Crucifixion helps make meaning of pain in church, world

Crucifixion helps make meaning of pain in church, world by Jamie L. Manson

The author is reducing his death to a political act. Don't ignore the salvic implications of it. One can still reject the scandal of an angry God who demands the blood of his own Son as an act of atonement without reducing Good Friday to just another martyrdom.

Jesus came to experience something that he could not experience in any other way. Looking at the Gospels together shows what that was.

Start with the Last Supper and the promise to not drink of the fruit of the vine until He does so in the Father's kingdom. Then move forward to John's Gospel where He said, "I thirst" and was given wine or vinegar, which he drank. He either than became an unworthy servant or what happened just prior to His thirst was salvic.

The synoptic gospels simply deny what John witnessed by saying that He was prevented from getting wine by those who wanted to wait to see if Elijah came for him - however John is fairly clear - although the meaning of the paradox has been lost.

The question becomes, why did Jesus cry out for Elijah as the suffering servant? John answers that question too.

When He said "Woman, behold your son - John, behold your mother," he was abandoning his divine origins - which Mary had told him of ("And she kept all these things in her heart") as well as his mission (He did not command John to baptize all nations, but to take care of his grandmother - John was son of Zebedee and Salome - Joseph's daughter). Picture the reaction of Mary to this. It likely broke her spirit and any emotion support she had provided to Jesus on the cross was lost in a torrent of tears and likely a turning away. Without this support, Jesus could finally be crushed as the sinner is crushed - causing him to cry out in despair to Elijah - not in a fulfillment of prophesy but as an authentic act of grief.

This clearly puts the locus of salvation not on bloody atonement, but on the atonement of the spirit - where Jesus shared the separation from God the way mankind does in a world of sin.

Of course, the implications of this for morality are profound, since it points to a humanistic rather than a theistic formulation. If morality is for man, a version of natural law where homoesexuals are "disordered" is clearly not in keeping with God's will. Just the opposite - as is the Church's prior fetish with adolescent masturbation. If one need no longer fear Hell for violating "God's rights" when a possibly fatal pregnancy presents itself, the decision to allow an indirect, or even a direct, abortion in Phoenix can be seen in a much different light.