For the Love of Christ

   I’ve come to the conclusion that Jesus’ did not need to die. God did not require it. Roman and Judean leaders did not have to go through with his killing. There was absolutely no reason for him to be executed on Rome’s equivalent of the electric chair. Jesus death on the cross was senseless and tragic.

     By all accounts, Jesus was just another victim in a long line of victims, scapegoated like so many others.  Although, if there is any meaning or point to Jesus’ death at all, it is that Jesus was an innocent, yet willing, victim — with a willingness that stems from great love.

     As God incarnate, Jesus willingly took on our material existence, our vulnerability, so that God could experience life on our terms. God did so even to the point of being victimized and murdered by the very people God came to heal and whom God loves. Truly God so loves the world that God came among us as the Human One (Son of Man), Jesus, so that Love might stand in solidarity with all who have been victimized.

     For the love of Christ, God knows what it feels like to be a victim.

     Or as Fr. Henri Nouwen wrote:

           There is no suffering — no [illness], guilt, shame, loneliness, hunger, oppression, or exploitation; no torture, imprisonment, [no] murder, violence [or fear] — that has not been suffered by God. There can be no human beings who are completely alone in their sufferings, since God, in and through Jesus, has become Emmanuel, God with us. It belongs to the center of our faith that God is a faithful God, a God who did not want us to ever be alone but who wanted to understand — to stand under — all that is human. The Good News of the gospel therefore is not that God came to take our suffering away, but that God…” came to suffer with us.

     As the wisdom teacher Jim Finley states, God saves us from nothing, but sustains us in all things. God did not save Jesus from the cross or even death, but sustained him in the midst of it. God did not conquer death by Jesus succumbing to death. No, Jesus died. God conquered death with resurrection and life.

     So, beloved of God, know that your sibling Jesus, having known suffering, victimization, and death, and having been sustained in it all, is and will always be with you in your suffering, your senseless suffering. And for everyone who has ever been victimized, know that Christ is with you.

You are not alone.

You are not alone.

You will never be alone.

Christ, Emmanuel willingly, lovingly suffers with you.

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Jim Finley, Center for Action and Contemplation Living School lectures.

Henri Nouwen, “Christ of the Americas,” America, April 21, 1984.

Christ Carrying the Cross (Finnish: Kristus kantaa ristiä), created between 1890 and 1895 by Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt.