What the Crucifixion Reveals About Human Beings

The crucifixion story reveals much about the nature of God. The crucifixion reveals God's infinite mercy, love, and compassion. The crucifixion reveals God's willingness to go to any lengths to save us.

The crucifixion also reveals much about the nature of human beings. Think of it like this: the crucifixion was God's way of shining a spotlight on Himself, and God's way of shining a spotlight on human beings. The spotlight that was shone on human beings exposed not only those who were responsible for Jesus death; more importantly, it exposed a pattern of human behavior that has existed from the beginning. Part of the salvific nature of the cross was to expose our own human behavior, and by exposing it, to force us to face ourselves and to reveal the script that has been played out from the beginning.

Several weeks ago, in the story of Jesus and the woman at the well, I argued that what underlay this story is the reality of human violence and exclusion; the violence between the Jews and the Samaritans, and the exclusion of the woman from her own community. In the story of the healing of the blind man two weeks ago, I argued that this story revealed the fact that human cultures will even use religion to perpetuate collective cultural violence and exclusion.

In the cross, we see with greater specificity the script through which this violence is carried out. We begin with the players in the story. First you have the Jewish religious authorities. Second, you have the Roman government. Third, you have Herod, the puppet ruler put in place by Pilate, the Roman governor to give the Jewish population the facade of autonomy. Finally, you have the general Jewish population. Tension has been building between these groups for some time as they all seek to further their own self interests. This tension leads to anger, and as the anger builds and builds, you have the threat that this anger will result in outright violence, which would lead to the disruption of the fragile balance between these competing groups.

Suddenly, all these groups find a common victim in Jesus. Having found a common victim, they inflict enormous violence on Jesus and crucify Him. And for a time the violence is abated. Significantly, we are told in the gospels that before the crucifixion, Pilate and Herod couldn't stand each other, but that after the crucifixion, they become friends.

In the crucifixion story, we see played out a pattern of human behavior that has existed from the beginning; groups within a cultural network try to coexist, but tension and anger builds as each group seeks its own self interest. The only way that violence is controlled is where a common victim is found who is marginalized within the community, and the community focuses its violence on the common victim, both satiating its anger and finding common ground. But most importantly, the real nature of this script has to be hidden from the cultural system, because the cultural system is in denial of its own violence.

This is the spotlight that the crucifixion shines on us. All cultural systems, including our own, live out this script. We find victims outside or on the margins of our cultural system to focus our violence. We punish the victim, but the punishment of the victim only temporarily satiates our need for violence. We don't learn our lesson, and so we return and start the script over again.

When we turn the spotlight of the crucifixion story from ourselves back to Jesus on the cross, we see the way out of our script. The way begins by acknowledging that the script exists in the first place. Once we all acknowledge our own complicity in playing a part in the script, God can enter into the picture, and God's Spirit can begin to show us a new script. The new script is epitomized in Christ's sacrifice, compassion, and servanthood.