There is nothing unique about the method of Jesus’ execution, crucifixion. The Romans used it across the empire to discourage dissent. Unlike other forms of torture,the victims were nailed or strung up on two bits of wood, a public humiliation,a public display as a deterrent. The cross was a symbol of the regime, of Roman control and might, and the violence used to keep it in power.

And it was not just the Romans that used crucifixion.

There is also nothing unique about the reason for such an end, namely rebellion, in whatever form, against Roman rule and governance. The victims were ‘enemies of the State’.

So,it wasn’t used if someone was a nuisance, a thief, or a blasphemer; or if someone was of the higher classes and had influence. Rather, it was used when a low-born had transgressed the boundary of power and challenged the might of the almighty. And the message to the victim’s followers was: ‘you too will end up like this if you dare to do likewise.’

All the accounts we have of Jesus’ end, whether in the New Testament or other sources, indicate that he did not take up the sword (i.e. engage in armed rebellion) or encourage others to do so. Maybe this was real politik –for confronting Rome with military means led to a quick and painful end, as other would-be messiahs had discovered. Or maybe it was, as some of his followers wrote up in the synoptic gospels, because Jesus believed in bringing peace by dissolving the dichotomies of ‘otherness’: friend vs foe, Jew vs Gentile, them vs us. Instead he saw all people as one new family in God, where equity and mutuality were the norm.

It is likely that Jesus’ words and actions, albeit filtered via the scripturesthat have come down to us, led to his death. His indiscriminate healing practices, his inclusive open table, his parables of inverting normative expectations around hierarchy and justice, his non-violent active resistance to the mythology of Rome, not only threatened many in the religious establishment in the province of Palestine but the political overlords too.

All this I write as a precursor to theories/theologies of atonement. Namely, what is the meaning of Jesus’ death and what did his death achieve? Very Lenten questions. And questions that have divided Christians like none other. And then there’s the sequel too. Namely, what is the meaning of his resurrection, and what does it mean today? Those questions we’ll hold til after Easter.

Regarding atonement, I would ask, firstly, does death, especially tragic death, need to have a meaning? Sometimes things, many things, just happen. We are not in control, and neither is any deity. Though we wish it was so.

As an aside, I think it has been increasingly difficult in the last 100 years or more to justify the notion of an omnipotent deity in control. Such a deity would have caused countless, and some terrible, deaths of innocents and others. Instead many of us have had to reimagine and revision a totally different understanding of God, not a planner or controller, judge or ruler, but a non-anthropomorphic presence in which we exist and draw sustenance from.

Secondly, finding meaning in death can also be framed as coming to terms with loss.

There is little doubt that loss is magnified when you believe you could have prevented it, or slowed it, or stopped it. And you might be right. And so the regret, the guilt and pain linger. This may have driven some of his followers to search their scriptures to find both meaning and solace.

There is little doubt too that the Hebrew Bible did become a resource and shaped the thinking of those who sought meaning in Jesus’ death. The idea of a scapegoat,a sacrifice, and other notions – like of a suffering servant from 2nd Isaiah,one who would endure not because he had done any wrong but because we (Jesus’ followers but also Israel as a whole) had done wrong, came to prominence. It is from a cluster of ideas like this that Christianity bred and spread the notion that Jesus died as a blood sacrifice to save us from our sins. And then it’s logical follow-ons, namely that we are sinners needing saving, and God is not only a judge but one who is appeased by blood sacrifice. The latter is quite bizarre.

There is also little doubt that Jesus’ closest followers took words and phrases from their Jewish tradition – like resurrection, like Messiah (Christ), and like Son of God – and hitched their hopes to them. They understood such, as most Jews did, as triumphalist power words, promises of a future when a new king would rule over a new Israel in the colonialized and suffering land of Palestine. 

Later,as decades passed, some writers in the New Testament and elsewhere, repurposed these hopes into an imaginary afterlife kingdom where justice ruled, the righteous were rewarded, and the wicked punished. Those we dislike getting their comeuppance is a universal longing but has little to do with Jesus or his God.

Thirdly,and lastly, as I’ve alluded to, I think the grand theories of atonement construct conceptual universes that do the God of Jesus a disservice. 

I don’t think Jesus wanted us to imagine that God viewed us primarily as sinners,or in need of redemption. Rather he wanted us to imagine God loving us, always loving us, as we are, warts and all. Just like we who are parents or grandparents love our children and grandchildren, unreservedly,unconditionally.

Sure people, including us at times, do bad stuff, even wicked stuff. But that doesn’t mean that the essence of God as unconditional love, always working to include, restore, and empower, changes.

Similarly I don’t think Jesus wanted us to think that God killed his son, or would ever kill any son, daughter, child or person, for any reason whatsoever. There never was a predetermined grand plan to save the world by having Roman henchmen murder Jesus, because – from a perspective of morals – that would make God into a filicidal monster.

So, contra the John 3:16, God did not send Jesus to die so that we might be saved.The whole framing of God in that verse is wrong. God is not up and we down; God does not send and we receive. Rather, to paraphrase Paul, God is that (or who) in which we live and move and have our being. And to paraphrase Eckhart, God is closer than the air we breathe. We are in God. All is in God. Jesus, and others, are teachers and exemplars of that understanding. It is the love thatJesus showed and expounded that informs our notion of God. It is that love which is the plumbline of our theology, including the theological statements in the Bible.

Is God a judge? No. We judge ourselves in the mirror of the love called God. And we often find ourselves lacking, failing. But we misunderstand the essence of God. For the purpose of that mirror is not guilt and shame, but restoration and empowerment. To use the familial metaphor again, God is like the mother who desires always the best for us and our siblings.

Another way of answering that question 'Is God a judge?' is to, as psychotherapists might say, ‘No, we make God into a judge.’ We create a God to reward and punish us. We make a God who has chosen people and unchosen others. We create a God who makes a heaven and hell. We make a God who will condemn us because we are frightened of knowing ourselves as beautiful, wonderful, and magnificent, right now, right as we are. We are frightened of being all that we truly are.

Similarly,are we sinners? Is this our fundamental failing from which the portrayal of Jesus as sacrifice and God as a judge had to redeem us? Or has this bad theology, and worse psychology, about our so-called ‘fallen’ state as human beings so distorted the Christian and societal understanding of God and humanity,scarring numerous people both inside and outside the church, that a moratorium should be put on the words 'sin', 'sinner', and ‘saved’? Are those words too damaging to use without lengthy qualifying explanations?

I am not a sinner, sin is not ontological to who I am, and I refuse to be defined by such a word. And I do not need to be saved by a sacrificed Jesus on a cross.I do need to be loved, empowered, and encouraged, and this need is met by the love of family and friends, love of community, love of creation, love in and through all manner of people and circumstances, through which the surprising and discombobulating love called God is revealed.

I do not believe in a God of power and control who schemes and plans, has favourites, predetermines outcomes, blesses chosen people, and causes others,including beloved sons and daughters to die. I don’t want to be ‘saved,’especially if it means that someone else had to suffer. I don't think the violent deaths of great people, like Jesus, ever have a good purpose.

For the Bible and religions are strong on the mythology of violence - winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, saved and unsaved. And it is much weaker on the mythology of mutual relation - of the whole earth being one family, of all people being joined together as one body, that when one suffers all suffer, and when one is loved all rejoice.

It is this weaker mythology that our world now so badly needs, for the deeply entrenched patterns of violence, subjugation, and dominance are destroying our communities, our countries, our planet, destroying us all.

I believe in a God who is our home, home for all, whose only language is love,who is repulsed by violence, who longs for connection, and is indeed the threads of hope that connect us all.

In this I believe.  

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