Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross
When I was a child I went to church camp on a regular basis. Every year I would go away for a week, eat terrible camp food, sleep in a thin sleeping bag on thin mattresses, play with my friends, and listen to many messages from the camp speaker. Inevitably there would be a night when the speaker was closing in on explaining the message of Jesus’ death on the cross. In order to connect the deep theological truths of this message, a contemporary story was often used. The story which sticks out most clearly in my mind is the story of the drawbridge operator.
If you’ve never heard the story, it goes something like this:
A drawbridge operator was showing his son around his operating station one day. The father and son toured every area of the station and were in the gear room where the massive gears which operated the drawbridge were located, when the operator heard the sound of an approaching train. Knowing that there were no trains scheduled to cross his bridge that morning the man was certain it was just his imagination but thought it best to check. He told his son to stay on the platform while he ran up to the tower for a minute. The tower was a good distance from the gear room and it took the operator a couple of minutes to get there. Upon arriving in the tower the man was shocked to see a train barreling toward the raised drawbridge. He knew that there was no chance for any of the people on that train to survive if he did not lower the bridge immediately. Just as he was about to throw the switch he looked through his window into the open door of the gear room in the distance. The operator noticed that his son had left the platform and was climbing through the gears of the drawbridge. There was not nearly enough time to get back to the gear room, save his son, then get back to the operating tower to lower the bridge. So with tears pouring down his face, the operator through the switch and watched as his son was crushed by the massive gears. Just a second later the train rolled by on the lowered bridge and the drawbridge operator sobbed as he looked into the windows of the train and saw the hundreds of people whose lives he saved because he was willing to sacrifice his son for them.
This story stuck with me because it gave me a powerful image of the atonement. Leaving the obvious theological errors of this narrative to the side, the camp speaker who told me this story was successful at presenting me with the message he wanted me to understand.
Through stories like this I was taught from a very early age that there is only one way to understand the spiritual implication of Jesus’ death on the cross: penal substitution. This explanation of Jesus’ sacrifice was always a bit jarring to me. While I was able to intellectually understand the explanation, as an adult, the western legal structure which limited God’s grace was unnerving to my spirit. However, through a brief, though significant, stint in the Eastern Orthodox Church I was awakened to the great depth of atonement theology. I was amazed at the multiple ways that scripture and church history declares the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
In Mark Baker’s and Joel Green’s book, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, the multiple theological paths for understanding atonement theology were clearly defined and examined. For many Christians, myself included, it was a book which helped to answer many of the questions we had about penal substitution, christus victor, and other atonement theories while at the same time describing how these models are useful and how they can sometimes be damaging to the larger message of the gospel. Yet one large concern remained unanswered; if the contextualized stories used to describe penal substitution are inadequate in describing the depth of atonement models, what stories are adequate?
Answering that question is the goal of Baker’s book, Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross. This book is how those of us concerned with declaring the power of the cross beyond penal substitution can bring that message into our context. With the exclusion of the first chapter, this book is a primary a collection of stories which express the ancient theology of Jesus’ death in new ways.
Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross is more than just an assortment of “sermon illustrations.” This book is a diving board for the contextualization of the atonement. While some stories, such as the Doug Frank’s “Naked and Unashamed,” can be taken and used directly to explain the salvation offered by Jesus’ sacrifice, most of the chapters are a source of inspiration to develop new stories. Brian McLaren’s contribution is especially good as an example of finding new ways to explain the message of Jesus’ sacrificial love out of First Testament narratives.
To be honest, I am hurt when I think of how many children come to God out of the terrible fear which can be induced by penal substitution theology. It is my prayer that many of you will read this book, then pass it on to someone else until the amazing depth of the scandal of the cross is declared in creative and contemporary ways in all sorts of camps, youth groups, and Sunday gatherings.
I would love to discuss this book further if any of you have read it or are interested in reading it. You can actually read a bit of it on amazon if you want to get a better idea of what is in it.
Shalom, Scott
If you’ve never heard the story, it goes something like this:
A drawbridge operator was showing his son around his operating station one day. The father and son toured every area of the station and were in the gear room where the massive gears which operated the drawbridge were located, when the operator heard the sound of an approaching train. Knowing that there were no trains scheduled to cross his bridge that morning the man was certain it was just his imagination but thought it best to check. He told his son to stay on the platform while he ran up to the tower for a minute. The tower was a good distance from the gear room and it took the operator a couple of minutes to get there. Upon arriving in the tower the man was shocked to see a train barreling toward the raised drawbridge. He knew that there was no chance for any of the people on that train to survive if he did not lower the bridge immediately. Just as he was about to throw the switch he looked through his window into the open door of the gear room in the distance. The operator noticed that his son had left the platform and was climbing through the gears of the drawbridge. There was not nearly enough time to get back to the gear room, save his son, then get back to the operating tower to lower the bridge. So with tears pouring down his face, the operator through the switch and watched as his son was crushed by the massive gears. Just a second later the train rolled by on the lowered bridge and the drawbridge operator sobbed as he looked into the windows of the train and saw the hundreds of people whose lives he saved because he was willing to sacrifice his son for them.
This story stuck with me because it gave me a powerful image of the atonement. Leaving the obvious theological errors of this narrative to the side, the camp speaker who told me this story was successful at presenting me with the message he wanted me to understand.
Through stories like this I was taught from a very early age that there is only one way to understand the spiritual implication of Jesus’ death on the cross: penal substitution. This explanation of Jesus’ sacrifice was always a bit jarring to me. While I was able to intellectually understand the explanation, as an adult, the western legal structure which limited God’s grace was unnerving to my spirit. However, through a brief, though significant, stint in the Eastern Orthodox Church I was awakened to the great depth of atonement theology. I was amazed at the multiple ways that scripture and church history declares the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
In Mark Baker’s and Joel Green’s book, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, the multiple theological paths for understanding atonement theology were clearly defined and examined. For many Christians, myself included, it was a book which helped to answer many of the questions we had about penal substitution, christus victor, and other atonement theories while at the same time describing how these models are useful and how they can sometimes be damaging to the larger message of the gospel. Yet one large concern remained unanswered; if the contextualized stories used to describe penal substitution are inadequate in describing the depth of atonement models, what stories are adequate?
Answering that question is the goal of Baker’s book, Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross. This book is how those of us concerned with declaring the power of the cross beyond penal substitution can bring that message into our context. With the exclusion of the first chapter, this book is a primary a collection of stories which express the ancient theology of Jesus’ death in new ways.
Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross is more than just an assortment of “sermon illustrations.” This book is a diving board for the contextualization of the atonement. While some stories, such as the Doug Frank’s “Naked and Unashamed,” can be taken and used directly to explain the salvation offered by Jesus’ sacrifice, most of the chapters are a source of inspiration to develop new stories. Brian McLaren’s contribution is especially good as an example of finding new ways to explain the message of Jesus’ sacrificial love out of First Testament narratives.
To be honest, I am hurt when I think of how many children come to God out of the terrible fear which can be induced by penal substitution theology. It is my prayer that many of you will read this book, then pass it on to someone else until the amazing depth of the scandal of the cross is declared in creative and contemporary ways in all sorts of camps, youth groups, and Sunday gatherings.
I would love to discuss this book further if any of you have read it or are interested in reading it. You can actually read a bit of it on amazon if you want to get a better idea of what is in it.
Shalom, Scott
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