Chambers
refers to the cross of Jesus as representing the agony of God. That resonates with me. In my heart, the cross represents a singular
event that had never been seen before, and never will again. The Gnostics had such a linear view of “holiness”
that they could not have Jesus truly on the cross. But the Scriptures leave no gray area about
Jesus on the cross. He was crucified and
He died. For Him to bear the sin of all
humanity He had to do more than simply suffer physical agony. That a normal human could do. Even good people had suffered to death. What He was doing required more than that.
The cross of
Jesus is where I go for my final understanding of life and death. In my meager grasp of the Trinitarian Nature
of God, I understand Him to suffer something the likes of which I can’t really
grasp. I understand the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit as one in some way, and yet distinct in some way. I also understand from Scripture that death
is defined more by being out of relationship with this Trinitarian God, than a
biological event. So in my view, Jesus
suffered on the cross what is unthinkable, what all pay who have no
relationship with their Creator. That
would mean that, for a time, the Son was separated from the Father and Holy
Spirit.
When I think
of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying so intently that drops of blood
form, I find it difficult to believe He is that worked up over the physical
suffering He will endure. He prays,
relinquishing His will to the Father’s, and willingly goes to the soldiers
coming to arrest Him. He leads them to
the trial, He refuses to prove Who He is to Pilate, and endures the physical
and shaming trial of crucifixion. He
goes through all this willingly, intentionally.
He has chosen to endure the fracture of the eternal Trinity, and be
broken from what He has known for all eternity:
The Father.
The Creator
of this universe full of infinite variety and imagination willingly suffered
this break in Himself on behalf of rebellious examples of His masterful
work. He didn’t scrap us and start
over. He endured the unimaginable and
impossible instead. I don’t doubt this
world shook and stormed at such an event.
It was in shock. What had just
happened? What did the angels
think? How much of what was happening
did Satan understand? Did anyone,
angelic or other creature, know these depths of the Character of God? Could this have been imagined by anyone other
than the One responsible for this entire universe? Impossible?
What sort of
love includes the willing self-fracture of the One powerful enough to create stars? What level of mercy is required to willingly
and intentionally endure a cataclysmic break in the very nature of the Inventor
of inter-cellular structures and sub-atomic particles? We can’t even see or measure all of what has
been created, nor truly imagine limits to this Creator. He is powerful in ways that defy reason and
imagination. Why would such a One
willingly endure that for the squabbling rabble that is the human race?
It is not enough
for me that He died a physical death. I
would be in hell, eternally cut off from the Master of the universe, and I
should be. I have earned such a place a
thousand times more than I can even remember.
My punishment would not be a suffering physical death. That may be my end in any case. Many people suffer such ends. It was the eternal punishment apart from my
Master that had to be met in the sufferings of my Master. And that is met in Jesus on the cross; not in
the physical suffering, but in the spiritual death He suffered for us. I still can’t grasp it. It’s too much, I’m crushed.
