And there was also a superscription
written over him written in letters
of Greek, Latin and Hebrew: This
is the King of the Jews.
A friend asked me the other day what was meant by the common used phrase: “Jesus died for our sins.” I told him I did not know the answer but got some insight into the scripture from a teacher of scripture and from an elderly pastor.
In a literal reading of the Gospel God, our father and mother, sounds like an abusive parent, sending Jesus to earth to suffer and die. This teacher explained that God was not a abusive parent and did not send Jesus, incarnation of God, to be killed. Jesus was sent to earth to show us the “way, truth and light’ how to be fully with God. One scholar I heard called Jesus, the ‘heir’ of God, the incarnated God. By being true to his nature Jesus suffered and died.
An elderly pastor asked a group of teens on a confirmation retreat of why Jesus was condemned to die. They had some guesses and finally he give them a clue: why the Roman Empire had Jesus killed was on a sign on top of the cross. The sign read “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS”. Usually the words are portrayed with initials INRI. In the Roman Empire there was only one leader who was thought of as divine, the emperor of Rome. Herod was appointed by Rome as the King but he held no power. The Roman Emperor was all powerful and the King or ruler of this occupied territory which Romans called Palestine. Although Jesus was innocent he was killed by the Romans for an act of treason.
So if Jesus was God incarnate on earth to show us the Way of God and was killed by the Romans for an act of treason why do we say “Jesus died for our sins”? If I look into my own life and the issues I am presently engaged in Marquette University No Longer Teaching War and hearing the Cry of the Poor to use the 1.1 million dollars the Catholic Church realized from closing Churches to serve the poor and marginalized in the same area, I think I can see a bit of what Jesus would do and what Jesus would die for.
The same pastor who told the youth that Jesus died for treason also told the youth, as many other persons have, life is worth living only if you have something worth dying for. To overcome sin seems to involve some kind of dying and maybe this gives us a hint of how Jesus died for our sins.
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