Thoughts on the Cross

He begins his day with confidence. He ends his day with fear. He suffers. Not in body but in mind, not in spirit but in soul. He is shy in the presence of truth, timid in front of righteousness. Faced by the Spirit, he averts his eyes. God is too good, too holy, too pure to withstand. God is not like him, God is not with him. Maybe God is not. Else maybe he is not. This ground of Being, grinds on his heart.

These might be the thoughts of anyone viewing the suffering Christ. It is heavy to say that a man, who is wholly righteous, who knew no sin, became the very stuff of sin. It is nearly impossible to face the truth that his death is because of my sin. Who am I that Christ should die for me? The Cross, the suffering God, is too good, too holy, too pure for me to see with unaided vision. Come, Holy Spirit. Come to bring me sight that I may know my Savior and know the sin that brought to Him this suffering and death.

For me! This doesn't register as true. Nothing in my experience can grant me a frame of reference for this substitutionary death. What is a substitutionary death anyway!  What does the word "propitiation" really mean? How is different from "expiation"? To propitiate is to calm down one who is angry. To expiate is to simply pay off someone else's debt. 

Romans 3:23-26 (RSV) ²³ since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; ²⁶ it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus. 

Is the accumulation of  my sinful acts, my sinful thoughts, sinful heart, my core rebellion, my homicidal and suicidal neglect, so offensive that my Creator is furious in the face of it. Is he so angry that he views me as His personal enemy and as a stranger in His presence? (Depart from me, I never knew you.) It would appear so. Maybe in the death of Jesus, God is satisfied with this perfect payment for a debt I owe? Maybe this dying, this suffering, calms the righteous anger of His holy Father? Hell, I'd be mad if I, a holy god, saw all the sins I have done for these 62 years.

I know I can only point to Jesus, "the dying One," as the sole reason for God's friendship with me. "Nothing in  my hand I bring, simply to the Cross I cling."