I recall conversations with Fr. Arthur in which he expressed his discomfort with interpretations of the Atonement which suggest the appeasement of an angry God through the cruel and innocent suffering of Jesus. Perhaps he was reacting to a certain line of older devotional thought that does indeed seem to treat the question of man’s redemption as if it were only an attitude problem on the part of God which the crucifixion adjusted. The Father had a psychological need to vent his wrath but is somehow satisfied by seeing the particularly gruesome torments of this one man, His Son, in fact.

I confess that I am similarly uncomfortable with devotional material that seems captivated by historical descriptions of Roman flogging and crucifixion techniques and clinical descriptions of just how death on a cross occurs. Am I to be reassured by these medical revelations that Christ’s pain was indeed bad enough to assure salvation? Must we believe that crucifixion is really the worst way to die? And how does one measure suffering, anyway?

Over against such interpretations it must be clearly asserted that the Christian faith does not teach that the world was redeemed by suffering, injustice, cruelty or death, no matter how bad. The world has been redeemed by love. Furthermore we must add without hesitation that this redeeming, life giving love is that of the Father as much as it is that of the Son. The Father who stands above and behind the cross is present not as an angry, vengeful god, but as the One who gave and is always giving the Son for the sake of the world. He remains the origin and foundation of the Son’s mission even at it’s outermost point: "My God, my God why have you forsaken me" (Mat 27:46).

The story of God’s testing Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his only son Isaac (Gen 22:1ff) is one of the Old Testament lessons provided for the Paschal Vigil. It provides in this context a moving and illuminating paradigm of Christ’s sacrifice. As the story unfolds it becomes clear that there are two sacrifices involved. Most obviously there is Isaac’s sacrifice. He carries the wood up the Mount of Moria and was the one physically bound and placed on the altar. But as the story unfolds we find ourselves reflecting on the even more moving sacrifice of Abraham who is giving his son in this sacrifice. The story is sometimes called, and rightly, the Sacrifice of Abraham. So is the Passion of Christ the sacrifice also of the Father.

None of this makes the Holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ or His physical and psychological sufferings only incidental, merely tragic particulars of the story. These elements of the passion history have about them a mysterious and divinely founded necessity. "Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" the risen Lord rhetorically asks the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:26). And on Pentecost Peter declares the suffering of the Messiah to be "according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). Precisely this suffering under Pontius Pilot and this cross erected outside the walls of Jerusalem and this death and burial have a meaning and value that distinguishes them from all the other sufferings, injustices and tragedies that men have experienced. The distinction lies not in their quality or amount but because they have been taken up into the love between the Father and the Son a love that is poured forth on the world in and through the Spirit.

The early Church did not set out to convert the world armed with only a vague notion of how the world’s salvation had been accomplished. It did not preach an abstract principle of divine love, a gospel of "luv, luv, luv," but it proclaimed Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Here is made concrete the fundamental determination of the Father to love the world even to the point of sharing "helplessly" in its wounds and in the wages of its sin. Here is manifested the love of the Son who in free and active obedience makes the will and plan of the Father completely His own, "unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). Here from the Crucified One issues the cleansing water and the life imparting blood as a token of the Holy Spirit who streams forth into the world for the forgiveness of sins and new life.

The sufferings of Christ are precious also because He did not leave them behind but carried them up with Him in the Resurrection and Ascension. "See my hands," He can say to Thomas. In the Holy Eucharist under outward forms we believe that there is present and received the Body and Blood of the living and glorified Lord who comes even through the closed doors of time and distance. But at the same time the consecrated bread and wine are always the Body broken for us and the Blood shed for us. And the Lord Jesus would always have us know that he comes and is present to us as the gift of the Father who eternally sends forth His Son and anoints Him with the Spirit of power. "My Father gives you the true bread from heaven" (John 6:32).

If we were not so used to it the Creed would always jolt us when it passes abruptly from "born of the Virgin Mary" to "suffered under Pontius Pilot" without the slightest acknowledgment of any biographical material between those two points. This is what it is essential to know about Jesus of Nazareth: that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world and that the Son by His obedience unto death has glorified the Father and been glorified by Him (cf. 1 John 4:14; John 17:4f).

"The Cross shines forth in mystic glow," we sing at Vespers during Holy Week. May that Holy Light bring health and salvation to all who look to it as it shines forth again in the Church’s sacramental celebrations in these days!

Sincerely,
Fr. Richard G. Herbel