The above is the title of a book written in the year 2000 by Richard John Neuhaus — a book that I think is as accessible and profound as any you could find on the meaning of what Christians believe took place on that Friday afternoon two millennia ago. I’m taking the liberty of a generous quote from its pages today:

These, then, are the truths at the heart of atonement. First, something has gone terribly wrong. We find ourselves in a distant country far from home. Second, whatever the measure of our guilt, we are responsible. Then, third, something must be done about it. Things must be set right. We cannot go on this way. False gospels of positive thinking or stoic exhortations to make the best of it are worse than useless — they are obscene. They are invitations to make our peace with a corruption at the core of everything. Better that Job and all the Jobs on the long mourning bench of history should curse God and die than that they should make their peace with the evil that they know. Such a peace is a peace of the dead, of those who are already spiritually and morally dead. The religious marketplace is crowded with the peddlers of peace of mind and peace of soul. But the narcotic of denial or pretense is too high a price to pay. Better to rage against the night.

Something must be done about what has gone wrong. Things must be set to right. And this brings us to the fourth great truth of atonement: Whatever it is that needs to be done, we cannot do it. Each of us individually, the entirety of the human race collectively — what can we do to make up for one innocent child tortured and killed? Never mind making up for Auschwitz, or the killing fields of Cambodia, or the coffin ships of traffickers in human slavery or the slaughter beyond number of innocents in the womb. We chatter on about modernity and progress while King Herod reigns secure. “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, for they were no more.”

Rightly does Rachel refuse to be comforted. Something must be done. It started long before Rachel and her children. From far back in the mists of our beginnings, the blood of Abel has been crying from the ground; and along the way we have allowed ourselves to be comforted by the counsel of Cain, advising us to get over it, to get on with our lives, for, after all, are we our brother’s keeper? But we know we are. We don’t know what to do about it, but we know that if we lose our hold on that impossible truth, we have lost everything. Something must be done. Justice must be done. Things must be set to right.

But what can we do? We cannot even put our own lives in order, never mind setting right a radically disordered world. The apostle Paul declares, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” There is an answer to that question, but do not rush to the answer. Stay with the question for a time if you would understand why the derelict hangs there on the cross.

For the record, I’ve done a small amount of work for First Things, of which Richard John Neuhaus is editor-in-chief, and consider myself a friend of that publication, so make what you will of my impartiality. (Coincidentally, I notice that they have published an additional extract from the same book today over at their own blog. I prefer the passage I picked, but I recommend reading the whole book.)

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