Unlike primitive deities, who demanded blood for
their wrath to be appeased - extracting their revenge -the God of the Bible becomes
human and offers his own life in order to destroy all evil - without destroying
us.
And yet the Cross is much more than just a
lovely example of sacrificial love. Furthermore, to die needlessly is wrong. Jesus’s
death is only a good example if it
was more than an example, if it was
something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was.
Why did Jesus have to die in
order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid — God himself paid it. There
was a penalty to be born— God himself bore it.
To make this clearer and for a
change of pace, let’s go to the movies. In the film Angels with Dirty Faces, James Cagney plays Rocky Sullivan, a
celebrity criminal who is the idol of all the juvenile delinquents in the city.
Rocky is now on death row. The night before his execution he is visited by his
boyhood friend, played by Pat O’Brien, now a priest trying to save inner-city
kids from a life of crime.
Father Jerry makes an outrageous
request believing it’s the only way the kids he is working with can be turned
away from the destructive path they are on.
“I want you to let them down. You see, you’ve been a hero to these kids,
all your life — and now you’re gonna be a glorified
heroin death. Rocky, they’ve got to despise
your memory. They’ve got to be ashamed of you.”
Rocky is incredulous.
To be continued…
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