War & the Cross of Christ

The Swiss theologian Emile Brunner once remarked: “He who understands the cross aright . . . understands the Bible, he understand Jesus Christ.”

I would add that unless one understands the profound meaning of the cross one will never understand the Christian’s opposition to violence and war as a means for conflict resolution.

I no longer debate with those who seem to misunderstand or have no understanding of the cross of Jesus why war is simply a human exercise in futility. In other words, war is the perpetuation of unredeemed violence; it is the driving force behind the endless cycle of human violence. 

Yet trying to explain the merit of this reality to one whose mind has not been formed or shaped by the meaning of the death of Christ is exhausting, and quite frankly, impossible. 

Writing to the Christians at Philippi the Apostle Paul commanded: “Let the same mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). In other words we are to try, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to think like Jesus thought, especially in the ways he reacted to threatening violence on his own life.

I have often heard the argument: “I believe God wants me to protect myself and if I have to shoot someone to do that then he would be okay with it.” Well Jesus never thought this way, I cannot find one incident in which he would have responded to violence in this manner.

In fact, one of the most telling episodes that demonstrated Jesus’s response to the threat of violence came when he was being arrested in the garden. Peter unsheathed his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant; a clear attempt to protect Jesus.

So what did Jesus do? He healed the man’s ear and bluntly told Peter: “ . . . put the sword away, all who draw the sword will die from the sword.” In Luke’s version of this story Jesus is reported to have said: “No more of this!”  No more means no more, right?

Then in John’s depiction of the story Jesus is reported to have said: “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” 

Is this demonstration of nonviolent resistance indicative of the mind of Christ? Is this reaction to the threat on one’s life reflective of the way Jesus thought about how to respond to threatening aggression and violence?

I suggest that this is exactly how Jesus thought and we are to think in similar ways ourselves. Now I realize this is not easy. Some have accused me of being simple minded at worse or naive at best. Some have accused me if living in “la la land” (whatever that means).

But I am convinced that this one incident is a foreshadow of the meaning of Jesus’s death on the cross. Jesus willfully and humbly accepted his role as a Suffering Servant. He willfully embraced the mission to respond to evil and violence with self giving love. It’s a radical approach for sure.

He knew that this was the only way the cycle of human evil and violence could ultimately be broken. He believed that redemptive love was his only response to the Evil that was intent on killing him.

For us to respond in like manner is to put on the mind of Christ. Yet I realize the difficulty of such thinking for those whose lives have yet to be shaped by the death of Jesus. I also realize that this way of thinking is too often obscured by a view of the cross that only sees Jesus’s death in terms of saving souls for heaven. 

The cross of Jesus, rightly understood, provides Christians with an appropriate platform for responding to the violence and war that never seems to end. The endless cycle of violence rolls on and on and until that cycle is broken by the self-giving love of Christ I am afraid we will simply self-destruct as a human race.

So the cross of Jesus was his ultimate response to all the systemic evil and violence the world throws at us. The cross is Jesus’s nonviolent approach to Evil. 

Until my detractors come to understand this redemptive and non violent meaning of the cross there will never be any reason to debate the utility of war with one another. Until we can somehow approach this issue from the same operating system (to borrow a commuter metaphor) there isn’t much hope for healthy discussions concerning violence and war.

Peace be unto you!