I am a bit of a sci-fi geek. I grew up watching Star Trek, Star Wars and just about anything with aliens and outer space. One of the coolest phenomena which provided great plots and excitement was the mysterious Black Hole!
A Black Hole is a phenomenon in outer space that has a gravitational field so powerful that nothing; matter or radiation can escape. So powerful that it even pulls light into itself, and the light cannot escape. The light itself is absorbed. The immense gravity of the Black Hole squeezes all matter into a relatively small space. Cool, right? But what does this have to do with faith?
We see a variety of explanations of what happened on the cross in relation to Jesus and sin. Powerful statements like He bore our sin, and He became sin on our behalf illustrate the lengths to which God would go to save us. Using Jewish imagery, in Christ, the Father provide the perfect lamb as a scapegoat for us to transfer our sin upon, and in Christ, God Himself became the once and for all sacrifice. Through the cross, God gave Himself as the final scapegoat, and we unrelentingly poured out our worst on Him. Our shame-inspired-cocktail of sin, rage, fear and its institutional sin of religion and politics murdered God on the cross.
Thankfully this is not the end of the story. In the amazing climax, Jesus takes the full force of our shame-driven-sin. He takes our worst and through it all He does not lash out, He does not condemn and curse us. Rather, in the throes of excruciating death, He prays unrelentingly “Father, forgive them! They don’t know what they are doing!” When He finally gives up His life, even the grave cannot hold Him. Three days later, taking the keys of sin and death, He rises to new life. He has resoundingly conquered sin and death.
It is important that we understand that while Jesus absorbed our sin, that He became (2Cor5:21) the representative / scapegoat for sin, He did not actually become sinful. He was not diminished in any way. His nature did not change on the cross.
Which brings us back to the Black Hole. Like a Black Hole, the unfathomable gravitational pull of divine love in Christ pulls sin, the sin of all humankind into Himself. Christ on the cross once and for all absorbed all sin without changing the nature of the Son of God. This gave way for us to experience the love and grace of God in a new way because of the Way that God dealt with sin. It is only God who can deal so decisively with sin as to consume it entirely without being diminished. Can you say “BIG God!”