E100 - The Cross

In our series working through the Bible we come today to what is for Christians the crucial part of the Bible - the crux of the whole biblical story.  Those words 'crucial' and 'crux' of course have their root in the word 'Cross'.  The Cross is crucial - the crux of our faith.  But what does it mean?

A question that really annoys artists when they have spent ages pouring out their heart and soul into a painting or sculpture, in order to say something that they believe can't be communicated or expressed in any other way, is then for someone to come and ask them to explain what it means in a few simple short sentences.  Their response is usually along the lines of, "It is what it is!  Look at it!  Don't ask me to reduce it to something less than it is!"  When we come to the Cross of Jesus we are up against that sort of problem when it comes to explaining it.  Don't ask me to explain it!  Read the story - gaze at the cross and the love of God laid bare.  It is what it is.  But perhaps that's not entirely helpful, and the Biblical writers have themselves tried to explain or express what the Cross means in quite a number of ways. 

We are so familiar with the Cross that familiarity has sort of led to unfamiliarity.  We see it so much we assume we know what it means, but do we?  Nathanael has asked me - I don't know how many times - "Why did Jesus die on the cross?"  I still don't think I've given him an answer that satisfies him, because he keeps asking.  What would you say to him?  We may have heard a thousand times something like "Jesus died for our sins" and that is true.  But what does that mean?  Why is it a problem for us to understand?  Partly because many of the biblical explanations speak to a culture very different to ours.  What, for example, do you make of the first reading we had from the letter to the Hebrews?

To change tack a bit and illustrate the point, let me ask you another question.  How often do you slit the throat of a goat?!  Didn't expect that did you?!  Do you regularly head into town to a temple, perhaps on a Saturday night, to sprinkle yourself with the blood of a bull?  Do you ever strangle a bird and leave it on an altar for good luck?  Well, no, you don't - ever.  The very thought of doing such a thing is repulsive to us - primitive and barbaric.  It doesn't cross our minds to sacrifice animals.  But Hebrews explains the Cross by saying Jesus appeared once for all time to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

In the ancient world people regularly sacrificed animals and placed the blood on the altar to say to the gods how sorry they were for wrong they'd done or how grateful they were for the rain, or their crops or the birth of their children and so on.  Entire civilizations did this for thousands of years, and believed this was how you maintained a peaceful relationship with the gods or with the forces that controlled your fate.  That was how it worked.  But then the writer to the Hebrews wrote into just such a culture that Jesus was the last sacrifice ever needed.  I can't emphasize enough how revolutionary that was to make that claim in those days.  It was stunning - unprecedented.  Whole cultures centred around keeping the gods pleased.  Obviously this was a very costly, time-consuming ordeal, not to mention anxiety producing, as you never knew if you'd fully pleased the gods or paid your debt properly.

Then Hebrews announces those days are over because of Jesus dying on the Cross.  Done away with.  Gone.  Irrelevant.  The psychological impact of this would have been extraordinary.  No more anxiety, worry, stress, wondering if the gods were pleased or ready to strike you down.  No more need for any of that sacrifice because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that thoroughly pleased the only God who ever mattered.  That was how the writer to the Hebrews explained what happened when Jesus died on the Cross.  Amazing. 

But that isn't the only explanation we find in the Bible.  In Colossians 1, for example, Paul wrote that through the Cross God was reconciling all things to himself.  Reconciling is all about relationships being restored.  God was making peace with all things.  Then in Romans Paul uses a very different image of justification.  We are justified before God because Jesus has paid the price for our sins.  'Justified' is a word from the legal world - it's about guilt and punishment and being declared 'not guilty' or pardoned.

Then in 2 Timothy Paul speaks of the Cross as Jesus destroying death.  And the letter on 1 John says, "this is the victory that has overcome the world."  "Victory" and "destroyed" are words to do with battle, war, metaphors or armies and soldiers and conquest.  This speaks of the Cross in terms of Jesus winning a battle against evil.  Then in Ephesians 1 Paul says "we have redemption through his blood."  Redemption is actually a word from the world of business and finance and economics.  To redeem something is to give it its worth again, to revalue it, to buy it back.  So what happened on the Cross?  The end of the sacrificial system, a broken relationship reconciled, a guilty defendant set free, a battle won, the redeeming of something lost?  Which is it?  Which metaphor is correct?  Which explanation is true?  Why all the different explanations?

For the first Christians something absolutely massive and universe changing had happened on the Cross and through the Cross, and they set out to communicate its significance and life-changing power to their audiences in language they would understand.  They said it's like... a defendant going free, a relationship being reconciled, something lost being redeemed, a battle being won, a final sacrifice being offered so no one ever has to offer one again... and so on - image after image.

For the first 1000 years or so of Christian history the metaphor of victory in battle over evil was dominant in the church - Jesus conquering death was the central understanding of the Cross.  At other times and places other explanations have been more heavily emphasized.  Many - particularly in evangelical circles - continue to use the sacrificial metaphor in the modern world.  There is nothing wrong with this - for example talking or singing about the blood of Jesus that has saved us - but we don't live any more in a culture where people sacrifice animals to gods.  The first Christians did - some in Africa for example still do - we don't.  The biblical writers used metaphors their listeners would understand.  What might be better metaphors for us to emphasize today?  I don't mean we should abandon the biblical images, but we have to recognise that some of them will be more useful in speaking the Good News in our society than others.

There are other explanations for what was going on on the Cross, that, though they are not directly out of the Bible, are derived from the Bible.  For example - 10 years ago, when the archbishop was asked "Where was God when the Twin Towers were attacked?" he said God was there in the rescuers and in those who suffered and died and in those who grieved, suffering with them.  That was an idea derived from the Cross.  The Cross is a window into the heart of God and shows that he suffers our pains and sorrows and even our death with us.

What other metaphors might help today?  Perhaps, in a culture where many are struggling with serious debt, the image of debts being wiped away by the Cross - Jesus having paid them off - might have a bigger psychological impact than the image of sacrifice for example.  Or perhaps, in a culture where relationships are breaking and fracturing all the time, the image of being reconciled to God will resonate more.  What would be the most powerful image for you - that you could imagine - for saying how much God loves you?  For saying that your debts were gone, you didn't have to do anything any more to appease God, that you are simply loved?

To try to say about the Cross, "This is what it means." - to narrow it down to one metaphor is to miss the point and the brilliance of what the early Christians were doing.  They were trying to say in the most powerful way they knew how that God so loves the world he gave his only Son...

But of course the Cross is only half the story.  Lots of people were crucified in Jesus' day.  What gave Christians such extraordinary fire and fuel was their insistence that death on the Cross was not the last word on this rabbi from Nazareth - it was their insistence that they had experienced him after his death - this led them to believe that something massive had happened with implications for the whole world and everyone (and indeed everything) in it.

In fact the Gospel writers, in the way they tell the story, were clearly saying the Cross and Resurrection are as significant as Creation itself - they bring about a new creation in the midst of the old - a whole new way of being - perfectly in tune with the old, but transforming it at a fundamental level.  Death leading to new life has always been part of creation - in winter and spring, in food chains, and planting seeds - in all sorts of ways.  The Cross writ this idea large but in a brand new and amazing way.  Paul actually says, "If anyone is in Christ... there is a new creation!"  A new creation where death is really a path to life in a new way.  Everything has changed - death has been conquered - all creation transformed, redeemed, justified, reconciled.  "In Christ all shall be made alive", said Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, "just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all."  The Cross is cosmic - not just about rescuing a few repentant sinners.  1 John 2 calls the Cross "the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours (it emphasizes) but also for the sins of the whole world."  Jesus didn't say from the Cross, "That ought to start some of them on the way!"  He said... "It is finished!"

For the New Testament this is a massive idea - huge - it has everything to do with every one of us every day of our lives we live in this creation.  God is saying a colossal "I love you" to every one of us and to the whole world and providing a key to unlock all creation for us all.  What is astonishing is how small we manage to make this.  It just about gives us a bit of comfort in our sorrows and a bit of hope we'll be OK after death.

Let's open ourselves up to the wideness of God's love expressed in the Cross.  Open to it - receive it - believe it is true when God says to us 'I love you' - enter in to a way of life of which Jesus is the source, the strength, the example, the assurance that this pattern of death and rebirth is the way to the only kind of life that sustains and inspires.  Where we accept this - really accept it - creation is reconfigured - new life and new relationships spring up.