1.  The Violence Of The Cross

Late one night, over Dunkin Donuts and coffee, I made this offhanded comment about the crucifixion to my college roommate, “At least he [Christ] didn’t have to hang there too long.”  My friend was indignant, “What?!  John, let me tell you a little bit about a crucifixion!” And he went on to describe the horrors of the cross in great detail.  Everything about a cross-death was designed to cause maximum suffering.  It is, perhaps, the cruelest tool of human torture ever devised.  The word excruciate is derived from Latin words that mean “out of the cross.”

At some point during the description, I cut him off.  I was embarrassed and alarmed.  I still cringe when I think of the ignorance and foolishness of my comment.  Jesus endured the worst kind of suffering while hanging there.

At that time, I had already trusted Christ’s cross-work on my behalf.  I had placed my faith in the paradoxical power of the cross to remove the penalty and guilt of my sin.  Sin’s curse (inherited from Adam) had been removed and my broken relationship with God the Father had been restored.  However, I had not wrestled with the fact that God had accomplished my rescue and restoration by means of unspeakable violence.

The bible says, through the prophet Isaiah, that Jesus “was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities” and “…he [Jesus] had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.  Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him…”  Christ’s innocence, our violence, God’s will—they all come together at the cross to bring new meaning to death and life.

Years later, I would begin to see how the violence of the cross of Christ gave meaning to my own struggle with violent attitudes and behaviors.  God would ask me to look more closely at the cross-work of Jesus and he would pry open a door in my heart that I had tried to keep ever closed.  He would show me how the cross gave meaning to my violence and freed me from the bondage and guilt of it.  He would begin my restoration and recovery from violence.

2.  The Denial Of Violence

It was in a seminary lecture on violence that God spoke, quietly and clearly, “John, violence is a problem for you.  You need some help.”  I went to my professor after class and told him about some of my failures.  Later, we met and he told me to participate in an anger management group and other counseling if I wanted to continue taking classes at that school.

I was embarrassed and alarmed again.  But I followed his recommendation and began to see how my angry, vengeful violence could be changed; that, in fact, the very meaning of my violence could be changed.  The only meaning I intended was revenge, harm, or spite.  But God intervened for me (and in me) to change the meaning of my violence and bring good from it.

God used my violence to make me desperate, humble, and dependent.  He allowed me to behave violently (for a time) in order that I might see more clearly and feel more acutely the hurt and pain it caused.  He caught me in the horror of my violence and made me want to ask for, receive, and respond to help from others.  He cornered me and insisted I turn from the denial and hiding I used to maintain a façade of peace.  My admissions to the seminary professor were the first sign of a crack in that façade.

Though I usually appeared to be a non-violent person, my thoughts were prone to violent anger.  Sometimes my actions aligned with my angry thoughts and came out as violence. Only God could humble me in the right way.  My humility was often false, but his humility rang true in my heart because it was the virtuous humility of Jesus.

I titled this essay The Virtue Of Violence for that reason.  As for my humility, it is defective.  I refused to humble myself.  I lived in denial and hid my violence problem from myself and others.  But God chose to intervene for me.  He broke into my denial of violence and applied the virtuous humility of the cross-hung Jesus.  Jesus’ virtue changed the meaning of violence in my life.

3.  The Violence Bearer

To recap, there is no virtue in me that changed the meaning of violence in my life.  But there is Jesus, who was subjected (in humble reliance on his Father’s goodness and loving-kindness) to the collective brutality of every sin.  On the cross He absorbed every violence that ever was, and ever would be.  By doing this he enabled the forgiveness of every sin (past, present, and future) for everyone who would call on him for forgiveness.

After all, every violation of God’s good law is ultimately against God and his son Jesus (and the Holy Spirit).  The historical figure of King David makes this very clear in his response to the prophet Nathan’s rebuke of him for killing Uriah and taking Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.  When confronted with his violence and covetousness David says, “I have sinned against the Lord [God]” (2 Samuel 12:13).

All of my sin (my specific violent acts and thoughts included) is ultimately against Jesus.  He is blameless and completely undeserving of my attacks against him.  Because he is blameless, he is ever willing to forgive my sin against him.  And only he can forgive me in a complete way.  Sure, I am required to ask forgiveness from people when I harm them.  It is part of the recovery process to confess my failings to those I fail and commit to do better in the future.  But I do it because the other person is a Jesus-image-bearer, that is, they are a person created to be like Jesus in significant ways.  Ultimately, I attempt to destroy the very image of Christ in a person when I commit violence against them.

And it is Jesus’ rule in my own life that I shun when I take vengeance into my own hands.  It is like saying to Jesus, “I am unwilling to wait for you to make things right (as I have defined right).  I have decided how I want things to go and, if I deem it necessary, I will use violence to accomplish my will.”  He died from that brutalization.  I did not have to be physically present at the cross for my violence to affect him.  God crushed Jesus with the violence from my hand and the hand of every human being who had, or ever would, live on earth.  And Jesus cried out because he knew he had been forsaken by his Father in this way.

But then God changed everything.  He raised Jesus from the dead by his terrible, unfathomable, delightfully incredible power.  It is in Jesus that virtue resides.