“For God so loved the world…” that he demanded his Son be put to death
to save us from our sin…Huh?
We Catholics aren’t
traditionally known for our astonishing ability to quote chapter and verse from
the Bible. However, most of us know John
3:16 pretty well (even if its only because we see the signs held up at football
games and such). The verse we hear in
our scriptures today is an important one…AND probably one of the most
misinterpretted verses in the history of Christomdom.
Fr. Francis McCabe in his
brilliant book God Matters
states “If God will not forgive us until his Son has been tortured to death for
us then God is a lot less forgiving than even we are sometimes. If a society feels itself somehow compensated
for its loss by the satisfaction of watching the sufferings of a criminal, then
society is being vengeful in a pretty infantile way…and if God is satisfied and
compensated for sin by the suffering of mankind in Christ, he must be even more
infantile. It is indeed true that we
could not afford to pay our damages to God but it is also true that such
payment could not be needed for plainly God cannot be damaged by my sin.” Truly, how could we ever trust such a despotic
God?
What Fr. McCabe is so masterfully
undermining is the seemingly indomitable “Satisfaction Theory of
Atonement/Retribution” proposed in the 11th century by St. Anselm. Thankfully in the 13th century St. Thomas Aquinas
moved us along the road of unraveling the mystery of how we are saved by the
cross of Christ (a road we have certainly NOT reached the end of) by saying that
the mission of Jesus from God the Father was NOT the mission to be crucified;
what God willed is that Jesus should live a life of love and compassion.
Jesus’ mission was simply
to be with us in history. THIS is the truth found in the famous passage John
3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” God came to meet us where we are at…to be
with us and to love us right here in our very own history to show us the way. For Jesus, to live was simply to love – for
this is what God originally designed human beings for. Jesus’ life was so colorful, eventful, and
tragic simply because of what being a loving human person in our world
ultimately leads to sometimes.
The cross is a dramatic
statement of the world WE have fashioned, where it is dangerous and sometimes
even fatal to be a loving human being. Once we have this realization, we have no need
for complicated theories about the Father deliberately putting his Son to
death. Rather God, out of compassion for
his misdirected people, sent his love, the incarnate Son of God, Jesus, to live
with us and we murdered him…
According to Aquinas it
was Jesus’ fidelity to God’s mission of love, the fact that even in the face of
unimaginable violence he never gave in or gave up. He never allowed the violence he experienced
to change his character and his vision.
He never desired to “smote us” – not even for a minute. Quite the contrary, He prayed for us “forgive
them…they just don’t get it.” Each day, year, century (I think and hope)
that we all move a little closer to “getting it.” Let us remember our brothers and sisters in
Iraq as they face incredible violence. May
Jesus’ love for us continue to save us and show us the way.
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