Human history is a road down which God has painstakingly, patiently and silently carried a cross.
Throughout the ages, God has absorbed the insults of his accusers and endured the mischaracterizations of his followers.
For they have hurled accusations, misunderstood God’s nature and character, and projected their evil hearts, cruel practices, and violent images upon God, saying that God is a hateful, vengeful, tyrannical, authoritarian dictator worthy of a violent and inhumane crucifixion.
And yet, through the vile mischaracterizations, the evil projections and misguided accusations across the ages, God has not opened his mouth, nor has God cried out.
With every strained step bearing the weight of mankind’s judgment from age to age, the hostile insults of God being a murderer, child-killer, the tribal warrior and genocidal maniac battered his body.
And yet God remained silent, mischaracterized and misunderstood.
With every labored step shouldering the burden of mankind’s guilty verdict from age to age, the condemning charges of God being a blood-thirsty, violent and heartless monster whipped against and tore his exposed skin.
And yet God remained silent, mischaracterized and misunderstood.
With every pained step from age to age, the unrelenting and violent slurs of God hating sinners, God cursing sinner’s lives, and God damning them to hell bruised his breaking body.
And yet God remained silent, mischaracterized and misunderstood.
With every brutal and gruesome swing of the hammer into every single rusty nail from age to age, the hateful recrimination toward the God who causes suffering and division, the God who abandons and hurts people, and the God who turns his back, unmercifully pierced his hands and feet and prepared him for death.
And yet God, beaten, scourged, bloody and exposed from age to age remained silent, mischaracterized and misunderstood as the rugged cross was lifted up triumphantly.
“Here is crucified the hateful, the vengeful, the tyrannical, the authoritarian dictator.”
“Here is crucified the murderer, the child-killer, the tribal warrior, the genocidal maniac.”
“Here is crucified the blood-thirsty, the violent, the heartless monster.”
“Here is crucified the accuser who curses other’s sinful lives and condemns them to Hell.”
“Here is crucified the sinner who causes suffering and division, the sinner who abandons and hurts people, the sinner who always turns his back on others.”
“Here is crucified the chief of sinners.”
The despised, the scorned, the rejected was lifted high and unveiled for all to see — every person from every tribe, every tongue, every nation and every age was drawn in to the macabre public spectacle.
But that which was crucified on the cross and scandalously exposed was more than anyone could have ever imagined.
For all the evil we had collectively ascribed to God, it was, in fact, our very own evil all along. Evil we had cast upon him. Evil we had projected on him. But evil he was willing to bear in shame and disgrace, so that he could triumph over it in a victorious public spectacle.
From age to age, God has been willing to absorb and carry all of our evil misconceptions and mischaracterizations of him in silence, in order to finally expose the ugliness and evil of our hearts and, at long last, reveal his true nature and character, in a humble, self-sacrificial, other-centered love that is willing to go to death, even death on a cross, to demonstrate it.
For what we ultimately crucified was ourselves. And what we ultimately discovered was the true heart of God.
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” – Jesus
Brandon Andress of Columbus is a former local church leader, a current iTunes podcast speaker and a contributor to the online Outside the Walls blog. He can be reached at his website at brandonandress.com.
