What if God is MORE than the stories we believe?

Posts tagged ‘Sin’

Jesus died for our sins?

Something is wrong with “Jesus died for our sins” when we follow the story back to a Father God who needed the death offering of a Son to make things right between Himself and humanity. This story is an ancient explanation of why Jesus died such an ignoble death as a criminal.  The story of Father God needing sacrifice of a divine son made sense to those who were not far historically from animal if not human sacrifice as a way to appease or win favor from all-powerful gods.

What made perfect sense then doesn’t make as much sense now to many. No Loving God, no Abba, No Fathr of Jesus could have required or sent a Son to die to appease the offenses of humanity against the Divine. Abba, God of Jesus, was not One to be offended by our sins, but rather One Who cares what sin does to us–how it enslaves and dehumanizes us.

So, if to some, the Crucifixion of Jesus has no meaning as an appeasement sacrifice, no meaning as a sin-offering opening the gates of heaven, what could Jesus’ Crucifixion mean to them?

What if we look through a different lens at Crucifixion? What if Jesus’ love for us took him to Crucifixion because he was determined to love every single person, regardless of their judgments on him–yes, even the Pharisees, his Roman torturers, and his betraying friends and followers.

What if the real Crucifixion was Jesus letting go of justifiable judgments against those who hated him? What if Jesus realized how his worldview and his God-view threatened the top-down status quo of power? What if Jesus knew that domination would never die until it was replaced by love and letting go even the “justifiable” judgments of self, others, God?

What if Jesus’ Crucifixion was so very much more than a sin-offering or a dyiing for our sins to wipe away the guilt and shame of offending God? What if Jesus’ Crucifixion happened because it was just Jesus truly loving his sisters and brothers. What if truly loving our brothers and sisters ALWAYS takes us to the place where we must choose to let go judgments and assumptions about them over and over again? …and look beyond their judgments and assumptions about us?

Even one hair of a “me-better/smarter/etc-than you” assumption prevents that love. We honor Jesus’ Crucifixion by choosing to love the “enemies” who hate, revile and torture us, for “they know not what they do.” And so we “know not what we do” when we hate, revile, or think ourselves just the tiniest bit better than another.

What do you think?

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