Lent V 2.4.06
Christ Church
Morningside
Passion Sunday
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Why did Jesus die?
No, that’s not really the right question – being a human being he would have died sometime anyway – of natural causes, if nothing else. The real question is why did Jesus die the way he did?
There have been a number of very influential theories put forward about why Jesus died over the twenty centuries since the actual events of his life took place. Let me quickly summarize 4 of the most important:
· Some Christians have interpreted Jesus’ death as a form of sacrifice. The Letter to the Hebrews – in the New Testament – presents Jesus as making a sacrificial offering of himself on the cross – reminiscent of the animal sacrifices that took place in the Temple in Jerusalem.
St. Augustine, whose thinking has had a profound influence on the life of the Western Church, picked up this theme in the early 5th Century – he wrote that Jesus “was made a sacrifice for sin, offering himself as a whole burnt offering on the cross of his passion.” (The City of God X, 20) In other words through our sin humanity had become separated from God. It was Jesus, God’s own Son, who restored this relationship by sacrificing himself – again, as St. Augustine wrote, “By his death… he purged, abolished and extinguished whatever guilt there was…”
· Very similar to the idea that Jesus’ death was a sacrifice is the notion that he died so that we could find forgiveness.
We have an Italian, who studied in France and later became Archbishop of Canterbury to thank for developing this theory.
St. Anselm suggested a scheme that sounded a bit like this:
1/. In the beginning God created a perfect humanity
2/. Human beings gradually decide not to obey God (eating of the apple in the Garden of Eden etc.)
3/. Something had to be done about sin so that God’s original plans for humanity can be restored
4/. Jesus, the perfect God-man, was born, suffered and died so that ‘satisfaction’ for the sins of humanity can be made.
In other words Jesus compensates or pays the price or substitutes himself for us and our sin – he accomplishes atonement (at-one-ment)
· Jesus’ death as an example. Back to St. Augustine again. He also believed that Jesus’ life and death was the “demonstration of the love of God toward us.” “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” (John 3.16) “Greater love has no-one that this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15.13)
Jesus shows his love and the love of God for humanity in the fact that he was prepared to die if that was the only way that we could see and hear the message of that love.
· Lastly, the image of Jesus’ death as a victory. By his death and resurrection Jesus defeats the power of sin, death and the forces of evil represented by Satan – the devil – the forces of evil and oppression are forever overcome.
One of the most influential images that goes along with this idea (particularly in the Middle Ages) is that of Jesus going down to hell in the time between his death and resurrection, to smash down its gates and release the souls held in captivity there. Christus victor, Christ the Victor!
Well, those are some of the ‘classic’ interpretations of Jesus’ death, but despite the immense learning and scholarship that these ideas represent (which I am in no way trying to minimize), despite the immense learning and scholarship that these ideas represent, I am still left unsatisfied. I find I am not much further forward. I am still left with the question:
Why did Jesus die the way he did?
Perhaps we can get a little further by taking a step back from the issue and asking another question. Only clergy and politicians usually have the audacity to answer a question by posing another question! But here goes…
To begin to understand why Jesus was prepared to die the death that he did I think we first have to ask ourselves about his goals, his purpose(s), his over all aims – what one might call, in modern-business-development-speak, his mission.
What was Jesus’ mission?
I think that we can get a fairly clear answer to this question if we look at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel. The very first words that Mark has Jesus speak in his written Gospel are these:
“The time has come, [Jesus said] the Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Mark 1.15)
Luke, in his Gospel, fills this out a bit. You remember that early on in Jesus’ ministry he visits Nazareth – the town where he grew up – and goes into the local synagogue on the Sabbath:
“And he [Jesus] stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” (Luke 4.17-19)
This, then, was Jesus’ mission, this was Jesus’ goal – to proclaim and make real in the lives of men and woman and children the Kingdom of God. And that means…
And that means that what Jesus was trying to say and show was that the way life and the world is isn’t the way that it should be, isn’t the way it could be and certainly isn’t the way that God intended or wants it to be.
Life and the world is where people suffer from illness and disease.
Life and the world is where there are the haves and the have-nots.
Life and the world is where people are judged and segregated by all sorts of things – mostly totally arbitrary.
Life and the world is where a few at the top have most of the power and the vast majority have to suffer in silence under their rule.
Life and the world is where happiness or misery, prosperity or poverty, life or death are often no more than accidents of birth or chance.
Life and the world is where the Law is about the Law and not justice, where might is right and violence is used as the norm, where people manipulate each other, where people live in fear, where people live in the darkness or semi-darkness…
The Kingdom of God, on the other hand, is where people are equal/free:
Equally loved, equally respected and cherished; have an equal say, an equal share. Where people are not judged by their colour or creed, by their wealth or status, by their titles, honours or power but for who they are.
The Kingdom of God is where ‘every tear shall be wiped away’, where people will be whole and free and where there will be ‘no more death or crying.’
Jesus came to speak and live this message, this reality.
And so, I believe that Jesus died, and died the death that he did, because people couldn’t or wouldn’t hear this.
(Or at least the people with power and influence didn’t want to hear this).
And they didn’t want to hear this because they knew what Jesus was saying.
They didn’t want to hear because they had too much to loose.
They didn’t want to hear because the Kingdom of God was/is subversive, radical, revolutionary: ‘the first will be last and the last first!’ This is not what those in power, the haves, those who have made their way ‘up the greasy pole’ want to hear!
And so they dealt with it. They dealt with him [Jesus] in the only way they knew how – they tried to destroy him.
And so Jesus died as he did because in the end he had 3 choices:
He could run away.
He could compromise.
Or he could carry on and suffer the consequences, whatever they may be.
And that’s what he did, right up to the very end.
Why did Jesus die the way he did?
Because some wanted him to
And because (given what he had come to do and say) he had to
And so we thank Jesus for having the courage of his convictions so that we have the chance to hear and experience the message, the reality that he came to show us – that the Kingdom of God is at hand – here and now – and for all eternity!
Simon
Justice
Lent V 2.4.06