A major distraction from following Jesus — the primary calling of the Christian faith, supposedly — is how and how much attention is given to Jesus’ death — with an emphasis on wiping out our sins and rerouting us around hell in the post-life.
The faith tradition in which many of us were raised puts its highest emphasis on “Jesus dying for our sins” — known in Christian circles as the atonement.
Jesus is considered the substitute sacrifice and parts of the Bible speak to that idea — which makes sense in a culture of worship requiring sacrificial offerings.
As a result, many Americanized Christians today have reduced Jesus to that one function — dying and being resurrected for the personal benefit of believers who don’t like fire.
This inherited story — that emphasizes God sending Jesus “to die” — is problematic in both the way it portrays God and diminishes Jesus’ life, teachings and calling.
If sending Jesus to earth and then requiring his execution was God’s only choice for saving humanity, what does that say about God?
It says that God was caught off guard and put in bind by the unexpected disobedience of the fig-leaf-wearing couple in the Creation story. This situation left God with only one brutal choice for paying off this acquired debt of humanity’s sin.
Therefore, the story goes, God sent Jesus “to die” in our place. And the expected response?
A simple belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection provides an escape from what humanity fears of dying and suffering.
Why not sign up for a deal like that with a simple confession and prayer?
Following Jesus, therefore, becomes far less important. Even living in hellish ways that are selfish, fearful and harmful to others is less consequential when one has already secured the deed to a heavenly home.
If killing off Jesus was God’s primary purpose in sending him, however, why didn’t God just let Herod do the job early on? This debt could have been settled much more quickly.
Why waste all that time having Jesus grow up, wander here and there, tell stories that require thinking and behavioral changes, recast old laws that people liked to hold over others, love lowly and often unlovable people, and dare to reduce and summarize all the commandments to two?
Perhaps it is because God sent Jesus “to live” — and to show us how to live more fully and impactfully in the here and now.
Rather than seeing Jesus’ death and resurrection as the final act of a divinely directed play, what if we see those as demonstrations — drenched in hope for today and eternity — of the magnified, endless love God has for humanity?
That kind of sacrificial love — as opposed to the self-absorption that marks so much of Americanized Christianity today — is our model for daily, abundant living.
Jesus coming to live among humanity — not simply to pay off a debt — brings into our lives all the possible ways he showed us and told us to live more fully, fruitfully and faithfully.
Jesus isn’t the way, the truth and the death. But the life — now and forever.
John D. Pierce is director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative (jesusworldview.org), part of Belmont University’s Rev. Charlie Curb Center for Faith Leadership.