The ‘meaning of the Cross’ is something we think and wonder about especially during the Lenten Season. It’s not that we don’t think about it at other times during the year, but our Lenten journey brings it to the fore.
‘Jesus died for our sins’ is perhaps the response we would hear most often throughout Christendom if the question were posed: ‘What is the meaning of the Cross?’ Or ‘What does Good Friday mean to you?’
This response would be part and parcel of the Magisterial Church’s view from at least 300 CE and is what most of us heard / believed since childhood. This view, even though there were and are alternative understandings, is certainly present in either hard or soft forms in Eucharistic liturgies in many churches across all denominational lines. We might not be sure what it all means, but there it is: Jesus was the sin bearer who died for my sins and yours.
One of the major strands that fuels this view is the notion that God is angry because of our sins, either ‘original sin’ or more recent ones, and that in order to escape God’s wrath someone must pay the penalty and make restitution. God’s justice can be satisfied only if a ‘sin bearer’ takes those sins upon themselves. That sin bearer, so this understanding goes, is Jesus. I would suggest that such a view depicts God as angry, violent, judgmental and putative and certainly not the God revealed to us by Jesus of Nazareth.
But there are other ways to look at the meaning of the Cross. For example, Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of God. The Gospels are clear that this was his mission. This Kingdom is for the earth now, even as it is in heaven. The Lord’s Prayer says that explicitly. Scholar John Dominic Crossan is quoted as saying: ‘Heaven is in great shape; earth is where the problems are.’ Jesus’ teachings and healings were essentially done for and with those we might describe as the peasant class and the underclass of the time. He spent most of his time in the smaller towns and villages of Galilee. He loved and embraced all who were mistreated by the domination system of the day, much to the chagrin on the affluent ruling class. He would not stand down.
Palm Sunday is the classic example of Jesus saying to the establishment, both Rome and the corrupt religious leaders, that the ‘last and the least’ are those that God invites to the banquet table. To be part of God’s Kingdom, you must embrace them and share resources so as to insure that all are cared for. He defied their authority. But the empire, any empire, cannot tolerate such views for any length of time. They executed him.
As biblical scholar Marcus Borg strongly suggests (see his The Heart of Christianity, Chapter 7, ‘The Kingdom of God.’):
Jesus was executed by the empire. The domination system of the day killed him ... This is the political meaning of Good Friday: it is the domination systems “No” to Jesus. This is also the political meaning of Easter: Easter is God’s “Yes” to Jesus and his vision, and God’s “No” to the domination system.
Rome killed Jesus; not God. If this, then, is the way we see the Cross then it removes from the equation a violent and vindictive understanding of God and brings to the fore God’s compassion, justice and love for all, especially those who have been abused by systems established and maintained for the benefit of the few.
So during Lent, and especially Holy Week, as we consider the Cross, we have the opportunity to see afresh God’s message of love, justice and compassion for all of God’s people. It was a message for which Jesus gave his life. If there is any sin that we certainly need to confess it is the sin of our reticence to follow in his footsteps (hopefully not through death) in confronting and resisting any and all policies and social structures that do not embrace Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God. What a message for the present day!