Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 9, 2024 – Quote for the Day:
“… instead of thinking of what God was doing on the cross as his way of satisfying his law and justice, we need to realize that Jesus was healing us. Indeed, we are told we are healed by his stripes. Jesus was taking our wrath, taking our evil, and transforming it, by grace, into the love of God. The cross of Christ says ‘No to Wrath and Yes to Love!’ It is the way out of the human dilemma of violence, hatred and warfare – the ever-escalating, unending cycle of retributive violence when we seek justice by repaying an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth.
Truly, repaying an eye-for-an-eye merely continues spiritual blindness and death. It is a perversion and distortion of God’s divine nature to assume that he must be ‘satisfied’ by vengeance and retaliation. Wrath describes the hostility of mortal human beings toward God’s grace – the cross of Christ says ‘No to Wrath and Yes to Love!’
Jesus did not sentence anyone to a hell of eternal torture while he was dying on the cross. He did not threaten those who were beating and torturing him with payback – he didn’t tell them that one day they would pay for what they were doing. Jesus forgave not just those who were physically present – but all humanity for all time. God the Father was not punishing Jesus, God the Son, on the cross. Rather… God saves us from ourselves, from our violence and hatred, from religion, from our spiritual captivity, from meaningless lives of death – and, returning good for our evil, offered us his love, his forgiveness and his grace.”
Originally published in:
Spiritual Soup for the Hungry Soul, Volume 2
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