Series: The Cross

The power of love
Psalm 139:1-12; John 15:12-17

In the 12th century a theologian by the name of Peter Abelard (1079–1142) asked some incisive questions to popular theories that attempt to explain the meaning of the Cross. Indeed, he asked questions that sound rather modern. Questions that may connect with your thinking.

Abelard's critique. Why was the death of Jesus necessary for the remission of our sins? How could we imagine that God would be pleased in any way by the death of his Son? Indeed, if God is God, why would he require the death of Christ to forgive people's sin?

Here are some of Peter Abelard's own words, written down a thousand years ago:

"… how cruel and wicked it seems that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent person as the price for anything, or that it should in any way please him that an innocent man should be slain – still less that God should consider the death of his Son so agreeable that by it he should be reconciled to the whole world!"

How then did Abelard himself understand the death of Jesus?

Abelard's construction. He did not focus on texts that interpret the death of Jesus as ransom (Christ, the ransom paid to God or the devil, so that we can be free), or as atoning sacrifice (Jesus died for our sin so that we can be forgiven), or as victor (Christ triumphing over the forces that oppress us and estrange us from God).

When Abelard meditated the meaning of the Cross, another category of texts crept into his mind.

"No one has greater love than this,

to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13)

"Christ ... suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps." (1 Peter 2:21).

These and other texts have inspired emphases that interpret the Cross not so much in the category of ransom or sacrifice or victory. Rather, they rely on the power of love. The idea is that the story of Jesus is told and that that story inspires love – love that transforms believers and helps them to follow the example of Jesus – the One who by his faithfulness unto death has demonstrated to us the "perfection of love".

Through preaching and teaching, the gospel of Jesus' exemplary life and the subsequent death is brought to people, and by that story their hearts are warmed (faith), their sins are forgiven, and their faith is shaped.

Here are Peter Abelard's own words:

"… it seems to us that we have been justified by the blood of Christ and reconciled to God in this way: through this unique act of grace manifested to us – in that his Son has taken upon himself our nature and persevered therein in teaching us by word and example even unto death – he has more fully bound us to himself by love; with the result that our hearts should be enkindled by such a gift of divine grace, and true charity should not now shrink from enduring anything for him."

So, let us look at this emphasis of understanding the Cross as an act of love and let us meditate this in light of the Scriptures which are used to validate this understanding of the Cross.

Love and God belong so close together that one cannot talk of one apart from the other. "God is love", the Scripture says.

And God's love is not merely romantic love, enjoying the good times, but withdrawing during bad times.

What Abelard, and indeed most theologians in the early church could not see, but what we in light of the Christian Scriptures must see and must not forget, is that God is a passionate God. For too long Christians thought that God is without passion.

But how can you take humanity's needs and tears and frustrations on board if you had no passion. God is a passionate God! That means:

Eros. God's love is not only agape-love which gives and does not want. God's love is also eros-love that wants what it sees and elects. When we read in the Scriptures that God "desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1Tim 2:4), then God's love is like the hound dog of heaven who will go after what he wants and will endure the pain of the process.

Suffering. Since love is non-violent, since love cannot use violence, therefore not only eros, but also suffering is part of the journey of the God who is love.

You see, love is like the shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One got lost in the stony wilderness of life. He goes after the One. Searching. Finding. But when it does not move any more because of exhaustion, he takes it on his shoulders and carries it back to the fold.

God is a carrier of burdens. Even heavy burdens. Even burdens that are too heavy for us to carry.

Love searches that which lost. Love goes to the limit.

These words come from the Passion story in the Gospel of John:

… before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1)

The "hour" is the hour of the Cross. Loving them "to the end" finds its depth and fulfilment in the Cross. And since the Crucified One goes to the Father, therefore the Cross is written into the heart of God. There can be no Christian God-talk apart from the Cross.

The Cross stands for the love of God that will not let us go.

By confessing that it is Jesus who "goes to the Father", because "he loves to the end", we already go beyond a lot of theories that explain the meaning of the Cross.

Any theory that does not take seriously that Jesus was killed for certain reasons, and that it was Jesus who was killed, empties the life of Jesus, and therefore is inadequate to explain his death on the Cross.

Let me give you an illustration. In a recent semi official book about Jesus Christ, coming from within the Southern Baptist Convention, written by the President of South eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (where I taught New Testament from 1971-1974), Daniel Akin, under the title Discovering the Biblical Jesus (2003), there is much emphasis on the historical truths of virgin birth and resurrection, and while the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies and the atoning death of Jesus are central, there is no mention of the Sermon on the Mount and of the offence that Jesus' lifestyle caused. Faith is seen as intellectual assent to certain historical and doctrinal truths rather than following Jesus in his radical and non-violent life style.

But, my friends, whether we like it or not – and most of us don't like it! – we can't have Jesus apart from the Sermon on the Mount. We can't have Jesus apart from his commitment to non-violence and his challenge to love your enemies, even when it means losing your life.

Jesus' prediction that it is possible "to gain the whole world and forfeit your life" and the invitation to "lose your life for my sake" are an inerasable part of the passion season and therefore for faith in Christ (Mark 8:35f.).

It is important to theologically digest that Jesus did not die of old age, nor did he die of a heart attack, nor was his death the result of a judicial error. His death was predictable. And in light of the violent history of his people, especially of those who opposed Roman occupation, and the fact that John the Baptist was murdered, makes it likely that Jesus knew of the possibility of a violent end. For a holistic Christology it is important that we understand the interlocking of Jesus' life and death. Jesus was opposed, captured, tortured, sentenced and executed as a result of a certain vision and implementation of life.

Jesus' life and Jesus' death need to be seen together. Jesus endured and Jesus was killed because he loved "to the end".

This raises an important question. Was Jesus' loving to the end an illusion? Was he just a good man? A dreamer? An idealist? Worthy of admiration, but no real help for our living and dying?

Again: is love a worthy human value, or is there more to it?

Human love, the love we have for ourselves and our friends and our families is good, but it is not enough.

Therefore if love is real and lasting, if it "bears all things", "endures all things", if "love never ends", as the apostle Paul says (1 Cor 13), then it needs a foundation.

The question is raised and important!

Is there a power that continues when the batteries of human love run down and fade out? Can there be a power that empowers us to listen before we send troops and bombs? Can the cycle, the vicious spiral of violence between Jews and Arabs ever be broken? Is it right that the USA and Australia vote against a UN resolution that condemns the murder of an Arab leader? Can there be a new beginning when our marriage is hopelessly stale and our friendship is on the rocks?

If there is to be hope in hopeless situations, if there is to be hope against hope, then we have to be aware of two things.

Even those texts that emphasise the Cross as the expression of the love of God, insist that this love is not just a human value. It is grounded in God and not in us, and that that love was costly for God.

Whatever word-picture or theory we may want to use, it has to become clear that God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. By raising Jesus from the dead, God, not we, has demonstrated that love, God's love, is stronger than death.

In the passion story of the Gospel of John, the same Gospel where we read about the greater love that no man but only Christ has, the climax comes when Jesus on the Cross exclaimed: "'It is finished.' Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." (John 19:30). Behold that man! He has become the "lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world".

And in the text from 1 Peter which portrays Jesus as example, it is also said clearly that being an example does not exclude, but includes the confession that

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

That is the first emphasis, my friends. By raising the Crucifies One from death God has made love the soil in which everything grows. We may not know it. We may conveniently forget it. We may not believe, and further turn the spiral of violence. But it is there as an invitation, a possibility, a promise.

Giving love a chance would mean giving God a chance to demonstrate God's power.

There is a second emphasis that love is not just something that we work up. It is not psychology. Iit actually is a gift of God. It is theology.

God the Holy Spirit speaks the good news of God's costly, but unconditional and powerful love into our lives.

The apostle Paul, for instance, emphasises that "God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us," but then he continues: "… God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." (Rom 5:5-8)

Yes my friends, the Cross and the Resurrection are the ground for love and its power. Love is power and love can change us, and can change things. But love cannot coerce. Love cannot use violence.

Love needs to be given a chance!

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gains I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

That may be a good start: pouring contempt on all our pride. Questioning the illusion that we can do it without God. Giving in to despair and thereby withdrawing our trust from God.

Why not give love a chance, because love is deeply grounded in the being of God.

Thorwald Lorenzen
28  March 2004