I don't know exactly how Christ made atonement for the sins of the world on the cross. But I know that he did. I know that it was an act of love by Christ for humanity, chosen by him, not inflicted upon him. I know the only wrath involved was at the sin and death which wound us.

I know that there is power in the blood of Christ to heal and to save. I know that he told his friends that his blood was "shed for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins."

I know that the Roman Empire's belief that it was in control of what was happening, or that its will was the primary determinant that led to Christ's death? Was an illusion. "You would have no power at all lest it had been given thee."

If the cross didn't do anything other than show - as if we needed more evidence! - that human individuals and systems are desperately sin-sick, there is no power in the blood, no hope in the cross, no meaning to the resurrection, no point to our faith.

Good Friday is good. Because God made what the world intended as an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life. Because God, in her sovereignty, has made the way of the cross to be none other than the way of life and peace.

To make of the cross a scapegoating or a sadistic homicide is not only to fail to tell the true story, it's to fundamentally misunderstand the central point: the free self-gift of Jesus of Nazareth, the shepherd who was resolved to lay down his life for the sheep.