Atonement and Other Mysteries

Texts:

Psalm 84

2 Chronicles 29:1-11, 16-19

Hebrews 9:23-28

Fitting, the week after we hear of Jesus cleansing the temple in John, we read of Hezekiah cleansing the temple in 2 Chronicles (strangely, 2 Chronicles 29 was not the appointed lectionary text for Sunday).  This is not, however, what captivates my imagination in the texts for today.  

Hebrews, I think, captures the once-for-allness of what happened in Jesus' death and resurrection.  Having grown up in a tradition in which I believed Jesus died on the cross each time I sinned (rather than once, for all... which is, I think, a more accurate reflection and description of what happened), I have come to realize that the tradition in which I grew up deemphasized Jesus' actions and maximized human actions.  Strangely, it was for our inability to understand righteousness and our inability to make ourselves righteous by our actions, that necessitated a savior.

"It was [not] to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blod that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world.  But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself," (Hebrews 9:25-26).

St. Athanasius
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Once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, One for the many, not demanded but freely given... it is an uncomfortable reality in which to live, but it is finally the reality that speaks a far greater truth than our notions of holiness.  Unfortunately, these questions often quickly descend into an Anselmian or Athanasian understanding of what happened on the cross. Whereas their work provided the foundation upon which we stand as we attempt to understand theories of atonement (how we came to be reconciled to God), I think it is important to note: “Jesus didn’t volunteer to get into God’s justice machine.  God volunteered to get into ours.”[1]

Anselm of Canterbury
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Viewing humanity as it is, with its propensity to demand blood as payment for blood and still refusing to be reconciled, we are able to catch a glimpse of God and God's justice.  Seeking reconciliation, God came to us once-for-all, and died once-for-all, that our justice of death and destruction will not have the final word.  It is the word, "You have been made free," spoken once and reverberating throughout history, that tells the truth of what happened at the cross.  The final word is not retributive justice found in death but restorative and reconciliating justice found in life.

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            [1] S. Mark Heim, “Saved by What Shouldn’t Happen,” in Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2006), 218.