Sometimes I attend services in an Episcopal Church. Before people share the bread and wine known as communion, the priest makes a dramatic gesture. Holding the circular bread-wafer so that all can see, the priest exclaims: “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” In unison, the response comes from the people: “Let us keep the feast.”
The image, Christ as the Passover, is biblical in origin. Paul, writing to the ancient community in the Greek city of Corinth (see 1Corinthians chapter 5) draws a parallel image between the lamb slaughtered in the Passover Seder meal and the death of Jesus on the cross. In the account from the Hebrew Bible, the book of Exodus, lamb’s blood painted above the door as the sign to the angel of death to pass that house and go to the next. Similarly, Paul writes that the spilling of Jesus’ blood on the cross is the sign of his followers passing over from death to life. While I find this image powerful and rich in meaning, there has been a troubling evolution in Christian theology around the interpretation of the death of Jesus.
As a Progressive Christian, I believe that the message of Jesus, both his way of life and his teachings, is an example for me to follow as a guide to living life fully. Their essence conveys truth about living in ways that are grace-filled, loving, and rich in compassion. The message of Jesus was controversial. In fact, it upset the religious leaders of his day to such a degree that they plotted to kill him. As astute politicians, they found a way to have him labeled as an enemy of the state, a subversive bent on overthrowing the government. The penalty was capital punishment. And so it was that Jesus was crucified. But even facing death, he remained true to his message and continued to demonstrate love and compassion toward others.
From this perspective, I understand the redemptive ministry of Jesus to be the way he taught by word and example. His life and death embodied how people can reach beyond horrible circumstances so that they become life-giving: sharing love and compassion with others. His way was about transforming horrible events to become possibilities; his truth was that loving-kindness was always available for us to share; his life demonstrated how to give of one’s own life for others.
Christ is our Passover not because he was slaughtered like a scapegoat. In ancient cultures, once a year, as a way to overcome the sins of the community, people would gather around a goat and touch it — placing their sins on the goat. The goat was either let out in the wild to die or slaughtered. A scapegoat represents a kind of sympathetic magic: ritualizing something to make it happen. Jesus was not a scapegoat. Instead, he was a prophetic teacher who was killed because he threatened the status quo of organized religion.
Some Christian theologies have made Jesus into a scapegoat. In particular, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement states that God requires payment for every sin we’ve ever committed. In this context, the suffering and death of Jesus was the payment for every sin committed by human beings. This makes Jesus into a magical scapegoat and God into a bookkeeper who wants debts paid. I find that the concept of substitutionary atonement is incompatible with the God revealed by Jesus whom John, the beloved disciple, called love. A deity that requires the death of another to atone for grievances is simply cruel and barbaric. This concept, which developed and came to the forefront among 17th Century writers, is a contradiction of the teachings of Jesus and makes no sense to many people today.
The death of Jesus was politically orchestrated by devious religious leaders. But the way Jesus recognized and embraced the false accusations and victimization as an enemy of the state turned this death-dealing act into something inspiring and life-giving. He forgave those who accused him, beat him, and killed him because he recognized their frailty and saw them with compassion. In doing so, he showed us the way from death to life.
For my part, I appreciate the image of Christ, the Passover that was sacrificed. It conveys to me that the good news of Jesus was so good that even people in his day found it too unsettling to accept. Jesus taught that the last will be first and the first will be last and what is done for others is done for him. Such teachings went before the prevailing culture of his day just as they are contrary to the values of our culture today. When we keep the feast, we are invited to follow in his way.
Photo credit: Corey Holms via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
I agreee that the “substitutionary” atonement is simply wrong. It makes the Father a revengeful monster, Jesus an imaginary thing in His death, and so on.
I start with the more typical ritual–the slaughter and holocaust of an animal. I feel sure that the ancient felt (some like Mayans who sacrificed the WINNERS of the games) that the point of the animal sacri-fice (make sacred/make different) was to spiritualize the material thing–to transform this world into the Other World. It jointed the “ruah” (spirit/wind/air) as it ended its “flesh/basar” existence of death by JOINING GOD (a nicely ambiguous phrase–“in heaven” “part of God Himself–i.e., the Holy Spirit–theosis?)
The death of Jesus into a resurrected Person. It was his Person that Died and Rose–we fail to appreciate the ancient world’s conceptualization. Jesus died in the flesh, as I believe Paul puts it like a slaughtered animals. We all die. He was mortal. He was flesh. He BECAME spirit(ual); he joined the Other World, while still–miraculously being part of ours. And what he did–we do. Daily. We are all sinners. We carry anger, pride, lust–in our tone of voice, in our carriage, in white privilege, in the way we think about other skin colors, in envying a good car, and so on. That is what we kill–our flesh. Died for our sins–meaning not so much “for” and “our” as something like….his flesh shows that we can kill off part of our Person, each of us and live a new life (NOT AFTER DEATH, BUT in the kingdom of heaven which is “at hand.” I like to think that we become like Luke Skywalker in the end–different but still involved, not better (nor worse), but seeing things from a totally, totally different perspective than everyone else–Like Jesus.
Excellent: Christians must understand that love is sacrifice. If you love you will know pain; but in a unique way. Who has not grieved and felt abandoned when one leaves us, as at the death of one we loved. Who has not said they would put their lives on the line for those they loved, no matter what. Who has not been hurt when a loved one failed, fell down or even returned our love with anger and resentment. These are examples of “small” crucifixions. Yet, because we love, with Christ we say, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” Why would we have to complicate and twist what’s almost common understanding…We are all children of God who loves us; and in the Christ we see the truth of our God and who we are called to be….