“I’ve completed the work that my father sent me to do”, He looked down from the cross and He said, “That work, it is finished.”
Since I’m humble, some people go as far as claiming that I am the second most humble person in Linköping, if not in the whole of Sweden, I wouldn’t claim that I fully understand what exactly happened on that hill outside Jerusalem all those years ago. I seriously wouldn’t. The cross, as they say, is much of a mystery to me. But it is one I believe in.
There are many facets to the events that took place though, and many interpretations of what it means. I have a hard time with some of them, like most people nowadays I guess. The idea that God would need and demand blood sacrifice to forgive us is foreign to me, as is some of the ideas that take the “ransom” and “payment of depts” metaphores a bit to literaly and make the whole thing be about some heavenly transaction that goes on above our heads. Metaphores that admittedly Paul and other writers of the new testament do use.
Still, I believe that Jesus’ death and His subsequent resurrection was the triumphant finale to the work that He came to do. A work of grace and mercy and love, that brought about our salvation, our redemption, and reconciled us, along with all His creation, with Himself, with God.
Instead of the perspectives that are foreign, I will point out one that is very close to me. I’ve stressed it before, in my urgings for pacifism amongst other things, and I feel that it can not be stressed enough really.
That is, the example Jesus sets for us with his life, and death.
Ofcourse, as my sister once interjected, and as my previous post says, the work Jesus did was unique, and it was once and for all. But this only strengthens my point even more.
There is no doubt that the idea that we can have Jesus Christ as an example for how we should live our own lives, is something the early christians believed in. Paul in his doxology over Christ’s work on the cross writes that:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! (Phil 2:5-8)
Prior to the events of Golgothia, Jesus washes his disciples feet. He almost has to force Peter to allow him to do so, as it was far from fitting that he, their Rabbi, did the work of slaves and lowly servants. Afterwards he says to them:
“Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. ”You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. (John 13:12b-15)
Can we not say the same thing about His work on the cross then? That if he, as our Lord and Teacher, died for us, we should die for eachother? If He conquered evil, death and sin by humbling himself, and remaining obidient to His Father’s will, to and through His death, how then can we, as christians claim to conquer or solve or accomplish anything if not by the same way, and with the same attitude?
That way and attitude of love, submission, obidience, and self-sacrifice, and by overcoming evil with good. Just as He did on the cross.
The picture I found on Flickr, and was taken by D_m_i_t_r_y. The quotes below it is from Petra’s live album “Captured in Time and Space”, and the title from their song with the same title. Listen to it here.