We are in the season of Lent. Yes, for those who keep track of such things
I am horribly late in starting to comment on Lent. But, this is the season when we reflect on the
coming sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
I have heard the story. God was so angry at humans, that in order to
bring them closer to him he came to earth as Christ, and then he put Christ on
the Cross to die the death that we deserved, a slow horrible, demeaning death. While
on the cross, God gave vent to the wrath that he had been saving up for millennia,
and Jesus took it.
Sorry I just do not believe that.
John 3:16 Does not read. “For God so hated mankind that he could not
look at them without wanting to puke so he sent his only begotten son to take
the punishment that they deserved.”
Instead I offer you:
Psalm
51: 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God,
will not despise.
Or
Hebrews
10:8 First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin
offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were
offered in accordance with the law. 9 Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to
do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that
will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all.
It is my belief that it is we who demanded
sacrifice. We pinned it on God, but it
us who demanded that animals and at times human be put to death. I agree with the scholars that assert that it
was our insistence that sacrifice be made.
Blood sacrifice is in the history of every nation, save the First
Nations people of North America.
I remember attending a Christian conference
and one the speakers, one of the most popular, spoke of animal and human
sacrifices. He talked of people being
set on fire, he talked of animals being slaughtered, and just as I was thinking
that he would talk about our misguided efforts to eradicate Witchcraft with the
Inquisition, he mentioned pagans. We have
no moral footing to point out the sins of other faiths.
I believe that if you and I were there we
would crucify Jesus. If there would have been a more
horrendous means of execution we would have used that instead. I would have held one of his arms to the
cross beam as you drove in the nails, then for the other arm we would have
swapped places.
We could not stand Christ. I think the message that God loves us,
despite the shitty things we do, is detestable for us. It is us, who are caught with the demand for
punishment. It is us, that calls for the “pound
of flesh.” God simply wants to be in
communion with us.
Those who insist that it was God who led
the execution of Christ, draw upon the books of the law that prescribed
sacrifice. You stole your neighbour's
Macaroni and Cheese, then take two hamsters to the temple and offer them to
God. These books are used as a means of
explaining how God wanted sacrifice. I
believe that the sacrifices called for in scripture call for us to limit our
demand for punishment to the murder of animals.
The crucifixion is one the mysteries of the
Christian faith. I think there will come
a time when we understand fully all that happened on the Cross and in the
resurrection of Jesus. Only then will we
have complete knowledge. But for now I
choose to believe that it was us, not God, who killed Jesus.
I would ask that you read the following, he
says this much more eloquently than I do:
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