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Subject: Why Jesus Suffering Makes any Sense?
Message-ID: <Dec.24.04.22.59.1990.16448@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 24 Dec 90 09:23:02 GMT
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Why Does Jesus Suffering and Death make any Sense?

The question was raised, why does Jesus suffering and death make any sense?
I have seen explanations ranging from a perfect human sacrifice to a point
of view that he was just another poor sucker who got the shaft.

The reason I am writing this is that I myself asked this exact question,
and now have an answer.

	The first Key is something I have to admit I do not fully understand,
and that is God's Justice.  God's justice is to the effect that God never fails
at anything He does.  The old testament has a verse (paraphrased here): 
 "A word that issues from the Lord God's mouth does not return to Him until
it has been fulfilled."  I believe the real bottom line of many, many things
is the Justice of God.
	Second, by God's Justice, sin has bad consequences.  Everything  
anyone does not based out of love for God or fellow man, and causes
separation from perfection of good and God, is sin.  When sin is committed,
something bad will happen.  It is exactly like the laws of physics.  You step
off of a cliff, and you fall down.  If you drink poison, you will die.  If
you part ways with God, it is a contradiction of the reality of your existance.
Ultimately, someone will suffer.  There will be no sin that will not have bad
consequences (if there was, this would contradict Justice, as mentioned above.)
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	Third, sin came into the created universe.  So now, what could God
do about it?  Justice says that the consequences must happen. The price must
be paid. But God loved his creation and did not want it to be destroyed by 
its sin.  

It is really important to put yourself into the mind of God here, and ask
the question, what can I do?  If I love so much and want so much to fix
the situation, who can do it?  And the answer, I will do it Myself.  Since
it is My own Justice that demands the price be paid for sin, I will take
the consequences and suffering Myself.  I am God, I can make this choice,
and I Love enough to do it.

	God cannot ask anyone else to do this for Him.  His Justice demands
that His creation end up what it was created to be, good, not full of error
and sin.  Therefore, if His Justice demands it, then it is Just that His 
Justice bear the suffering for making it happen.  No man, no perfect man,
no other being besides God himself can take this burden.
	Exactly how God suffering allows God to satisfy Justice and remove
from the creation the bad consequences of sin, is the mystery of Justice
that I mentioned at the beginning of this essay.  Consider, however, the
very mystery of our own reality.  Of our own creation.  Modern science
does not yet know exactly what matter is. (Ask a physicist)  Bound up in
the mystery of our own physical existance, bound up in the fact that God can
create, bound up in the fact that God did create us, I think is the key to
how when God suffered, it healed or opened the way for God to heal the
creation.  I have a mental picture of the moment of Jesus death on the cross,
of a shock wave eminating out of him, which rippled through all of creation,
causing the lightning, thunder, earthquakes, and tearing the curtain of the
Temple open from top to bottom.  We read of this in the Gospel, where those
present and witness to this were fearful and exclaimed "Surely this Jesus was 
the Son of God".

This is the mystery of the Redemption.  Praise God forever for it!


	This points out a some very important points.  This is why the
truth of the true Divinity of Jesus Christ is so important.  Jesus was
a real and actual part of the One God.  Jesus was fully God and fully man.
A dual nature.  Just how God can be God and be incarnated as a man, and
experience what the man Jesus experienced, is part of the mystery of the
Trinity which some understand better than others.  Personally, I approach
a "mystery" by considering the meaning of the results of it, not to try to
prove or disprove it.  This is a perfect example of what I mean.  If the
Trinity was false and Jesus was not God, then his suffering and death has no
real power or meaning.  If Jesus was just a man, even a perfect man, ransoming
the sins of the world is only legal fiction.   I accept that Jesus was God
in a way that I do not understand fully, because this makes the whole mission,
purpose, suffering and death of Christ make sense.

	Another point that should immediately jump out at us, is the very
practice of self-sacrifice for others is the very core of Christianity.
We are called every day to take suffering on ourselves for the sake of
others.  "There is more happiness in giving than receiving."  Think about
it, giving is suffering the loss of something.  Suffering for someone and
giving go hand in hand.

	Does it surprise us so much that God does exactly the same
thing that we are called to do, self-sacrifice?

	Do we have the concept about Christianity that Jesus Christ was one
of the most loving, self-sacrificing persons to ever live but that God 
the Father in Heaven is a mean old guy who put Jesus through it all?
Do not be misled, God was there on the cross in Jesus.  God's Justice
that must be fulfilled, was there on the cross, suffering for Justice
sake.

Everything we know and respect and love about Jesus is what we know about God
Himself.  The disciples asked, "Let us see the Father and it will be enough
for us." Jesus answered, "When you see me, you see the Father, I am in my
Father and the Father is in me.  I and the Father are one." 
We learn about God Himself in the life of Jesus.  We do not have many images
or mental pictures of God Himself, (perhaps the white bearded older man on
the ceiling of the Sistine chapel)  You know why?  Because there is no other
truer image of God Himself other than Jesus.  There is no other representation
or picture in human terms of God Himself better than Jesus.  Jesus is not the
only way to think of God (God can be seen in all of creation), but Jesus is the
Perfect image, meaning that in Him there is nothing lacking.  You do not have
to look beyond Jesus Christ to see, find or hear God.  Jesus is the Way,
the Truth and the Life.



Sincerely, In Christ

Greg Shay

[I see the key as being not legalistic arguments about Christ
fulfilling God's justice, but rather in our solidarity with Christ.
Paul on a number of occasions speaks of baptism as joining us in
Christ's death, which becomes for us a death to sin.  His views in
general have been described as "Christ mysticism", i.e. as the view
that Christ is in us and we are in him.  Let me try an explanation:
The effects of sin are so profound that they can lead to nothing but
death.  Only our death as human beings and rebirth as spiritual
creatures will do.  When we participate in Christ's death and
resurrection, that is what happens.  I also consider it significant
that in Christ, God accepted the suffering that has come to humanity
through sin.  By accepting the consequence of sin himself, they can no
longer separate us from God, because he is there with us.  --clh]