The crucifixion of Jesus is exactly what it looks like: a monstrous display of human evil.
Not a working out of God's will.
Not part of a divine plan.
Not some elaborate theological exercise that was necessary in order to heal our humanity.
Theologians have layered the crucifixion in words upon words so thickly that the naked reality of the cross becomes hidden.
What was done to Jesus is what human beings have done to each other over and over again throughout our history.
It is what we do to one another still today.
Our fear, our shame, our anger, our prejudices, our misunderstandings carry us into violence.
Physical violence, yes. War and murder, yes.
But also, and more frequently, in the small violences we do to each other every day with our words, actions, and inactions.
No, God did not engineer the crucifixion.
God did not demand a sacrifice.
In Jesus, God placed mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and love at the center of it all. And accepted the human response that rejected all of it.
But God also refused to let that response be the final word.
Bishop Gene Robinson perhaps said it best: "It's funny isn't it? That you can preach a judgmental and vengeful and angry God and nobody will mind. But you start preaching a God that is too accepting, too loving, too forgiving, too merciful, too kind, you are in trouble..."
We have based our theology of the cross on the idea of a God who is so vengeful and cruel that "He" demanded the horrible death of Jesus as a sacrifice to make forgiveness ok.
That, my friends, is insane.
And just as God would not allow human cruelty to be the final word, so should we not allow this theology, and the image of God on which it is based, to be the final word.
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