The cross, which is the central image of Christian faith and life, is tragically too often misunderstood. Instead of the cross portraying the endless love of God in the face of human cruelty, what I believe to be its true meaning, others interpret the cross as the cruelty demanded by God in the face of human sinfulness.
What I mean is this, that some view Jesus’ death as what God requires to pay for the sins of humanity. This means we understand the cross as showing us the cruelty demanded by God because we are sinners.
However, any understanding of the cross of Christ that envisions a wrathful God who won’t forgive or have anything to do with sinful humanity unless he is appeased by a human sacrifice, is making God a God of death, rather than life. Any view of God that suggests that God is pleased by, enjoys, or requires the suffering of an innocent, in this case, Jesus, is a monstrous distortion of the One who is eternal love.
The meaning of the cross, instead, is the absolute and supreme symbol of unending love. The cross proclaims the love of God in the face of human cruelty. Jesus does not offer himself to his Father to turn aside his anger, but the Father through the Son offers himself to humanity as the source of healing for all our sins despite our murderous rejection of Jesus.
The self-offering of God, to and for sinful humanity, is love beyond comprehension. God is not demanding death because of our sinfulness, but rather God is giving life to us and conquering death for our sakes, though we do not deserve such love. God is life and we are of death. God enters into our death to give us his life.
Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’ Ezekiel 33:11
The prophet is unmistakably clear! God is a God of life and not death. If the death of the wicked grieves God, how could we think that the death of Jesus, who is righteous, would be a pleasing and satisfying sacrifice? God is never pleased by any death. It is against his own nature, for he is life and love.
God is not enabled by Jesus’ death to forgive us. The only sense in which God is pleased with the death of Jesus is that it is the selfless demonstration of his own love which knows no limits. Showing this love, even to the point of death, was why Jesus was sent into the world. He comes to change our minds about God, because we did not understand the immensity and endless nature of his love.
Jesus came to show us the unending love of God. He does this faithfully, even unto death. His faithfulness to eternal love is what pleases God, and this love is the true message of the gospel symbolized by the cross.
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