For the past couple of years I have been asking the question "Why the cross?" I have been told my whole life that Jesus had to die so that God could forgive me (us) for my (our) sins. This was good enough for me up until I started to really think about that. Jesus had to die, I was being told that God needed Jesus to die in order to save us. This coupled with the whole sacrificial system in the Old Testament makes it look like God needed to pay Godself off in order to forgive us. I began to ask then, well if God is God and could chose to forgive and redeem us however God wanted, then why would God choose the death of an innocent animal, and ultimately the death of Jesus.
I have been blessed and lucky enough to have been surrounded by some of the most intelligent professors and theologians for the past five years and have been able to ask this question and have received guidance, but ultimately support in discovering who God is in the cross, and why the cross.
In my senior theology class we read Jurgen Moltmann's The Crucified God, and this lent season I began to re-read through it trying to get a better grasp on the text itself. It is a heavy book that will punch you in the face every time you pick it up, and it has taken me all of lent just to get halfway through chapter 2.
But here is where I think I land thus far.
I do not believe these atonement theories:
1. Jesus was a ransom to pay off the devil
2. Recapulation
3. Mystical
4. Moral influence
5. Governmental
6. either substitution theory
I think that most, if not all of these theories pain God (the father) in an evil light and that Jesus (the son) is simply a pawn. Rather I believe that the Cross was the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate sign of love. John 15:13 states "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend." (NIV) It was in the cross that Jesus was/felt godless, godforsaken and abandoned, just like many people who live today. God knows how they feel because God went through it. God the father also endured a type of suffering, the Father was abandoning the Son, the Father was allowing the Son to suffer and die. God knows what it is lie to lose a child.
So what about the whole redemption, and "the only way to the Father is through me" part that we have all been taught. While I believe God could have chosen to forgive and bring redemption in any form, this, the cross was the best and most complete way of doing so. Imagine if God said "the only way to heaven is to plant a tree." that is nothing, sin is much bigger than that. In some ways yes, it is a cost thing, but ultimately it is a Love thing.
God loves you, me, everyone so much that he died for us. the ultimate sign of love. The cross is not pretty, the cross is heavy, and we are invited to take ours up and follow Christ. To die to ourselves and to live for Christ, to be the ultimate sign of Love to all those we encounter so that they can encounter the ultimate Love that is God.
