What really happened on the Cross
The usual message of salvation you hear from popular preachers on TV and Christian radio is this: We are all sinners, born sinners, because Adam sinned. God is angry with all humanity and he sent his Son to die for us to appease God’s justice. God poured all his wrath on Jesus so that our sins are forgiven by his death on the cross. That’s why you hear songs and sermons about the blood of Jesus taking away our sins. If you look at paintings of the crucifixion in the Protestant and Catholic traditions they are quite gruesome, because of this emphasis on the punishment for sins. In our tradition, the images of Christ on the Cross are much more peaceful and the frequent inscription is “King of Glory.” The Cross is represented as a place of glory rather than the place where God took care of his need to punish! No wonder many atheists focus on this message of God’s anger and his need to punish, even his own Son! We don’t have that in our theology.
Typical examples of how the crucifixion of Jesus is depicted by classic Protestant and Catholic artists.
Typical Orthodox icon of the crucifixion, with the inscription “THE KING OF GLORY” 
In this icon the designation King of Glory is represented by the seven Greek capital letters in the top plank of the cross: ΟΒCΛΤΔΞ (Ο Βασιλεύς Της Δόξης)
The one huge advantage of the typical fundamentalist message is that it’s simple and it can be said in one sentence or two. Orthodox theology doesn’t work that way. Because Jesus himself didn’t work that way. He didn’t use slogans or formulas; he used a whole range of images to convey the message of salvation and eternal life.
I spent a couple hours last night going through all four Gospels, looking at all the words of Jesus. No once did Jesus speak of the Cross the way many Christian preachers do! Not one single time!! Not once did I read him say that God is angry with us; so God poured all his wrath on Jesus so we could be spared. To the contrary, he said that God SO loved the world…. He also say that our Father in heaven is not willing that any of his sheep should perish! Yes, he did, Matthew 18:14, check it out. In this passage, Jesus refers to us as sheep and “these little ones.” He also told us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to take in the stranger and the foreigner, to visit the sick and those in prison. I had lunch last week with a young man who came up from Peabody because he wanted to talk to me. He told me that every week he visits prisoners.
Protestant fundamentalists go back to Eden – we also, but with different intention. They emphasize the sin. We look at the tree – I guess you can say we Orthodox are tree huggers – the tree where the first humans disobeyed. We say the healing came through another tree, the tree of the Cross. The emphasis is on healing. And if you look at everything Jesus did and said it was all about healing. My young friend from Peabody, in true Orthodox spirit, also viewed his activities with prisoners and the time he spends with them as times of healing – and not just for them, but also for himself as he grows in his own walk with Jesus. Dear friends, salvation is about healing. If preaching the gospel is about getting people where they hurt and are most vulnerable, you are abusing them, and many churches do practice abuse! And I don’t mean sexual abuse, that’s a separate problem. I mean mental and spiritual abuse.
Not once did Jesus go back to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden! Not once did he say we have inherited the guilt and sin of Adam and we need to be saved by his death on the cross. Not once did he say we are saved by his blood. The only time he connected his blood with forgiveness is at the Last Supper! And there he used the image of the wine at the Jewish Passover meal. That’s why he said “my blood of the [covenant.” It was a new covenant that he initiated, a new sacrament of his presence, which he commanded us to repeat in his memory – and which we do, at every Liturgy!
Jesus predicted his death on the cross many times, but not once did he make the cross the instrument of our salvation. Now other writers in the NT did, in various ways, but Jesus did not. He preferred to use images that people could understand and could relate to – images of seeds and agriculture, images of fishing, images of water, images of bread and wine, images of light and darkness….
He compared his way of sacrifice to the ways of worldly rulers, and he said to his disciples, “It shall not be so with you.” His disciples are not to exercise rule and power. Quite the contrary, the real message of the Cross comes across in Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, chapter 2: “He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and principalities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” This statement captures the mystery of what happened on the Cross better than any other statement in the New Testament. Paul reached deep into divine mystery with this statement.
The Cross was not the defeat of Jesus. It was the defeat of all powers and principalities – all the entities, both spiritual and physical that exercise lordship over the minds and hearts of men and women and children. They include what we call demonic spirits and influences; but also any addiction, any political or economic system that enslaves human beings, anything that manipulates the human mind! And yes, that includes religions and religious teachers! Fill in the blanks. Jesus on the cross took away the power of all fears, of all superstitions, of all psychological, emotional and spiritual manipulations. There is a spirit, a spiritual power behind every worldly system, every ideology, every technology and social media. These spiritual powers act behind the scenes and only crash into our consciousness when we realize how they enslave us. Jesus “disarmed” these powers by exposing the lies that give them power. Read the Gospels and see how often Jesus exposed lies, deception and hypocrisy – all in the name of freedom. He set us free to walk in this earth as if we are already in the kingdom. And that is salvation – to know God the Father and his son Jesus Christ and the freedom he brings to us.