The Cross
If there is ever a moment for Jesus to escape His horrible fate, it'd be skipping this crucifixion situation. Who wants to endure such a horrifying and humiliating experience?
Since his moment in the garden, Jesus was resolved to see this mission through to the end, so he pushed through it and trusted God to ensure the mission was finished.
And while this horror and hell was inflicted upon Jesus, he did not respond to humanity with contempt but love and forgiveness, miraculously.
It ought to have been the opposite; God punishing mankind. And yet God switched roles with us.
Karl Barth unpacks it for us.
“His mission: it is the Judge who in this passion takes the place of those who ought to be judged, who in this passion allows Himself to be judged in their place.
It is not, therefore, merely that God rules in and over this human occurrence simply as Creator and Lord. He does this, but He does more. He gives Himself to be the humanly acting and suffering person in this occurrence. He Himself is the subject who in His own freedom becomes in this event the object acting or acted upon in it. It is not simply the humiliation and dishonouring of a creature, of a noble and relatively innocent man that we find here. The problem posed is not that of a theodicy: How can God will this or permit this in the world which He has created good? It is a matter of the humiliation and dishonouring of God Himself, of the question which makes any question of a theodicy a complete anticlimax; the question whether in willing to let this happen to Him He has not renounced and lost Himself as God, whether in capitulating to the folly and wicked- ness of His creature He has not abdicated from His deity (as did the Japanese Emperor in 1945), whether He can really die and be dead?
And it is a matter of the answer to this question: that in this humiliation God is supremely God, that in this death He is supremely alive, that He has maintained and revealed His deity in the passion of this man as His eternal Son…
On the contrary, there is fulfilled in it the mission, the task, and the work of the Son of God: the reconciliation of the world with God.
There takes place here the redemptive judgment of God on all men. To fulfil this judgment He took the place of all men, He took their place as sinners.
In this passion there is legally reestablished the covenant between God and man, broken by man but kept by God.”
- Karl Barth, pp 246-247, 2. The Judge Judged in Our Place
Incredible.
What powerful love emanates and activated in our creator. At a foundational level, reality is tragedy. That is real.
But there is something that sits underneath it and that is redemption.
This level of reality is made available by a loving God on a cross.
We can cling to the tragic level of reality or we can cling to the redemption level. Adhering to redemption will put up everything for sacrifice, a scary possibility to accept (I'm rather selfish and would prefer to defer sacrifice).
In the Old Testament, Jacob wrestles with God. He holds tight to redemption.
But that illusion or delusion we operate inside which shields us from the unbearable truth is stripped away when we gaze upon Christ on the cross. How it ought to be is not how it is.
“...the cry of the Holy Ghost being torn from the Son of God by the weight of sin upon Him.
Gethsemane is the agony of the Son of God fulfilling His destiny as the Saviour of the world, and the veil is taken aside to show us what it cost Him to make it easy for us to become sons of God.”
- Oswald Chambers, The Psychology Of Redemption
The crucifixion cost God everything. It costs us nothing, to start. And we gain everything as we absorb the gift. The truth becomes clear when the veil is torn.
And the atoning cross work transforms us today just as much as it does forever.
“The reason the cross carried such life-changing power, and carries it still, is because it embodied, expressed, and symbolized the true power of which all earthly power is either an imitation or a corrupt parody…
The gospel of Jesus summons us to believe that the power of self-giving love unveiled on the cross is the real thing, the power that made the world in the first place and is now in the business of remaking it; and that the other, forms of "power," the corrupt and self-serving ways in which the world is so often run, from global empires and multimillion businesses down to classrooms, families, and gangs, are the distortion. “
- NT Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, pg399
As you’ve read this, you might be wondering, wow life and reality is deeply tragic. Humanity is toast. And there’s no way we can live up to Christ’s example.
Yep.
That's a core dynamic we must accept.
"People talk pleasant, patronizing things about Jesus Christ’s teaching while they ignore His cross." - Oswald chambers, Biblical Ethics
And that's the conclusion we must arrive at.
Without God, we're done for. As a Christian, it's something we say and think, but we often fail to fully grasp and appreciate. We're in dire need.
"The whole earth is our hospital..." - TS Elliot
We're triage patients in deep need of life-saving care. We need a doctor to cure our cancer.
"This is the Christian vision of the world. The earth is not a battlefield. It's not even a training ground. At its deepest level, its a hospital." - Athanasius of Alexandria
And the antidote is unexpected.
"...the cross of Christ is the therapy of creation." - Athanasius of Alexandria
If we stay at Christ's death on the cross, we’ll get stuck in despair. And that’s the logically correct conclusion. Tragedy overwhelms.
But thankfully, the story doesn’t end here. Resurrection came. And it’s coming for us.
But we can also operate from a basis of redemption, springboarded from the tragedy.
But not everyone sees the power in redemption. It may well be impossible to see; Dawkins, an atheist, being one example.
"What it all really comes down to is the Resurrection of Jesus... when we come down the resurrection of Jesus.
It's so petty, so trivial, so local, so earthbound, so unworthy of the universe."
- Richard Dawkins, debate with Lennox
This perspective of an atheist contrasts strongly with a Christian. What's monumental to one is absurd to the other.
The absurdity is not entirely disconnected from reality. God descending into humanity and subjecting himself to our wrath is rather absurd (and unexpected).
“Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”
- Paul, the Apostle, Philippians 2:7-8 NLT
And here we enter the space in the chasm between those who accept redemption and those who instead choose tragedy.
“The cry on the Cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27: 46; Mark 15: 34) is unfathomable to us. The only ones—and I want to say this very deliberately—the only ones who come near the threshold of understanding the cry of Jesus are not the martyrs—they knew that God had not forsaken them, His presence was so wonderful; not the lonely missionaries who are killed or forsaken—they experience exultant joy, for God is with them when people forsake them; the only ones who come near the threshold of understanding the experience of God-forsakenness are people like Cain: “My punishment is greater than I can bear!” (Genesis 4: 13); people like Esau: “He cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry” (27: 34); people like Judas. Jesus Christ knew and tasted to a fuller depth than any human being could ever taste what it is to be separated from God by sin.”
— Biblical Ethics / The Moral Foundations of Life / The Philosophy of Sin: Ethical Principles for the Christian Life by Oswald Chambers
The pressure and weight that comes upon us is unbearable and overwhelming. Without Christ's intercession, it's too much to bear — as Judas discovered after his betrayal.
But God has a way of intervening enough to carry that weight while also leveraging it for our transformation.
"...the whole meaning of the Atonement is to destroy the idolatry of self-love, to extract the pernicious poison of self-interest, and presence us with the Divinity that enables us to love God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength."
- Oswald chambers, Biblical Ethics
The cross journey of Christ, to endure suffering, was worth it because of what was at stake and what was the reward, for God and us; to redeem a rebellious and broken, but loved, people.
“God rules and does His work, the work which Jesus has to finish and is determined to finish."
- Karl Barth, 4.1, pg 267, 2. The Judge Judged in Our Place
The work ended. And it's consumed by love.
"Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."
- Paul, the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 13:7 NLT
What an amazing moment in history the cross brings us.
We free fell into the abyss, and despite our contempt at God, he descended with us, loving us on the way down and as he brought us back up.
“[The [passion] happened for us, but it happened without us, without our co-operating or contributing.
Even the intellectual activity of our understanding and explaining cannot add to what happened and is and is effective.”
- Karl Barth, pp 249, 2. The Judge Judged in Our Place
From The Garden to the Cross Excerpts
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