These past few months, I’ve thought a lot about a conversation I had with a parent a while back. The parent was asking me: How do I explain to my daughter why Jesus died? Because my kid asked me that question, and I started to answer, but realized I didn’t like what I was about to say and I wasn’t sure I even believed it myself. br /

br /

I asked her a little more about what it was she thought but didn’t say about why Jesus died, and she told me this theory to do with how bad we all are from God’s perspective, and how much God needs to punish us, and how Jesus got punished instead of us, which takes us off the hook. And as I was listening, I was nodding my head because I knew this version of the story. I’d believed and told parts of that story myself at one time. But I could get why it wasn’t something she wanted to pass on to her daughter. br /

br /

Because it makes God seem so cruel. Does God really think we’re all so awful? Not just the villains of humanity, but our saints and heroes and legends? Our young children? That would seem to be a harsh perspective. And does God think we’re so awful that we all deserve to be punished badly, continually, forever, if God can’t find someone else to punish instead? If that’s what God is like, so be it, I guess, but it does sound cruel. br /

br /

Now, to be clear, I don’t think this is what God is like. I don’t think this is the best way to understand the death of Jesus either. There’s more to the story. And over the next seven weeks, here on Sundays, and in a blog series I’m writing, and a daily Bible guide that Lydia and I are writing together, we’ll explore the truest and deepest and most beautiful ways we know for considering why Jesus died, and what happened on the cross. More about that later. br /

br /

But I start with this story because we’re learning more and more that so much of what has been called justice is not just but is cruel. And some of the things we’ve thought and said about God and ourselves aren’t that beautiful and just either, but cruel. br /

br /

And we can do better. br /

br /

One place that’s gotten people thinking and talking about all this is a really popular TV show that sadly just finished its run. It’s called The Good Place. How many of you have watched this show? br /

br /

It’s a comedy, but it’s a comedy that for the past few years has brought us some really rich reflection on the meaning of life. And I want to show you a little clip from the final season. br /

br /

For those of you that haven’t seen it, The Good Place begins with four people waking up after death to find they’re in a kind of heaven, what’s called The Good Place, but one of them knows she’s there by mistake. The show takes a lot of twists and turns, which I won’t spoil for you, but eventually these same four people have the opportunity to redesign the afterlife. To try to make it fair and just for people. Stakes are high - if they can’t pull it off, the Judge of all things will use the powers of this not-quite-robot-not-quite-person named Janet to cancel earth itself. The main character speaking here in this two-minute scene will be a man named Chidi, who in his earthly life was a professor of moral philosophy. br /

br /

Let’s have it. br /

br /

Good Place Scene from Season 4, Episode 10br /

br /

Chidi raises the problem of cruelty. They’re talking about our criminal justice system, for sure, but they’re also talking about the afterlife. Chidi wonders why many people should go to Hell, or what the show calls The Bad Place. In most cases, he says, “The cruelty of the punishment does not match the cruelty of the life that one has lived.” Or as his love interest Elanor says, “This is a problem of justice.”br /

br /

They never mention God or Jesus or the cross, but we could ask the same question about all that. Does the cross tell us that God is cruel, but that we’re lucky to escape that cruelty?