265
the charges that are brought
against Him. Although He is
convicted and condemned to death
in an alarmingly short space of
time, both Pilate and Herod are
unable to find any grounds for
capital punishment. Jesus does not
die because He presents a military
threat against the Roman Empire.
His ministry has been filled with
miracles of healing and teaching
to “love your enemies” (Matthew
5:44), not with criminal behavior
or political revolution. Even the
Sanhedrin’s charge that Jesus
had blasphemed against God
by claiming to be God’s special
representative, the Messiah, is
false, since Jesus is, in fact, who
He claims to be.
This lays the foundations for
the Church’s teaching about
Jesus’s death: He did not die
because of His own wrongdoings,
but because of those of humankind.
By trying to protect their own
positions of authority by getting
rid of Jesus as a troublemaker,
and condemning an innocent
man to death, the opponents of
Jesus represent the pride and self-
centeredness that characterize
the whole of humanity.Even though Jesus is innocent,
the crucifixion narrative does not
present Him as a passive victim.
All through His suffering, Jesus is
in control and not at the mercy of
His circumstances. As Jesus had
taught earlier, “No one takes my
life from me, but I lay it down of
my own accord” (John 10:18). The
sinless Jesus took humanity’s sin
onto Himself, willingly drinking the
world’s cup of suffering (Matthew
26:39) in order to save others from
doing so. On the cross, Jesus was
not a victim, but a savior.Dying to save sinners
Jesus’s cross is seen as the
culmination of His life’s work, rather
than an unfortunate ending. When
Jesus declares, “It is finished,”
Christians believe He means that
the mission He had been sent to
achieve is now complete: the
kingdom of God has been set up
as Jesus’s cross was raised into the
air. This kingdom, in which Jesus
is the king, is not a military state
that uses violence to coerce
people into obedience, but rather
a kingdom of love, in which King
Jesus lays down His life so people
can be free from the sin that wouldTHE GOSPELS
otherwise drag them into eternal
death. By dying, the sinless for
the sinful, Jesus clears the way
for a new relationship with God
to which all people are invited.
Yet, as Jesus’s body is sealed
in the tomb for the Sabbath day,
no one has yet understood how
Jesus’s death is, in fact, good
news. That life-transforming
awareness would only be possible
after the Sabbath had passed,
as the story continues on the
morning of Easter Day. ■The symbol of the cross
For Christians today, the cross
is a symbol of God’s love and
forgiveness. Yet, when Jesus
died, it was clearly a symbol of
Roman power and oppression
and of violence and torture.
Many early Christians were also
crucified for their belief in Him.
As early Christian believers
shared the message that God
had set up His kingdom on
Earth through Jesus, God’s true
Son and king, they explained
that Jesus’s death on the cross
was not an embarrassing end toJesus’s life’s work, but rather
the means through which He
fulfilled His greatest task of
triumphing over sin and offering
forgiveness. This turned the
symbolism of the cross on its
head. As the Apostle Paul put
it, “the message of the cross
is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are
being saved it is the power of
God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). The
cross became the universal sign
of Christian faith after the
Christian conversion of the
Roman Emperor Constantine
in the early 4th century.Crosses still represent death and
sacrifice, as at the Auckland War
Memorial Museum, New Zealand,
remembering soldiers killed in war.Fixing our eyes on Jesus,
the pioneer and perfecter
of faith. For the joy set
before Him He endured
the cross, scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2US_258-265_Crucifixion.indd 265 27/09/17 10:17 am