4 Windows on the Cross: Suffering, Sin, Shame, Scars

Okay, so this is really a Good Friday post rather than an Easter Sunday post, but I am just now getting around to writing it.
This really started out as comments on the page of my Facebook Friend, Lance Schmitz, pastor of the "World's Largest Nano-Church", Capitol Hill Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City.


Lance likes to post thought provoking articles and get input and this is one that he posted: No, the Crucifixion is Not About Bloody Child Sacrifice Being Necessary for Forgiveness  by someone named Hellen Painter Dollar. Her post is long but she is arguing against the theological idea of "substitutionary atonement", that is that God required an innocent blood sacrifice in the person of Jesus to pay for our sins. She is not, however, saying that it is without meaning or purpose, but rather posits that cross is God's way of becoming fully human and identifying with all who suffer.

My first reaction to the comments on this article was to say that there is good scriptural backing to the idea of Christ as a substitution for us. 

• In John 1:29, John the Baptist declares that Jesus is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world". "Lamb of God" really could only have one reference and that would be the sacrificial lambs in the temple.  An interesting thing to say as the death and sacrifice was not in focus at all in this point in the story. I wonder what people took away from that statement in the context of Jesus' baptism.

• Peter and Paul's epistles are rife with the metaphor of substitution
  

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.  1 Peter 3:18

Of course, the actual theological construct of "substitutionary atonement" went through various phases and precisions in church history: ransom theory, Christus Victor, penal subsitution. (See substitutionary atonement).  Each of these has verses that will back them up. 

I remember hearing church historian Professor Andrew Walls speak at a conference in 2002. He posited that the church develops doctrines (already existent in scripture) as the gospel message is carried across cultural boundaries. "Christ as Messiah" (Jewish context) becomes "Christ as Lord" when the gospel goes from Israel to Greece and Rome. According to Walls, the concept of the "atonement" was crystallized as the message was taken to the germanic tribes of northern Europe.

Could it be that these different theological ideas are all just windows looking out on the same central truth, providing different views of the same reality? 

In the original post above, Hellen Painter Dollar says that the cross is about Christ joining in our suffering. I believe that is true. And Philippians 3:10  turns this on its side when it talks about the fellowship we have of sharing in Christ's suffering.

And in shame-based cultures (Africa and the Middle East), people are not as concerned about the GUILT aspect of sin (as we are in Western cultures) but the SHAME that comes with our own sin or the sin of others around us. In these cultures, an important part of the Good News is that Christ taking our shame when he dies on the cross. (The shame aspect is what causes fathers to kill daughters who have been raped due to the excessive shame that has been brought on the family.)


As I reflected on this late Friday evening, I was drawn to Isaiah 53. Assuming you see this passage as a prophecy about Jesus' crucifixion, then you can see that the cross works in so many areas, and they are so intertwined it is almost hard to extract the quotes from each other. (quotes taken from NIV)

  1. Suffering and Injustice

• "A man of suffering, familiar with pain" v. 3
• "Surely he took our pain and bore our suffering. . . Afflicted" v. 4
• He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;  v. 7
•  Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, v. 10a
• After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; vs 11a
  

 2. Shame (He was Shamed on the Cross and bore that for us)

•  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. v. 2  

• He was despised and rejected by mankind ..... Like one from whom people hide their faces
  he was despised, and we held him in low esteem v. 3
  (For more on the shame side of things, see Psalms 22:6-7  "But I am a worm and not a man,
  

  scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads."  Also consider that a major aspect of the problem for the "first Adam" was shame, so the Second Adam needs to address that).

3. Healing

• and by his wounds we are healed. v.5

4. Guilt of Sin

• But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him,v. 5
• and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. v. 6
• for the transgression of my people he was punished. v. 8
• and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, v. 10 b 

• by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. v. 11b

Different aspects of the Cross speak more to different people and cultures and also as we go through different phases of life - shame, sickness, guilt of sin, shame, suffering.  

 
What a beautiful mystery! Let's thank
God for the Cross and revel in all that it means and so much that we will never understand.