Today is Good Friday, the day we remember Jesus’ crucifixion and the most solemn day in the Christian world. The event of Jesus’ crucifixion is often described as the day he took on the sins of the world. What does that understanding of the crucifixion mean for us today? As a starting point, we must remember that God is the very essence of loving mercy. It is the nature of love to give of itself, perpetually and unconditionally. Yet, Jesus’ death on the cross was not some kind of payment for our sins. Jesus was not bribing God on our behalf or convincing God to forgive us.
It is helpful to understand what sin is, and what Jesus accomplished by “taking on our sins.” Sin is a destructive contagion, a virus that shrinks our capacity for truth, beauty, and goodness, a virus that attacks our hearts and weakens our ability to love, a virus that provokes the very worst tendencies of our nature. Like karma, sin is a real energetic force that seeks to take possession of our will, and it will not go away just because we wish it to. God is always loving us, but to the degree we are under the grip of sin’s gravitational pull, we cannot receive that love. We see the force of sin on full display in the meanness, coldness, and tribal divisiveness so prevalent in our culture. In some way, shape, or form, the energetic force of sin must be transformed or transmuted, that is, made into something good and life-giving.
The mission of Jesus was not about escaping into some heavenly realm. Rather, he sought to transform life on planet earth, to heal and divinize it. He could only do this by taking everything that was broken into himself, and bringing it into a state of wholeness through the power of love. Saint Bonaventure referred to the cross as “the coincidence of opposites.” Jesus, the very incarnation of divine love, absorbed the karmic force of sin into himself. He allowed it to have its way with him and to run its course, even to the point of death. In and through Jesus, all of the world’s destructive energies were brought into the very heart of God. In this way, God was allowed to take the energy of sin, deconstruct it, and then reconstitute it into the force of pure love. This love was so powerful that it breathed new life into Jesus’ dead body, thus raising Jesus from the dead on Easter Sunday.
You may ask, why was the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus necessary? Jesus is our teacher. Our job is to carry on his work: to take what is broken in the world and in ourselves and to place in the very heart of God through prayer, meditation, and selfless service. This is not always easy; in fact, it is a death of sorts. But it is a death that leads to transformation and a resurrected life. Today, our world needs enough of us who are willing to follow the pattern of Jesus, to transmute darkness into light, fear into faith, meanness into gentleness, coldness into compassion, and hate into love.
Guruji, Jesus,
You loved us enough
To take all that is broken and lost
Into your very heart
For transformation
Into new life.
