My favourite part of spring time is witnessing the awakening of life that has been dormant over a long cold winter. The wet smells of new foliage, the sounds of migratory birds returning to my back yard, the sight of bright green stretching to the horizon, the feel of warm sunshine on my melanin depleted skin.
This day was different though. Instead of the freshness of spring, there lingered, like an unwelcome guest, the pungent smell of sweat, fresh blood and fear. Angry, mocking voices shouting in discordant unity. Anguished shouts crying out in pain, sorrow and hopelessness. Ominous clouds building on the horizon, bringing the land into a surreal darkness that transcended the tangible.
The year was A.D. 33, and the Romans were doing what they did best…torturing and killing by crucifixion anyone who dared to defy Cesar. This was a regular occurrence in the Roman Empire with sometimes miles of roadway lined with the dead and dying crucified, just to remind would be rebels and zealots what their fate could be unless they submitted to the empire.
This execution was different somehow. Of the three being crucified on this particular afternoon, the man in the middle did not curse Rome, or himself, or anyone. He did not use what little breath He had as He hung there suffocating to blame others for His fate. Instead, rasping hoarsely, with blood dripping from cracked lips, He quotes the opening lines of Psalm 22. That’s all the words He can push out through shallow breaths. The crowd is familiar with this psalm of David. Indeed, they could quote the whole thing from memory. This psalm tells of how David felt at the moment of writing, like God had abandoned him…only to later realize that He never did. It speaks of exactly what Jesus is going through at the moment, and then ends in victory! God the Father never abandoned Jesus but was there all along as 2 Corinthians 5:19 later tells us. The whole of the Godhead is inseparable and thus suffered together in Jesus.
Right now did not feel like victory. It felt like punishment…and it was. You may hear from a well intentioned, albeit misinformed pastor this weekend that because of humanity’s sin, we had offended God the Father and He had to punish us. You may hear that because we could not endure the punishment, that Jesus stepped in between the Father and us and volunteered to take the punishment instead of us. You may hear that God punished Jesus on the cross.
But then, a strange thing happens. Something never before heard from a victim of a cross. At the precipice of death and defeat, Loves most powerful weapon was about to be unleashed upon the world. And He spoke it into being; “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
We know now that Jesus is God, made human and that He shares the same essence of self emptying love with the Father and the Spirit. We know that Jesus came to reveal what has always been in the Fathers heart, that Jesus is the perfect representation of who God is. What is this forgiveness anyway? What does it mean? To forgive simply means to let go of, to release, to take away guilt. It is the only thing that can possibly break the endless cycle of human violence and bring one-ness, or to use a biblical word—atonement.
What is the worst sin you can imagine? Most people would say murder, and I would have to agree. Murder seems even worse depending on who it is that is murdered. For example, we would see the murder of an innocent little two year old girl to be much more deplorable than the murder of some rapist who gets gunned down out of revenge for his crimes. How about the murder of God…the author of life itself? God didn’t punish Jesus. We did. We committed the worst sin possible.
Let’s now define sin, not as the legal model we are used to in our culture, but rather through the lens of how the Jewish people saw it. It means to “miss the mark”, specifically the goal of perfect relationship within the Godhead that we are created to enjoy. Sin is not a moral failure that requires punishment. Rather, it is a relational failure which leads to sickness and brokenness. To take the legal picture, saying that we owed a debt to the Father that we could not pay, and Jesus steps in and pays it for us is not a model of forgiveness. It is a picture of a complicated financial transaction in which God pays God so that we don’t have to pay because we have no money. It is essentially divine money laundering! True forgiveness is releasing the guilty party WITHOUT any payment received or expected. True forgiveness absorbs the blow without retaliation. True forgiveness has open arms welcoming reconciliation, and waits as long as it takes for you to respond. Forever, if need be.
Jesus absorbed the sin and death of humanity, taking it to the grave with Him and leaving it there. He didn’t come back empty handed either. No, He brought back with Him for us, the relationship that He shares with the Father.
In Mark 2:17, Jesus says, “And hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'”
At the cross and with the resurrection, Jesus showed us that God is not an angry judge, who has come to punish anyone. He showed us that He is the Great Physician who came into our brokenness and sickness who absorbed our disease, giving us healing and life in exchange. It is ours. All we must do is believe.
Remember this Easter weekend, Jesus did not come to change the Fathers mind about you, but rather came to change your mind about the Father. He came to show us who God really is. He came to show you how much He has always loved you and longed for relationship with you. His arms are open to you, waiting for you to fall into His embrace. This is life. Believe.
Happy Easter