"We worship your cross, O Lord, and we praise and glorify your holy resurrection; for the wood of the cross has brought joy to the whole world." -
Good Friday Antiphon
The crucifixion of Jesus was no tragic circumstance of history. The Gospels are clear on this point. Jesus, with full knowledge of his fate, went up to Jerusalem to embrace His suffering and death as an act of atonement. This reality is strikingly clear in the detail John provides us with in telling of the Passion. As Jesus is stripped in preparation for the cross, he is found wearing a seamless garment, a garment worn by a priest. What He is about to do on the cross, then, is a priestly act; an act of sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world.
There is a problem, though, with the idea of “atonement”. The problem is not in the concept itself, but in how we think about it. “Atonement” conjures up images of a vindictive and angry God who demands blood to appease His offended pride. Now, tell me, what kind of God is this? Certainly not the God "who so loved the world”(Jn.3:16) that He judges it worthy of mercy and new life in Jesus Christ!
But, the death of Jesus is, and forever remains, the definitive act of atonement. The reality of sin and evil that disfigures the world, fatally rupturing the communion between God and humankind, and distorting the image of God in which we are created, cannot be ignored. It must be dealt with. But this wound in the heart of the human soul is beyond our power to heal. We cannot repair the sin and death that has entered the world through us. Only God can return us to Himself. Only God can heal the wound at the heart of the world and in the heart of every human soul. The cross is this healing.
What is astounding in this act of atonement is that God Himself takes on the burden of reconciliation, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God Himself “drinks of the dregs of the cup” of the filth of the world, of its anguish and sorrow, drawing it in love to Himself, purifying it, and transforming it by the mystery of His own suffering and redemptive love. This is the atonement of the cross. At Golgotha, we do not encounter an angry God, who demands of us what He Himself will not do. Here, we encounter the full measure of divine love. God Himself is the sacrifice that reconciles the world. God Himself makes the atonement that heals the wound at the heart of the world.
There is a principle in Judaism called “TIKUN OLAM”. It translates as “to heal the world”. The principle is simple; righteous works, good deeds, contribute to the healing of the world. The cross is the “Tikkun Olam” of God; the one righteous deed that we ourselves were incapable of performing that definitively reconciles sin, restores the true image of God in the human person, repairs the breach between God and humankind, and heals the wound at the heart of the world. God Himself has made the atonement. In the cross, God Himself has made “tikkun olam”.
“It is finished." With these words, Jesus dies. This is the hour of glory for the Son of Man. The atonement has been made and the wound has been healed.
Now dawns the eighth and final day of creation; God’s definitive new day for humankind; the day that completes the old order of creation, and begins the new. Now, one with this supreme act of “tikun olam” the world itself begins anew.