All the way
So as we imagine this story; the at-one-ment of humanity and God, we need to embrace the larger story and walk ourselves through the ongoing journey of how the church has attempted to articulate and tell this story. As we do that we’re going to end up with what is probably the most common frame on the atonement we hear today but I want to start somewhere else precisely because I want to us to take some time to walk through this concept in a new way and starting with what we are familiar with can quickly become a short circuit to exploration.

And the starting point for our exploration of this concept is in the words of Paul, one of the great thinkers and theologians of the early Christian movement. Philippians 2 is one of the great passages of the early Christian tradition. Most scholars think this may actually have been an early hymn or catechism of the fledgling faith.

In it Paul writes (or recites)

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death —
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Phil 2:6-11

What strikes me about this, in the context of this conversation, is the phrase, “obedient to death”. The word rendered “to” in this English translation is the Greek word, “mekh’-ree” and means, “as far as” or “until”. So perhaps the original Greek phrase is perhaps better rendered as, “obedient as far as death” or, “obedient even unto death”. What catches my attention here is the idea that Jesus death was not a singular choice made in a contextual vacuum. It was the result of making the right choice, and then the next right choice. He was obedient not just to die but to do the right thing all the way along even when it led to his death. Sometimes we take the posture that Jesus life was almost solely about his willingness to die. His teachings were nice, his wisdom helpful but in the end the meaning of his life was wrapped in its last moments. There is this idea that everything else in Jesus’ life was at best a precursor to the main event. Paul, here, gives us a slightly different picture with the simple idea that Jesus was obedient all the way to death. The reminder being, that the importance of Jesus’ death can’t be separated off from the rest of his life because it was the consequence of living the life God called him to. A life which begins and ends, not just with a personal decision made in a vacuum, but with the social and societal contexts and implications of all the choices and decisions he made.

And this is the first lens through which I think we need to understand the meaning of Jesus death, as a radical challenge to the status quo and a call toward the salvation of ourselves not simply as individuals but also as community.

Social Challenge
We know of at least ten major Messiah movements in the 100 years on either side of Jesus. Ten men with major followings that rose up and challenged the Roman Empire’s hold on the world. Every one of them, without exception, faced down the same end-game, execution as an enemy of the state. Only one of those Messiahs do any of us really know much about. Jesus. So what’s the difference between his movement and the others? One of the most common answers has to do with resurrection, which no doubt is a compelling reason if you buy it. However, I think there is an element within the story that we often overlook as part of the meaning behind his death. That is, the radical challenge Jesus poses to the metanarratives of society.

All of these other messiah movements rose up violently against a regime that was ruthlessly violent and cruel itself and in their violent opposition, every one of them was met with an even greater demonstration of violence. So how did the people respond? They went back to their homes disappointed and discouraged where they waited for the next challenger to rise up and oppose Rome. Nothing changed in the wake of their movement. When these leaders rose up and said the Roman Empire is corrupt and violent, challenged the empire at their own game and were defeated all that their effort and unfortunately their deaths did, was reinforce the matenarative that defined life in the first century, and in point of fact, today. That might makes right, the powerful choose, and that opposition to the status-quo is futile.

Now comes Jesus. He rises up as a Messiah figure with a mass of followers and he finds himself in opposition to the Roman Empire. Everyone is waiting for him to make his move, to rally his followers and take on the corruption and greed of Rome. In fact you can see the itchy trigger fingers in the garden of Gethsemene. When the Romans come to arrest Jesus, Peter pulls out a sword to fight back, he actually chops off a soldiers ear and is ready to go to war, perhaps even die. But Jesus says, “No. Put your sword away.” He even pauses to heal the soldier and then allows them to take him away. Jesus is pushed into the same position of opposition to Rome and is expected to act in the same way as every other Messiah. Eventually he is even executed in the same way as every other revolutionary. But this time something is different. This time, as another revolutionary, another Messiah is executed, people begin to see a different story play out. When someone rose up against Rome with a sword and was put down with that same sword everyone was disappointed but not necessarily surprised. It was the way of the world. It fit in, sad as it may be, with the narratives that defined the way the world worked for them.

This time things were different. This man had refused to fight back. He refused to battle violence with violence. He refused to fight oppression with oppression, fire with fire or evil with more evil. And all of a sudden people’s eyes were opened to something new. All of a sudden in his death Jesus had called into question the veracity of an entire worldview, an entire metanarrative about how the world should work. The story that told us the only way you will ever get what you want or need, is at the expense of someone else. In one act of passive resistance the inhumanity, not just of Rome, but of war and violence and oppression were made visible to everyone simply because Jesus refused to fall into the expected paradigms of what a leader and revolutionary was about.

Paradoxically, for those of us still, inscribed in the language of power and control, it was in his death that Jesus changes the game. It was in being crushed that he called not just the instance but the very systems of oppression in question.

Try a thought experiment here with me. It was six years ago now the US army went in to Iraq to free them from a ruthless dictator. (There may have been other reasons, but let’s focus on this hypothetical one for now) They did this by coming in with guns and tanks and missiles and, for lack of a more eloquent metaphor, blowing away the bad guys. To date over 5000 Americans have given their lives to see that happen. Estimates put the number at well over 50 000 Iraqis that have died for the cause.

Now imagine the contrast in the example of Christ. Imagine if the US Army said there is something terrible happening in Iraq. A ruthless and violent leader is murdering and torturing his people. We have to do something about this. Now imagine the US Army flew their men in, marched themselves to the prisons of Iraq, laid down their guns and placed themselves, literally between the evil and the innocent. Not to fight for them, but to take their place. How long would it have taken before the world responded to the injustice of what would follow?

Christ’s death is a statement to us about the redemptive power of peaceful resistance. It is a call to re-imagine the worldviews that tell us what is power and what its use looks like. Christ reminds us that we can’t simply stand by to the inhumanity of oppression but that battling evil with more evil is not the way of God. Instead Jesus death becomes the rallying call for us to challenge the status quo in new ways and his death becomes the signal that tomorrow does not need to be a continuation of today.

Brian Walsh and his Sylvia Keesmaat write in their book Colossians Remixed that,

The language of inevitability is the language of empire. Whenever we hear “we have no choice” our ears should perk up. It is precisely the strategy of the empire to take our imagination captive so that we think we have no choice. When a certain lifestyle seems inescapable, you need to realize that you are imprisoned.

Philip Yancey frames it this way in his book, the Jesus I never knew,

The beautiful have always enjoyed rewards beyond the reach of the ugly, the strong have always dominated the weak, a small number of rich have always lived at the expense of the poor. Against that reality, God’s kingdom flies a flag of divine opposition.

In the act of his death Jesus shows us a new way to live, not simply as individuals, but as entire bodies of people. That the way in which we interact has been turned upside down by sin and corrupted by narratives of power. His death becomes on this view a clarion call to step outside the false dichotomy of power or subservience and demonstrates for us a new way forward, a new a way to affect change as we participate in the creation of the kingdom of God.

This is the salvation of God. He saves us from a limited worldview obsessed with unhealthy relationships to power, coercion and control.