What God willed was that Jesus be faithful to truth and love so that through Jesus’s violent and sinful death we would be liberated from violence, sin, and death. The sacrifice of Jesus is the ultimate gift of love offered to a world distorted by hate, where death is wielded as the supreme weapon. The sacrifice of Jesus is not a utilitarian payment to an offended deity bound to an economy of appeasement. The ugliness of the cross is found in human sin. The beauty of the cross is found in divine forgiveness.
