We are told in the Nicene Creed
that JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED 'FOR US'.
Those two short and simple words contain the essence of Christianity, and
distinguish it from all other religions.
Short and simple as they are, they carry such vast and far-reaching implications
that he would be a rash man indeed who would claim to have penetrated to the
bottom of their mystery.
We can at least begin on familiar ground by thinking of 'us'.
We are separate individual personalities,
but at the same time we are all mixed up with one another.
No one lives alone in empty space.
Each of us is bound up with others
in a family, a community, a nation,
in the human race as a whole.
We cannot do any act whatsoever without some effect on others, whether the
effect be great or small, direct or indirect, at short range or at long range.
And so the first and all subsequent choices of evil on the
part of a human being affected and affect the race as a whole.
Somewhere, somehow, some time,
humanity took a wrong turning,
and we are all affected by the consequences.
We inherit not only the power to choose evil,
but a positive tendency to choose evil;
we are born into an environment in which it is easy and attractive to choose
evil.
Both individually and collectively we find ourselves involved at every turn
in a network of evil.
If the Biblical explanation of this is to be taken literally,
it would seem that the situation is due to man having been influ?enced
by some non-human spiritual force in rebellion against God.
On the other hand, there are many people who think
that the Biblical 'devil' is meant only as a symbol,
or personification, of the inherited tendency of mankind to make bad choices.
We are not called upon here to settle this point:
our concern is with the results, which are plain enough.
However it came about,
humanity turned away from God,
leaving him with the problem (if we may so put it)
of changing the direction of the race so that humanity would come back to
him.
Compulsion being ruled out, the return had to be voluntary;
yet it had to be made certain.
Therefore God himself became man and led the way.
But why the way of the Cross?
Let us first be clear about what the Cross involved for God.
The fact that it has become the accepted symbol of Christianity has led many
people to concentrate their attention on the physical sufferings of Jesus.
This is neither very healthy nor very helpful.
Terrible as those sufferings must have been, we are not entitled to say that
physically they were more severe than countless men and women have had to
endure.
To pretend that they are unique is to discredit Christianity.
But it is certainly fair to imagine that they were as grievous as the worst
physical pain that any human being has been called upon to suffer.
The Passion of Jesus did not, however, consist entirely of
the physical sufferings of his crucifixion and death.
To these must be added the mental suffering that springs from love rejected.
In his case this must have been far beyond our imagining inasmuch as his
love for men was far beyond our imagining.
To understand in any degree the
meaning of the Passion we must strive to think what it must have been to
Jesus to see his love and his message rejected and misunderstood not only
by the general public but by his most intimate and carefully instructed friends
and disciples, to know that they were disappointed by his apparent failure
and that at the crisis they would desert him and even betray him to the authorities.
Yet there was more still than that.
Surely, it may be argued,
if he was God
he knew that all would come right,
that he would rise again
and that the disciples would rally.
If so, the whole effect of the Passion is gravely weakened.
It is, however, clear from a careful study of the Gospel
narratives
that in fact Jesus, before he died, had to go through the utter bitterness
of disillusionment,
and to feel that he was just an ordinary man,
that God had let him down,
and that there was no more hope.
Nothing else can explain his despairing cry, in the opening words of the
Twenty-second Psalm,
'MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?'
In some way, which must be a mystery to us, but which we can accept as a
fact,
that sense of union with the central mind and spirit of the universe that
he had constantly experienced throughout his life was withdrawn for a time,
and he became mere man,
and man deprived of the consciousness of the presence of God.
Only after enduring that most bitter suffering?
far more bitter to him than it could be to any of us,
because of his infinitely closer relationship to God?
could he say at last,
'IT IS FINISHED'.
Though, because of our imperfect knowledge, we cannot tell
how this could have been, we can see that it must have been, and that it
was this foreseen ordeal, and not the mere anticipation of physical suffering,
which alone can adequately explain his agony in the garden of Gethsemane.
That the early Christians realized the point is clear from the fact that
they took pains to record incidents which, on any other explanation, they
would have been only too ready to suppress, as casting a reflection not
only on the divinity of Jesus but even on his human fortitude.
We may take it, then, that in his Passion
Jesus sounded the uttermost depths of physical, mental, and spiritual misery.
But what does it mean to you and me,
either as individuals or as members of the human race?
In what sense was this done 'for us'?
How could these sufferings, however great, change the direction of humanity
and lead to the eventual gathering of all men into the companionship of God?
It would indeed be impossible here to deal adequately with this inexhaustible theme, which has inspired countless speeches and writings. But we must try to sketch the bare outlines of an answer, going on from the more simple to the more complicated aspects of the question.
One evident result of the Passion of Christ is that it gives
us the certainty
that God understands and appreciates our difficulties, temptations, and sufferings.
He has himself been through them all.
We are assured not only of his love but of his sympathy.
Again, few will deny that he has given us a unique and outstanding
demonstration of love in action.
Jesus chose to pursue the way of love without regard to the cost.
Nothing could make him think of himself or forget others.
He even asked forgiveness for his executioners and tormentors.
In his last moments he thought of his fellow-sufferers and of his mother.
By his conduct he gave men forever an ideal by which to live and an example
that they know in their hearts they should strive to copy.
He showed, too, the ultimate powerlessness of evil against
active and positive good.
The evil in man was permitted to do its worst against him, but he remained
superior to it.
Never again need men believe in the possibility of the final triumph of evil.
Yet Christianity has always insisted that the effects of
the Passion were even greater and more positive.
On the basis of the results so far noted it can be said that God has given
us an objective and a signpost.
But we need not only to be shown the way but also to be given the power to
go along the way.
It is quite clear from our own experience that in practice people do not
invariably choose the way to God, even though they know perfectly well what
that way is.
Even when we want to go the right way, there are all sorts of
obstacles and difficulties, both in ourselves and in our circumstances.
It is indeed much to know that God understands and sympathizes with our position;
but we should like an assurance that he is doing something positive about
it,
for if it is left to us the chances of any of us reaching the objective are
pretty hopeless.
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