What drove Jesus to the cross?
In the stunning words of St. Catherine:
You, high eternal Trinity, acted as if You were drunk with love, infatuated with Your creature.. 1
Love.
Jesus became a man, lived a life within our fallen existence, fought back against the Adamic nature, bearing the totality of our sin, death, and corruption on the cross in one seamless movement of a Trinitarian passion.
Jesus was driven by reckless abandonment, an unwavering commitment to the infinite love of God.
The eternal Godhead, the Triune Being, the Uncreated Light, became one with our fallen humanity, and in one movement of ecstatic love, defeated death.
The cross echoes the eternal love dream of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This love-dream is that we may be One with God, that we may belong in His heart; that we may be included in the very life of God.
In essence, adoption. We were “predestined for adoption.” 2 Before the world was made, God had a dream: you, me, and the whole human race. Predestined to belong.
This passionate drive within the heart of our Triune God is the driving force behind the life of Jesus. Jesus died because the Father loves you. Jesus died because the Trinity has a dream for the human race, and nothing, not even death itself, will separate us from that dream.
Jesus died because we are loved, because we belong; because God is good.
What a stunning reality.
What a beautiful Gospel.
God became a man, dwelt among us, and died our death. The eternal dream of God is made fully manifest in the act of the Son. He loves us, and in that love, He cannot leave us to our corruption. He must, with reckless abandonment, save.
It’s a mockery of the cross to say that Jesus died because the Father needed blood on His hands to forgive us. It’s a shame that what is meant to be the most beautiful message the world has ever known, has been transformed into a highly pagan message that insults the very nature of God.
Jesus died because the Father hates the world, and needed to be appeased? Jesus died to satisfy some legal requirement within the heart of God?
Absolutely not.
Jesus died for love.
Jesus died because the Triune God has an unbreakable dream for the human race. This dream didn’t change when Adam fell. This dream burns on without diminishing for a second.
God’s mind is made up. It always has been.
His love is eternally set on the human race.
Jesus died because of an infinite love-dream of the Trinity to have us, to include us, and to adopt us into the Life of God.
His passionate pursuit is set on the human race. He is wildly in love with us, and it is because of this reckless love that He came, lived in our world, and died our death.
The cross…
This isn’t paganism. This is the Gospel.
Jesus didn’t die to appease an angry God. Jesus died to reveal a God of infinite love.
Jesus recklessly ran to the cross, for love.
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Notes:
- Full quote ↩
- Ephesians 1:5 ↩