’ death, and I see it in the response of the centurion in Matthew 27.54. Here was a totally disinterested bystander, a senior Roman soldier on duty at the cross, someone who probably resented being posted to a backwater of the Roman Empire and charged with overseeing the affairs of people he despised.

Somehow the dynamics leading to Jesus’ crucifixion broke through his shell so that, watching Jesus die, he was led to make the astonishing affirmation : “Truly this man was a son ofGod”. What would have led him to this? Did he feel burdened with sin and recognise that Jesus’ death now took that burden away? Unlikely, I would think.

More likely that from all he observed he saw the possibly of new life, a life lived as Jesus lived, with three key features :

1. The centurion would have noted Jesus’ complete self-giving love in the service of others, his care for the outcast and the poor, the rejected and the needy, and his eschewing of power and privilege. Here on the cross the full extent of that love was to be seen. Jesus’ love led him to challenge the social and religious norms of his day, upsetting the
   established leaders, who for their own security chose to put this nuisance to death.
2. The centurion would also have noted Jesus’ integrity and his commitment to do and speak the truth, whatever the cost might be. Even in the face of death, Jesus did not draw back from his mission.
3. The centurion would also have noted Jesus’ central relationship with God. It could hardly be said that Jesus used God as a crutch in times of weakness. His whole life was sourced in the living power of God on which he drew regularly through prayer and periods of solitude. With God as the source of Jesus’ life and love, he was enabled to be the
   powerful force that transformed the lives of so many he came in touch with.

It seems to me, then, that the centurion was saved not because he felt delivered from punishment for sin through Jesus’ death, but because Jesus’ life was the door to a new existence, new possibilities, new hope and meaning that offered a fulfilment way beyond the hum-drum experience of living out his life in the daily service of the Roman Empire.

And just as that centurion was able to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God in his day, so the same dynamics of self-giving love, integrity in our calling, and a daily walk with God attract us today. We too are called to acknowledge Jesus as Son of God and so find salvation, which is another word for wholeness.

The theological ground-shift is seen also in the New Zealand Prayer Book which differs from the Book of Common Prayer not merely by its use of contemporary language, but also by reflecting a theology of life, growth and celebration rather than salvation from sin.

The theologian Hans Kung has said that the event of Jesus Christ is a historical fact with universal significance. All are affected and called by it, in every generation. Hans Kung sums up the meaning of the Cross in these words :

“Nowhere did it become more evident than in the cross that this God is in fact a God on the side of the weak, sick, poor, underprivileged, oppressed, even of the irreligious, immoral and ungodly. …He is a God who lavishes his grace on those who do not deserve it. Who gives without envy and never disappoints. Who does not demand love, but gives it : who himself is
holy love. It follows from all of this that the cross is not to be understood as a sacrifice demanded by a cruel God. In the light of Easter it was understood as quite the reverse, as the deepest expression of his love. Love, by which God …can be defined : love not as feeling, but as “existing for”, “doing good to others”. (On Being a Christian, p 485).