Easter Perspective: The Joke's on You, Old Nick!

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The Joke's on You, Old Nick!

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45 (NRSV)

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For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39 (NRSV)

Let no one caught in sin remain

Inside the lie of inward shame

We fix our eyes upon the cross

And run to Him who showed great love

From "Christ Is Risen" by Matt Maher

"Christ is risen!"

"He is risen indeed!"

Today is Easter Sunday, the day on which we remember that, two days after an evil empire and a corrupt religious establishment successfully colluded to execute Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on a cross, He was resurrected from the dead.

Today also happens to be April Fools' Day, the day on which people play practical jokes on each other.

Is there any point of intersection between these two days?  Is there perhaps some practical joke to be found in the Easter story?

One word commonly associated with Jesus' death and resurrection is atonement.  The word, which literally means "at-one-ment," describes humanity's reconciliation to God through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  There are numerous theories regarding how we are reconciled to God, a number of which suggest that Jesus somehow acted as a substitute for us.  One theory I find compelling is known as the ransom theory of atonement.  This theory suggests that humanity, because of sin, was being held hostage by Satan.  Jesus gave His life on the cross as a payment to get Satan to release us.¹  In this way, Jesus took our place.

The ransom theory, as I see it, sets up the joke, and Easter is the punchline.

Jesus supposedly gave His life as a ransom to get Satan to release us from bondage, but, if Jesus was resurrected from the dead two days later, then can we really say that Satan received his payoff?  It seems to me that Satan was the butt of a practical joke.  Maybe he was tricked into releasing humanity from captivity, or maybe he was rather harshly shown that any claim he thought he had on humanity's souls or on Jesus' life was invalid all along.  In other words, either the devil did not get his due, or nothing was due to him in the first place.  In either case, the joke was on him.

I don't believe that Jesus gave His life as a ransom for us in the sense that He literally made some payment to Satan to get him to release us from captivity.  On the other hand, I do believe that Jesus sets us free through His death and resurrection.  I find the ransom theory of atonement interesting because I think we all know what it is like to feel as though we are being held captive by something, be it an addiction, a bad habit, guilt over some wrongdoing, or anything else that might weigh us down.  The joke told by the ransom theory shows us that whatever we feel holds us captive never had any legitimate claim over us.

The theory of atonement I actually believe is known as Christus Victor.  This theory, as the name implies, suggests that Jesus Christ, through His crucifixion and resurrection, won the victory over sin and death, the age-old enemies of humanity.²  Death could not hold Him, and the sin of humanity could not stop Him.  The Resurrection reminds us that, as Methodist preacher Adam Hamilton likes to say, "The worst thing is never the last thing."  In the same way that Good Friday gives way to Easter Sunday, the pain of death gives way to the joy of new life.

Christ defeated sin and death, so there is no reason that we should be held back by things like guilt, shame, and fear, for such things have no legitimate claim on our lives.  In the Gospel, we read that, from the cross, Jesus prayed that God would forgive the people who put Him on it.³  If God could forgive the people who murdered God's own Son, then we can be sure that God forgives us as well, and, if Jesus could rise from the grave, then we can rise from whatever is holding us down.  As St. Paul writes, nothing can separate us from God.

May you, dear reader, rise above whatever is weighing you down and holding you back, and may you no longer be fooled into thinking it has the final word.


Notes:

1. Wikipedia: "Ransom theory of atonement"
2. Wikipedia: "Christus Victor"
3. Luke 23:34

The stained glass window shown above can be found in Saint Elizabeth Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio.  The photograph of it was taken by Wikimedia Commons user Nheyob and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.