As an exceedingly earnest missionary in the early 1990s, I found myself transfixed by one prominent story about the Atonement. It had to do with the way that our individual sins affected Christ’s suffering. I knew then with perfect clarity that every time I committed a minor deviation from the White Bible (the then-current missionary handbook, a pocket-sized rule book binding missionaries across the church), I was pounding a nail into Christ’s battered flesh on the cross at Golgotha. With each tiny sin—staying 61 minutes at a dinner, say—I was directly responsible for a new portion of Christ’s terrible punishment. This image played a part in a scrupulousness that made me impossible to live with as a missionary. I tried to skip Preparation Day so that I could keep proselytizing; I never told (or laughed at) jokes; I memorized huge swaths of scripture. I could not escape the feeling that my mortal inadequacy brutalized the suffering Christ.
Thanks for sharing these wonderful ideas! So insightful. I love the full relationship model “ becoming us”. Not just becoming like us.
This is beautiful, Samuel. Thank you.