Had Jesus not been raised from the dead three days after his public execution on a Roman Cross nearly two millennia ago, no one would have ever heard of him. Had Jesus not been raised from the dead, his life as an itinerant rabbi who never traveled more than 100 miles from his birthplace and who left no contemporaneous record, would have long since disappeared from conscious memory.
The teachings of Jesus, absent his resurrection, would not have been remembered. While those teachings were marvelous parables and lessons that advanced social applications and understandings, they were also simply reaffirmations of ancient rabbinic teaching which had preceded him.
Absent his resurrection, Jesus would not have been remembered as a great miracle worker. There were a number of alleged healers and miracle workers who attracted attention in First Century Israel. Those ‘healers’ and ‘miracle workers’ are now only mentioned, never by name or substantiated deed, but given a collective nod as magicians by such ancient historians as Josephus.
Jesus is a powerful presence in our world today because, in the words of a most energetic gospel song, “God Raised Him Up.” His close, broken-hearted followers who were hiding out for fear that the same arrest and execution fate awaited them should they too be caught, SAW Jesus. Those followers were forever transformed by the experience. Indeed, because of their encounter with the risen Jesus, those followers began a movement that changed the course of early western civilization.
The encounters with the risen Jesus have continued to change the course of countless individual lives across our world history. Jesus’ impact on world history itself is beyond enormous. His name, far from forgotten, is well known and used even by the most secular of persons offering such outrageous curses or astonished expressions as, “JESUS H. CHRIST!”**
But there is more than affirming Easter truth.
It seems always to be the case that when God does something wonderful, we human beings want to offer a reason and then find ways to profit from the reasons given. Jesus’ death and resurrection is most certainly an example.
Early Christian authorities within the rapidly growing congregations decided to take a wonderful, life-transforming moment of resurrection and surround it with the theology of the Atonement.
The Theology of the Atonement is coupled with the Theology of Original Sin and is basically this.
The allegorical story goes that Adam screwed up and disobeyed God. Ever since human beings (“All bastard offspring of this faithless Adam,” as one of my Duke professors used to say) are born with original sin. If that Original Sin is left untreated, consignment to hell upon one’s physical death is the consequence.
The Theology of Atonement goes on.
As an antidote to Original Sin, God sent Jesus into the world. Jesus’ whole purpose was to grow among human beings and live a life that would necessitate that he vicariously hang on the cross so that his shed blood would wash away our original sin inherited from old, fruit-eating Adam. This was all God’s plan. Being “washed in the blood” of Jesus is necessary for our salvation from sin and death.
Across the centuries millions of people have found hope in this perspective on Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Today, there are wonderfully faithful people who hold this as a core, spiritual truth. It points them to a life of devoted service to others and a deep and growing faith in God. Bless them and thanks be to God for them.
That said, I have never found much personal meaning in such a theological point of view. Such theology is not helpful.
Among other things, I can’t get past the tragedies inflicted by human beings claiming to be washed in the blood of Jesus who then have claimed license to shed the blood of persons thought infidel, apostate, or damned. And I also find little meaning in the perspective that Jesus served only as a cosmic, sacrificial remedy for innate, inherited, human sin.
Here is what I think.
The man-constructed and written Doctrine of Atonement is based on the resetting of Paul’s understanding and practice as a Pharisaic Jew.
The doctrine itself, designed and implemented over the first three centuries of the growth of Christendom, was used as a litmus test for admission, and more importantly, for the exclusion of persons ‘officially’ deemed heretic and unwashable.
Being immersed in the Blood of Atonement theology and doctrine enforced, defined, and applied across the centuries and in Protestant Evangelical traditions in America since the 19th century particularly, has been and is the cause of horrific examples of condemnation, pogrom, and exclusion.
Rather than fulfilling God’s plan to save humanity by vicariously hanging on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice for human sin, I believe that Jesus was tried illegally and convicted illegally by religious authorities who were greatly threatened by Jesus’ popularity and impact on the public.
Jesus directly challenged the religious authorities of Israel who derived great economic benefit and power from such things as enforcing purity laws, temple taxation, and the various courts dealing with common plea disputes.
The theocratic authorities comprising the Sanhedrin – because of their wanting to retain their power – conspired with the local occupation Roman government authorities to issue a death warrant. Religious authority charged Jesus with blasphemy and convinced occupying Roman authority that the Jesus King of the Jews nonsense would result in an insurrection against Roman authority charged with keeping the peace for taxation purposes.
I believe that Jesus’ capital punishment was carried out in a very public setting under enormous police and military protection as another attempt to control the general population and maintain order within the theocratic government.
I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead as an act of grace and transforming power to demonstrate that Jesus was absolutely right in his proclamation of the reality of The Kingdom of God; a kingdom where life is more than we can possibly now know or define, a kingdom where there is no male, female, Jew or Greek, no foreigner or outcaste, no clean or unclean; only one great fellowship of brothers and sisters in a kingdom where love is never defeated and where hate and all manner of ‘death’ is swallowed up in victory.
This magnificent understanding and proclamation of inclusion, tolerance, seeing people as persons of sacred value, fighting against the hatred at the base of racism, bigotry, misogyny, and all manner of financial, political, and religious exclusions always, ALWAYS, results in the ‘crucifixion’ of people advocating love.
Thank God for raising Jesus up. That intervention has and does change things! It changes people! It means that even in our most hateful and divided times the voices of division – divisive voices even being amplified by religious ‘authority’ – will not be the last word.
Religious nationalism will not last. Theocratic culture wars will not be won. Border walls and the naming of immigrants as having bad blood infecting white people, complicit courts of law and governors agreeing to all manner of penalties to save their power will not last.
Instead, Jesus lives, and love lasts.
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**I have no idea what the “H” stands for. Some scholars think the H comes from a misunderstanding of the transliteration from the Greek, IHS. The H is transliteration of the Greek letter, eta. It is the first letter for the word, Christ. The letters appear on many symbols meaning, Jesus Christ Son of God.