WHY?

WHY?

                “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” These words, from Psalm 34:8 have been used in the church’s communion service since the earliest days. In her extended meditation on this text Bonnie Thurston, Biblical scholar, professor and spiritual leader, tells of a grandmother who said that her three-year-old grandson was interested in crucifixes and depictions of Jesus’s death in art. He had so many questions about Jesus’s death that his grandmother wondered if it were normal. Bonnie Thurston said she thought it was unusual but not abnormal. Children who have been loved and nurtured can respond with great sensitivity to the sufferings of others (Thurston, Bonnie. O Taste and See. P. 51).

                This isn’t just a three-year old’s question. You and I can relate to the little boy’s concern. “Why,” the quintessential two-and-three-year-old question, is also our question. Why did Jesus have to suffer and die? How did the crucifixion erase sin? What kind of God is this? Its outrageous to assert that God died on a Roman cross, an instrument of death saved for non-Roman citizens, insurrectionists and the most horrible of criminals.

                Paul recognized this when he said in 1 Cor 1:23 that the idea of the Messiah being crucified was a “stumbling-block” to Jews and “foolishness” to Gentiles. “Stumbling-block” translates A Greek word which is the source of our English word “scandal.” It is scandalous to think the Messiah, the Savior, was crucified. Why the cross?

                Great theological treatises have been written to answer that question but there is a simple answer that comes out of human experience and human relationships. As Bonnie Thurston put it: “In a broken relationship, only the wronged party can restore the relationship because only the wronged party can forgive” (p. 52).

                David recognized this fact. Although he had done irreparable harm to Bathsheba and Uriah he confessed to God in Ps 41, “against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” We may wrong others and need their forgiveness, but ultimately it is God we have wronged, and only God can forgive. Our sins destroy our relationship with God, and we are helpless to repair it. But God is love, and love seeks reconciliation.

                As Paul said in Romans 5:8, 10, “God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. … While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son.”

                This is the good news that we receive and remember each time we come to this table. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”