What if ... ?

I've been thinking...

Easter for 2023 is over and the full season of Passover comes to an end tomorrow. I've been wrestling with the whole idea of substitutionary atonement/penal substitution/propitation/whatever you want to call it.
Because the crucifixion of Jesus took place at Passover, the picture is often drawn of Jesus taking the role of the sacrificial lamb and his death being the atonement for the sins of humanity. But I'm seeing a problem with that.
The Passover lamb wasn't a sacrifice. It was a meal.
And the blood of the lamb wasn't to atone for sin; it was to identify the people of God (the Jews) from the Egyptians in whose land they lived.
The Jews have a different festival for atonement - Yom Kippur.

So what was the purpose of Passover if it wasn't for saving the Jews from their sin?
Was it just to rescue them from Egypt?
To what end?
And is there a correlation between the blood of the lamb and the blood of Jesus?

I think the most difficult part of trying to figure this stuff out is in setting aside the contemporary Western interpretation of an ancient Eastern culture. I'm afraid that much of what I've been taught doesn't make much sense when I change my perspective to try to understand the Bible and its message to the people that it was written for. And are there lessons for us these centuries and millennia later?

From a purely nationalistic standpoint the ancient nation of Israel offers the real lesson for modern day America that we'd better get our shit together. The struggle between the sons of Israel and later the tribes of Israel ended up dividing the nation and then separate kingdoms were each captured, conquered, and eventually destroyed. The reinstated nation of Israel hardly resembles the Chosen People of God and is a damn poor substitute for the ancient nation.
Sorry for the political insertion, but it is one of the things I see when trying to figure out how this ancient story impacts us today.

Getting back to the crucifixion...
I understand that sacrificial offerings to appease gods and make atonement were a thing in the ancient world, even for the Hebrews. Face it - much of the Hebrew culture relating to God is taken from the way other cultures related to their gods. The ancient Hebrews wanted to be like other nations, even to the point of having an earthly king to rule over them. They gave to their king and to God in much the same way their neighboring pagan nations paid tribute to their kings and gods.

What if the Hebrew perspective of a wrathful, judgmental god is also taken from the cultures of the nations that surrounded them?
What if God made us his imagebearers so that we might have a loving relationship with him and other imagebearers?
What if it was never about condemnation and always about finding a way to re-establish a loving relationship with his creation?
What if God became man (Jesus) not to judge us, die for us, save us, or pay for our sin, but simply to connect with us and teach us how to connect with the God image/Christ image/spirit that lives within each and every one of us?
What if the great sacrifice of God wasn't in dying as a human, but rather in living as a human?

Paul writes that Jesus set aside all of the glory, all of the power, all of the being of God to become - not just a human, but an outcast among his people - and he did it to demonstrate that God loves all of us. 

What if Jesus didn't die so that we could go to a better place when we die?
What if he lived so that we could learn to recognize the presence of God now - in the world around us and in the people around us?
What if it was never about judgment and condemnation and it has always been about love?

John