"All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Christ, ministering abundance of virtues and plenty of grace to us by Him."
Julian of Norwich (Ch. 23)
Sometimes we hear that the Father abandoned or turned His back on Jesus when He bore our sin on the cross, as if He couldn't bear to look on sin, or that the Father poured out all His anger on Jesus at the cross so He could bear to tolerate us. But the Trinity is always in unity with each other and never divided against each other. It wasn't that the Father turned His back on His Son; the Father was actually in Christ reconciling the world to Himself at the cross, and the Holy Spirit was touching people's hearts to see that Jesus was innocent of any crime. The Father wasn't angry or pouring out wrath on Jesus; the whole Trinity was together working to bring reconciliation and salvation at the cross. Jesus became sin at the cross and Christ's virtues were brought to us, so we became the righteousness of God in Christ. The cross wasn't Christ having to tame God's anger so He could bear to be around us; the cross was God reaching out His arms to embrace humanity and remove the sin and suffering that plagued us, His beloveds. Angry, false deities demand payment or blood sacrifices in order to forgive sin; our true God who is pure Love freely forgave us of all sin and removed it from us, giving us His own righteousness, life and perfection in its place. The cross was not a place of wrath but of love, not a place of punishment from a harsh deity but a place of grace from a tender-hearted Father!
"God was in Christ personally reconciling the world to himself—not counting their sins against them—and has commissioned us with the message of reconciliation....For God caused Christ, who himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God."
2 Corinthians 5:19, 21 (PHILLIPS)
A Prayer: Thank You for all the grace and goodness You ministered to me through Christ!