He Died for Our Sins

Our new neighbor is very friendly, but she has a bumper sticker that reads “Jesus died for our sins.” She has Jesus stuff all over.

Why does the phrase “died for our sins” irritate me so much? The idea that a young first-century charismatic Jewish itinerant preacher from the tiny town of Nazareth could be the Christ doesn’t quite hold up. But that can be easily resolved: invoke god (for example, see Jesus’ birth and resurrection stories).

This led to people inventing a god to do what they need to have done. Their god is most often white, depending on one’s skin color. He’s a man (sorry, ladies) and lives UpThere, above the third firmament of the flat earth. He’s omnipotent, omnipresent, and judgmental. Like Santa but meaner, he does bad things to good people and vice versa. He wrote the Bible in King James’s English. About seven thousand years ago, he made an earth, equipped it, sculpted a man, and then created a lowly woman to be his sex servant. There’s more, but for this blog post, I hope I’ve made the point: people invent gods to do their bidding.

Next, their god chose a young virgin to give birth to his son. She is the mother of this god, but she is also still a virgin, as was her mom and all the women back to Eve. (This is so silly!) Now Jesus has the credentials to be the Christ. He is god and/or god’s son who was sent down (without a space suit) to all us bad people because everyone is born with original sin. This white Palestinian Jew looks like a real human but isn’t (e.g., the nails through his wrists and feet didn’t hurt). Even though Jesus was Jewish his whole life, somehow he became a Christian and started Christianity, which then made The Christians’ god one of their own kind—a Christian.

Their god had a divine plan, part of which was to have his son executed to save us bad guys. Unfortunately, this plan wasn’t well thought out because in today’s world, this god would be considered a child abuser. This was his idea, so he is responsible for this murder.

I find it hard to believe that any god would put his only son through this hell so that some people could claim, ”He died for my sins!”

The Jewish rabbi Saul/Paul claimed that Jesus replaced the sacrificial lamb of Yom Kippur. Jesus is now that lamb who “died for our sins.” Some people swear that one has to believe this, or they will go straight to a nonexistent hell and rot for eternity, which doesn’t exist. Everything has an end.

I like the progressive Christion version much better. This young Jewish itinerant preacher said that Yahweh wants us to love Him, His Creation, and all the Creatures in that Creation unconditionally; to forgive ourselves and others easily; and spend our lives caring for ourselves and others. Amen. This is why He’s my Christ!

Please, no more “He died for our sins.” It takes us down a rabbit hole that has no escape hatch.

Peace Love Joy Hope

Bil

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash