God did not kill Jesus. There, I said it. In fact, I will go further and say that the death of Jesus was not part of the plan at all; the plan was to bring about the Kingdom of God. Whether that realm would be on earth or in heaven is not completely clear, but both Jesus and John the Baptizer proclaimed this hope. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near (and no, we don’t know what they meant by “near”). Who killed Jesus? The Roman government, in collusion with a few people in leadership who practiced the same religion as Jesus. It was about money and power and control. Crucifixion was a way of Rome humiliating rebels and a slap in the face to the Jewish people. Jesus proclaimed a spiritual kingdom that would put the Roman Empire in second place, and Caesar was having none of that mess.
And sure – I know that the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’s death has been central to Christianity for its entire existence. Jesus did sacrifice Himself; He knew full well that His path would get Him killed. That doesn’t mean that it was God’s plan; it just means that human ignorance and evil and greed were at work to stop the Kingdom of God from happening. And please don’t go on about connecting the story of Jesus to the story of Abraham’s almost murder of Isaac! I don’t believe that God told Abraham to commit that heinous crime – I think Abraham was psychotic. He didn’t hear just one voice – he heard two! He and Sarah had waited so long to have a child – so long that Abe used the delay to justify raping Haggar (another story for another day)! These stories, and so many others like them, are humans taking God’s name in vain to give themselves permission to commit atrocities. It isn’t God. It never was God.
If we take the message of Jesus – that God is love – seriously, we cannot also believe that God is a homicidal maniac. If Jesus told His disciples that the most important rule was to love God completely and to love neighbor as we love ourselves – and that all the prophets and laws are beholden to that rule – then we cannot also believe that God wants us to commit crimes against humanity. And if we truly believe that Jesus told His disciples that the new commandment He was leaving with them before He died was to love one another, then we cannot also believe that God hates any group or wants us to treat anyone as beneath us.
So, no – God did not kill Jesus. People killed Jesus. People also loved Jesus. Those people were just like us; they were trying figure things out – trying to follow the faith they were taught – trying to accept something new that clashed with their old way of life. Some were zealots and some were lost, and some were spiritual but not religious; and Jesus loved them all. God loves all of us too. God is not a lunatic. God is love.
Prayer – Forgive us for misusing You and Your name for our own benefits and teach us to think and pray more about Your true nature. Help us to not commit evil in Your name. Amen.
Today’s art is “The Moment of Jesus’s Death” by Arthur Robins.