I agree with mumbly_joe also think that a big part of the crucifixion was that Jesus was, unlike scapegoats, animal sacrifices, and even many human sacrifices, a willing victim. Animal sacrifice certainly doesn't resonate much for me as a modern person, and I've got a sort of a complicated relationship to Jesus as a religious figure since I've been sort of Jewish lately, but here's my take on the "sacrifice" of Jesus. It's not quite mainstream, though:
Jesus was born into a society where individual human lives didn't really matter and were frequently sacrificed as means to an end. In response to a prophecy saying that the "King of the Jews" was about to be born, the Romans systematically slaughtered male babies so that nobody born around that time could claim to be the fulfillment of that prophecy and destabilize the region. And when Jesus amassed a huge, relatively radical following and people started saying that he was the fulfillment of that same prophecy, mainstream leaders in his community got scared that he'd start a revolt and that the Romans would exact revenge against the whole community, and that the only way they could adequately distance him was by accusing him of blasphemy and sedition and having the Romans sentence him to death.
Both groups were acting according to pretty universal human nature - people are often willing to sacrifice others' lives for their own purposes (and here, the purposes themselves weren't too evil: both groups were trying to keep a highly volatile region stable and probably thought that overall they were saving lives. They may have even been right).
To me the thing that cleansed humanity's sins was not that Jesus died but that he allowed himself to die, and asked God to forgive the people who killed him. Also, although most Christians think that God only forgives people who become Christians, I think it's pretty clear that God did forgive all those people. At least, it's pretty clear if you assume that that God is the same one who had previously usually responded to the sins of any given city or country by afflicting random people and cattle with plague or famine.
This represents a huge departure in God's relationship with people. It's a signal that he now actually gets that people aren't that good at being good.
I understand that many Christians take the "blood sacrifice" thing a lot more literally than I do; to me, though, it's just a metaphor for what happened, that was created back when it made more sense to people.
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chiming
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Date: 2011-01-28 04:03 am (UTC)From:Jesus was born into a society where individual human lives didn't really matter and were frequently sacrificed as means to an end. In response to a prophecy saying that the "King of the Jews" was about to be born, the Romans systematically slaughtered male babies so that nobody born around that time could claim to be the fulfillment of that prophecy and destabilize the region. And when Jesus amassed a huge, relatively radical following and people started saying that he was the fulfillment of that same prophecy, mainstream leaders in his community got scared that he'd start a revolt and that the Romans would exact revenge against the whole community, and that the only way they could adequately distance him was by accusing him of blasphemy and sedition and having the Romans sentence him to death.
Both groups were acting according to pretty universal human nature - people are often willing to sacrifice others' lives for their own purposes (and here, the purposes themselves weren't too evil: both groups were trying to keep a highly volatile region stable and probably thought that overall they were saving lives. They may have even been right).
To me the thing that cleansed humanity's sins was not that Jesus died but that he allowed himself to die, and asked God to forgive the people who killed him. Also, although most Christians think that God only forgives people who become Christians, I think it's pretty clear that God did forgive all those people. At least, it's pretty clear if you assume that that God is the same one who had previously usually responded to the sins of any given city or country by afflicting random people and cattle with plague or famine.
This represents a huge departure in God's relationship with people. It's a signal that he now actually gets that people aren't that good at being good.
I understand that many Christians take the "blood sacrifice" thing a lot more literally than I do; to me, though, it's just a metaphor for what happened, that was created back when it made more sense to people.