The cross wasn’t about God’s hate

Big Ideas

• We tend to hear that God is love, but also that the cross is where his judgement boiled over and he had to punish someone.
• We want to hold up the cross as central to our understanding of God’s love.
• The Father ABSOLUTELY DID NOT turn his face away from Jesus on the cross
• God is, first and foremost, a relationship. It’s the first thing the early church stated when describing God.
• The reason you exist is to participate in divine communion forever and ever
• What is sin? The rupturing of common. The opposite of love. The thing that is breaking all communities.
• Jesus is feeling abandonment. That does not mean he was actually abandoned.
• Everyone around him know these Psalms by heart. Quoting the first line of Psalm 22 is intended to make everyone think of the whole Psalm, not just the first line.
• The curtain is torn. God is directly revealed to humanity.
• God appears in darkness, and the judgement is put on himself.
• The curse was broken because we are no longer alone.
• In this act, God is re-ordering the cosmos
• God and humanity are finally fully converging
• The work of the cross is the love of God, that he would invade and conquer with this absurd foolishness

Questions

• Recast in your own mind, Worship the god who was made one with you, one spirit with you, converging permanently with you
• How have you been taught to understand the cross before?
• Did it seem hard to believe it was about God’s love?
• Was it hard to believe God is love if he had to punish someone for sin?
• What do you think about the idea that Jesus was not separated from the Father on the cross?
• Do you think about God as relational first?
• What does it change for you if the most important thing for you is to be in relationship with God and others?
• What if that is more important than morality or behavior?
• How we help each other participate more in communion today?