The Great Exchange

Agnus Dei – Francisco de Zurbarán, c. 1640.
Museo del Prado.  Public domain.

When I played guitar in youth choir as a teenager, one of our Lenten songs asked the question, “Would you take the place of this man? Would you take the nails from his hands?” I thought of this song recently as I meditated on the painting nearest to where my family sits on Sunday mornings. This painting by Martin Feuerstein depicts Simon of Cyrene, who temporarily carries the cross of an exhausted Jesus. Seeing Jesus stagger under the weight of his cross, the Roman guards pluck Simon from the crowd and drop the cross on his shoulders. For a time, Simon relieves Jesus of his physical burden, but he is incapable of bearing the full weight of the Cross.

A similar scenario plays out in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King. Frodo’s anguish reaches a fever pitch as he approaches Mordor. His faithful companion, Samwise Gamgee, heroically cries, “Come, Mr. Frodo! I can’t carry [the ring] for you, but I can carry you!” Like Simon of Cyrene, Sam enters his friend’s suffering, but only for a time. In the words of the song I used to sing in youth group, neither Sam nor Simon are able to “take the place of this man.” Frodo himself must deliver the ring to the fires of Mordor. Jesus himself must hang on the cross.

On Palm Sunday and on Good Friday, our parish joins in a centuries-old tradition of reading the Passion of the Christ in full, out loud. In perhaps the most sobering moment of the entire Church year, our congregation cries out in unison, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Rather than taking the place of Jesus in the Passion narrative, we take the place of the angry mob that cries out for his condemnation. In one of our Lenten hymns (#158, “Ah, Holy Jesus”) we sing:

	Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
	Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.
	’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee:
	I crucified thee.

All of human history joins together in the call, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” We cannot “take the place” of Jesus on the Cross because it is on the Cross that Jesus has taken our place. But it is hardly enough to say that Jesus died “in our place.” What mother would not fling herself in front of a moving vehicle to save her child? What trained Secret Service member would not take a bullet for the President? The Cross of Christ is a vicarious death, but it is that and more.Jesus died in our place, yes, but he died for our sins. On the Cross, the only innocent man who had ever lived took upon himself the crushing weight of humanity’s sin, past, present, and future. But why did Jesus have to die? Is it an act of heroism? Is it to satiate God’s bloodlust? Is it a mere execution? In the words of Fleming Rutledge, “What is Jesus doing on that cross?”