Good Friday - the death and triumph of love

What is the cross about? Why did Jesus have to die? In what way are we ‘saved’ by his sacrifice?

The cross cannot be fully analysed and understood by intellect.

In some ways I think these questions miss the point, like asking what a great work of art means or is worth, when it simply means itself and is worth itself. The cross is not, I suspect, something that can be analysed and fully understood by means of the intellect, or at least not of the intellect alone. Theological theories and models of the atonement have some usefulness but all fall short, and ultimately the cross is perhaps best understood by the heart.

Nonetheless, there are aspects of the cross that we can perhaps understand a little.

Love rejected

For me, one of the most important things about the cross is it makes everything suddenly concrete, real and personal. From sin being an abstract offence against the apparently arbitrary law of an unseen God, it becomes a very real offence against a very present and personal one. The hands of humanity nail the perfect Lord to a cross of wood; the voice of humanity is lifted up in mockery against him. Even if we were not there, our race, our species stands collectively convicted of deicide, of highest treason against the King of all kings.

The greatest law in the universe and in the Bible is the law of love. Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength… love one another. In different ways all our small and great sins are sins against love, but at the cross humanity sinned against love in the greatest way imaginable. We turned our faces against love; we violated, we killed Love itself; we destroyed the source and sum and sign of all love. We broke the divine law so completely that no amount of good deeds could ever repair it. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…

So the cross levels us all, kings and beggars, saints and sinners. None of us can lift our heads and call ourselves guiltless. Even Jesus’ own closest friends and followers deserted, denied or betrayed him.

Love vindicated

The cross not only makes sin up close and personal; it makes salvation up close and personal too

But that is only one side of the story. The glory of the cross – what makes it Good Friday – is that at the exact same time as Love was being utterly rejected and violated by humanity, Love was also being utterly fulfilled by humanity’s true and perfect representative. Jesus – he who is Love incarnate – took love to its extent and extreme by dying for those who deserted, denied, betrayed, scorned, mocked, wounded, and ultimately killed him. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends... except perhaps that he lay it down for his enemies.

So as we threw the worst of ourselves at Christ, he bore to the fullest extent our own suffering, shame and sorrow, and in doing so he redeemed it all. As we subjected him to the deepest horror and torment humans can devise, he bore the utmost depths of our evil and overcame it. Nothing others can do to us, and nothing we can do to others, is now beyond the power of Christ’s healing and redemption. This is real love; this is love tested to the limit and proved beyond doubt.

So the cross not only makes sin up close and personal; it makes salvation up close and personal too. If Christ died in some sense because of me and you, he also died by the same token to forgive, heal, redeem and restore me and you. We all stand equal before the cross: equally guilty, yet equally freed and forgiven. The cross is the total triumph of love over all that would reject, betray, mock and destroy love, and Easter is the proof of that triumph.

Postscript: penal substitution

There are of course many ways of viewing the cross; the evangelical favourite is Penal Substitution, whereby Jesus is thought to have borne in our place the punishment due for our sins and so satisfied God's just anger against us. I do not deny the truth of this, but in my view it has to be placed firmly in the context of love, for God is love and love is God's highest law. God's anger is simply the result of the violation and betrayal of love, and his solution is the full outworking of love.

So though it may be true to say that God's wrath is satisfied on the cross, it is also true - and in my view far more importantly true - that God's love is satisfied, is fully expressed and fulfilled, on the cross.

Holy Saturday again

Today is a day of quiet, a day of remembrance. It is a day of waiting, for some in despair, for others in hope. It is a day of disappointments, of deferred hopes, of dreams in ruins. It is itself an unassuming and quiet day, not a day celebrated with fanfares or flowers. Just another day for those trudging along the road to an Easter that seems like it will never come.

Yesterday I found out that a church friend and father in his 40s had been given two, maybe three weeks to live. He’d been fighting cancer for the last 3 years or so, sometimes seeming to be winning. But now the blow has fallen and left him, his family and friends reeling.

A few weeks ago I attended the funeral of a young dad less than 3 weeks older than me, leaving behind a wife and four children. The grief I was a part of there was so raw, so savage; a crazed, howling, tearing animal. The randomness, the injustice, the merciless meaninglessness of death tear at the mind as the sheer aching loss tears at the heart.

Easter, with the hope of resurrection, may be just round the corner, but sometimes it seems an impossibly long way off.

See also earlier post Walking in darkness - Reflections on Holy Saturday

Good Friday song

Good Friday - a day like any other; a day unlike any other. I'd like to write lots of deep stuff about it but I'm meant to be packing to go to Cambridge tomorrow for a few days with my wife's folks. So for now here's a video for a song I wrote a few years ago.



Broken for you, broken for me,
Broken in two, divine unity
What did it cost, what you gave for free
There on the cross - broken for me?

Oh, and here's a Maundy Thursday poem I wrote 11 years ago...

April fool

Anyone who's been reading this blog recently (though I've checked Google Analytics and it's just me) might come away with the impression that I'm a bit on the over-serious side. All I ever seem to bang on about is God, suffering, faith, feminism, capital punishment, blah blah blarbety blah.

I can't help it - I spend most of my work and social time being flippant so this is where I come to offload the deep weighty ponderous pontifications that build up inside, not unlike wind. Very uncomfortable it is too.

Since I've become so lugubriously serious in my personal blog it seems mildly ironic that in my work capacity I blogged an April Fool's joke today. Not a very good one it's true, but one nonetheless:

ROG cleaner makes 'amazing discovery'
www.nmm.ac.uk/rog/

1 April 2010 - The scientific community is buzzing this morning with the news of the chance discovery of a possible new object in our solar system. 

Pauline Mye-Legg of the Royal Observatory's cleaning team was taking her customary glance through the famous 28-inch refracting telescope yesterday evening when she was amazed to spot a completely new object in the night sky. 'It was quite large, dark and fuzzy, quite low on the horizon' she reported. 'However, when I looked again later it had gone.'

Dr Joe King, the ROG's official Planet-finder General, said that it's too early to confirm or deny but that amateur astronomers have a long history of making important new discoveries. He did however add that Ms Mye-Legg also has a long history of leaving cake crumbs on the 28-inch telescope lens and confusing them for new planets.

In other news today, Easter this year has officially moved from this weekend to the last Sunday in April due to a mix-up over the Metonic Cycle. 

Only joking of course - happy first of April to everyone, and also a very Happy Easter this weekend!

Right, that's quite enough of such flighty tomfoolery.

Resuming my usual pontifications, I can't help noticing that this year April Fool's is only a day before Good Friday. There are plenty who see the whole Easter story as a practical joke to fool the gullible. I prefer to see it as a practical joke of a rather different kind - God's supreme April fool against evil and all the powers-that-be. Just when they're rubbing their hands together celebrating their success in finally getting rid of that troublesome Jesus character, up he pops again like a divine jack-in-the-box: 'Surprise!!'. As the cannibal said about the indigestible missionary, you just can't keep a good man down.

Many ways to one God? (part 2)

Having committed myself to heresy in the eyes of my evangelical friends (see previous post), I'd like now to look at some of Jesus' words and other biblical passages that shed light on the subject.

Insiders and outsiders?

The Old Testament is full of people who were apparently blessed by God and counted as righteous despite not being part of the mainline Judaic faith: Melchizedek (Gen 14), Moses' father-in-law Jethro, Rahab (Joshua 2), probably Job, possibly Naaman, arguably Ruth...

Isaiah 19:25 contains a startling prophecy concerning Israel's enemies Egypt and Assyria: 'The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance."' Of course this may mean that they will be blessed by coming to faith in Christ, but it does show that God works outside the box of who his people think are the insiders and outsiders.

The will of God and the law of love

Moving to the gospels, Jesus clearly says "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matt 7:21). So not all professing Christians will necessarily enter the kingdom, but all those who obey God will.

Okay, but how does one obey God's will? Jesus' story of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25 gives one pretty clear answer:

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?...'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Matt 25:34-40)

In this account, it's not whether or not someone called themselves a Christian that matters, but whether they truly lived as one - quite probably without realising - by loving Christ through loving other people.

Similarly Jesus says 'anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward' (Mark 9:41) and 'anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward' (Matt 10:41).

Jesus' story of the Rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 also underscores the point that entry to the kingdom is linked with our treatment of our fellow man - i.e. our love. The rich man (who in that society is likely to be religious) lives in luxury yet doesn't lift a finger to help the poor beggar Lazarus at his gate; when they both die he's taken to hell and Lazarus, who's made no profession of faith as far as we know, is taken to heaven.

The Beatitudes of Matthew 5 also give a surprising perspective on who belongs in God's kingdom: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. Again, there's nothing to say here that these are particularly religious people, ones who have prayed a particular prayer or accepted a particular belief. It is about their hearts, their attitudes, their whole lives.

'Sheep that are not of this sheep pen'

Backing up the Old Testament stories of non-Jews who God counted as righteous, there is the Roman centurion whose faith Jesus commends above any he's found in Israel (Luke 7), the Canaanite woman whose daughter Jesus heals because of her faith (Matt 15), the Samaritan woman at the well to whom Jesus reveals that he is the Messiah (John 4), and Cornelius the God-fearing gentile centurion in Acts 10. Jesus says in John 10:16, 'I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.'

Paul writes in Romans 2:13-15 'it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law... they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts'. This is not an easy passage, but it suggests that those who do not know the Bible or the Christian faith still know in their hearts what is right and wrong, and therefore can be oriented to God without yet knowing the full truth of Christ.

Saviour of all?

Finally, there are two passages in 1 Timothy that suggest that salvation is wider open than we often imagine (emphasis added): 'God our Saviour... wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men.' (1 Tim 2:3-6). And even more provocatively, 'we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, and especially of those who believe' (1 Tim 4:10). Read that last sentence again if you didn't get the full impact.

Of course, all this does not make a compelling, watertight biblical case that non-Christians 'go to heaven' (in popular parlance)... but it does at least suggest that our accustomed criteria for judging who's in and who's out may be too narrow. In any case, we'd do well to leave such judging to someone better placed to make it: to quote Abraham, 'Will not the Judge of all the Earth do right?' (Gen 18).

Many ways to one God? (part 1)

A friend of mine has a saying, 'There are many mountains in the Himalayas and all of them point to God'. To a lot of Christians this just sounds like new-agey fluffiness - after all, didn't Jesus say 'I am the way... no-one comes to the Father except through me'? And some will understandably feel that if other ways did lead to God, then what on earth was the point of all the hassle of being a Christian - though this would perhaps miss the point somewhat.

While I can't perhaps go as far as my friend in believing that all roads lead ultimately to God, nor that all people will eventually be redeemed - though I do hope for that - I have moved quite a distance in that direction. I have reason to hope that many who do not know or consciously profess Christ will find themselves in God's Kingdom; and conversely I suspect that many who call themselves Christian will find their place among the chosen less guaranteed than they imagined.

Does this mean I'm becoming a wishy-washy anything-goes so-called liberal? Perhaps, but I don't believe so. Rather I'm trying to take Jesus' own words and character very seriously and not shoehorn them into watertight doctrines that don't actually hold water.

The Way, the Truth and the Life

In the next post I want to look at more of what the Bible has to say on the subject but let's start with 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. To my mind it's quite possible to interpret this verse in a way that's far from the standard 'only Christians go to heaven' version.

Yes, Jesus is the Way, but it is possible to follow a way without knowing its name or having been shown it on a map. All who, led by the Spirit, follow the true way are indeed following Jesus whether they know it or not. Similarly, Jesus is the Truth and the Truth is Jesus, so anyone who seeks the truth is surely seeking Jesus whether they realise it or not. And Jesus is the Life, but life whether spiritual or biological is a pretty mysterious thing, and those who have it may not exactly understand what it is or how they came by it.

So Jesus can truly say 'No-one comes to the Father except by me', for all who do come to the Father by whatever route will find - perhaps to their surprise - that they came in truth through Christ.

One of my favourite passages in C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories comes towards the end of The Last Battle. The young Calormene Emeth, a lifelong devotee of the pagan demon-god Tash, finds himself to his great surprise in the Narnian heaven. Aslan the Christ-Lion explains to him:

"Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me… For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him…

But I [Emeth] said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

This to me is the crux. Those who seek truth, goodness, beauty, justice and mercy will find it, for they are truly seeking God.

Love

We in the modern western church make much of right belief in a correct creed, and of following particular steps that will guarantee us a place in God's kingdom. But authentic Christian faith is not mere intellectual assent to right theories about God and salvation, nor following a five-step programme to eternal life. True belief is about who we are in the deepest place, and about the actions and attitudes towards God and other people that flow from that.

So the greatest command is simply - and almost impossibly - to love: to love God with all our heart, mind and strength; to love our fellow humans as ourselves. Those who seek to follow this law are, as Jesus said, not far from the kingdom, whatever theologies they do or don't profess. And conversely those who have not love, though they perform great miracles, are not actually on the Way of Christ at all.

My own view then is that Christ's presence and activity are not limited to those within the Christian church, and that he is often present incognito in other faiths and none. For wherever there is goodness, truth, love, kindness, honesty, generosity, compassion, or mercy, there at least to some degree is Christ. Even if all paths do not lead to him, in his grace he often chooses to meet us on whatever path we happen to be on.

Christianity and feminism

Are Christianity and the Bible inherently sexist and repressive to women, forcing them into second place and submission to men?

Over the centuries the church has often sadly colluded with the sexism of a male-dominated society. But I believe that has little to do with the example or teaching of Christ or the Bible as a whole.

Women in the New Testament

Women play a prominent and vital role in the New Testament (as indeed in the Old). Mary is chosen to be the mother of the Saviour. Anna is a respected prophetess and is among the first to know and tell about the birth of Jesus. Women are the first witnesses of Christ's resurrection. Jesus' disciples and closest friends include many women and he often singles them out for particular praise (in contrast to the male disciples who frequently fail to understand his teaching). Jesus speaks to women as social and intellectual equals - for example the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. And women actually fund and finance Jesus' ministry, enabling it to take place at all.

Women are also important and honoured in the early church. Several host churches in their own houses and clearly hold positions of leadership. Paul, often misrepresented as a misogynist, crucially wrote that in Christ 'there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus'.

Women in the Old Testament

Even in the Old Testament, despite the deeply patriarchal society women are accorded far more status than is often realised. Two whole books of the Bible - Ruth and Esther - bear the names of women who played a vital role in Israel's history, in Esther's case saving the Jewish people from massacre. Deborah in the book of Judges is a shining example of a strong, powerful and brilliant leader who leads her people into victory. In the same book, the woman Jael is commended for killing Sisera, the enemy of the Israelites.

Other strong and brave women of the Old Testament include Moses' sister Miriam and Rahab who sheltered the Jewish spies in Jericho; and there are countless other examples.

A male God?

Of course, there is another side to the treatment of women and femininity in the Bible and that needs to answered.

Most fundamentally, isn't God always depicted as male? Actually no. The Old Testament uses a number of feminine metaphors and nouns to describe God - for example speaking of God's 'womb', of his motherly care, and using the same word for God (translated 'helper') as is used of Eve in Genesis. In the very first chapter of the Bible, both male and female are equally made in the image of God: 'In the image of God he created [people]; male and female he created them'.

In the book of Proverbs Wisdom is personified as female, in a passage that is usually interpreted as representing Christ. Of course when Christ came it was as a man - but the sad reality is that he had to; had he come as a woman to 1st-century Israel/Palestine, he could have had no public ministry and could never have fulfilled the role he needed to.

Paul

So what of the apostle Paul saying that women should obey and submit to their husbands, remain quiet in church and not teach? Firstly let's remember that he also said that all believers, male and female, should submit to one another in love. Secondly, the context for wives obeying their husbands was that the husband must first love his wife as Christ loved the church, giving himself as an offering for her. And thirdly, the teaching about women remaining quiet and not being allowed to teach must have been dealing with a very specific social/cultural context rather than a universal command - for Paul himself commended and worked closely with a number of women in leadership positions in the early church.

In all this we must also remember that even the New Testament - let alone the Old - was written nearly 2000 years ago in an unimaginably different world and culture to our own.

Vive la difference?

So the overwhelming Christian view seems to me to be that women and men are of equal worth and status, one in Christ.

This does not of course deny that there are differences, both physiological and psychological, between the sexes, though these can often be overplayed. Men can of course never be mothers, though they can nurture; women can never fully be fathers, though they are often called upon to cover both roles. And perhaps therefore there may be some roles that - on the whole - women will fill rather better than men and vice versa. However, to my mind there is no question that women can and should equally be able to teach, lead and pastor within the Christian community.