gfs@uunet.uu.net (12/24/90)
Why Does Jesus Suffering and Death make any Sense? The question was raised, why does Jesus suffering and death make any sense? I have seen explanations ranging from a perfect human sacrifice to a point of view that he was just another poor sucker who got the shaft. The reason I am writing this is that I myself asked this exact question, and now have an answer. The first Key is something I have to admit I do not fully understand, and that is God's Justice. God's justice is to the effect that God never fails at anything He does. The old testament has a verse (paraphrased here): "A word that issues from the Lord God's mouth does not return to Him until it has been fulfilled." I believe the real bottom line of many, many things is the Justice of God. Second, by God's Justice, sin has bad consequences. Everything anyone does not based out of love for God or fellow man, and causes separation from perfection of good and God, is sin. When sin is committed, something bad will happen. It is exactly like the laws of physics. You step off of a cliff, and you fall down. If you drink poison, you will die. If you part ways with God, it is a contradiction of the reality of your existance. Ultimately, someone will suffer. There will be no sin that will not have bad consequences (if there was, this would contradict Justice, as mentioned above.) xe{<J Third, sin came into the created universe. So now, what could God do about it? Justice says that the consequences must happen. The price must be paid. But God loved his creation and did not want it to be destroyed by its sin. It is really important to put yourself into the mind of God here, and ask the question, what can I do? If I love so much and want so much to fix the situation, who can do it? And the answer, I will do it Myself. Since it is My own Justice that demands the price be paid for sin, I will take the consequences and suffering Myself. I am God, I can make this choice, and I Love enough to do it. God cannot ask anyone else to do this for Him. His Justice demands that His creation end up what it was created to be, good, not full of error and sin. Therefore, if His Justice demands it, then it is Just that His Justice bear the suffering for making it happen. No man, no perfect man, no other being besides God himself can take this burden. Exactly how God suffering allows God to satisfy Justice and remove from the creation the bad consequences of sin, is the mystery of Justice that I mentioned at the beginning of this essay. Consider, however, the very mystery of our own reality. Of our own creation. Modern science does not yet know exactly what matter is. (Ask a physicist) Bound up in the mystery of our own physical existance, bound up in the fact that God can create, bound up in the fact that God did create us, I think is the key to how when God suffered, it healed or opened the way for God to heal the creation. I have a mental picture of the moment of Jesus death on the cross, of a shock wave eminating out of him, which rippled through all of creation, causing the lightning, thunder, earthquakes, and tearing the curtain of the Temple open from top to bottom. We read of this in the Gospel, where those present and witness to this were fearful and exclaimed "Surely this Jesus was the Son of God". This is the mystery of the Redemption. Praise God forever for it! This points out a some very important points. This is why the truth of the true Divinity of Jesus Christ is so important. Jesus was a real and actual part of the One God. Jesus was fully God and fully man. A dual nature. Just how God can be God and be incarnated as a man, and experience what the man Jesus experienced, is part of the mystery of the Trinity which some understand better than others. Personally, I approach a "mystery" by considering the meaning of the results of it, not to try to prove or disprove it. This is a perfect example of what I mean. If the Trinity was false and Jesus was not God, then his suffering and death has no real power or meaning. If Jesus was just a man, even a perfect man, ransoming the sins of the world is only legal fiction. I accept that Jesus was God in a way that I do not understand fully, because this makes the whole mission, purpose, suffering and death of Christ make sense. Another point that should immediately jump out at us, is the very practice of self-sacrifice for others is the very core of Christianity. We are called every day to take suffering on ourselves for the sake of others. "There is more happiness in giving than receiving." Think about it, giving is suffering the loss of something. Suffering for someone and giving go hand in hand. Does it surprise us so much that God does exactly the same thing that we are called to do, self-sacrifice? Do we have the concept about Christianity that Jesus Christ was one of the most loving, self-sacrificing persons to ever live but that God the Father in Heaven is a mean old guy who put Jesus through it all? Do not be misled, God was there on the cross in Jesus. God's Justice that must be fulfilled, was there on the cross, suffering for Justice sake. Everything we know and respect and love about Jesus is what we know about God Himself. The disciples asked, "Let us see the Father and it will be enough for us." Jesus answered, "When you see me, you see the Father, I am in my Father and the Father is in me. I and the Father are one." We learn about God Himself in the life of Jesus. We do not have many images or mental pictures of God Himself, (perhaps the white bearded older man on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel) You know why? Because there is no other truer image of God Himself other than Jesus. There is no other representation or picture in human terms of God Himself better than Jesus. Jesus is not the only way to think of God (God can be seen in all of creation), but Jesus is the Perfect image, meaning that in Him there is nothing lacking. You do not have to look beyond Jesus Christ to see, find or hear God. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Sincerely, In Christ Greg Shay [I see the key as being not legalistic arguments about Christ fulfilling God's justice, but rather in our solidarity with Christ. Paul on a number of occasions speaks of baptism as joining us in Christ's death, which becomes for us a death to sin. His views in general have been described as "Christ mysticism", i.e. as the view that Christ is in us and we are in him. Let me try an explanation: The effects of sin are so profound that they can lead to nothing but death. Only our death as human beings and rebirth as spiritual creatures will do. When we participate in Christ's death and resurrection, that is what happens. I also consider it significant that in Christ, God accepted the suffering that has come to humanity through sin. By accepting the consequence of sin himself, they can no longer separate us from God, because he is there with us. --clh]