Oliver

In attempting to make sense of Jesus' death the early church already had the model of sacrifice as part of its culture and tradition and the story of Abraham and Isaac as the most powerful example of sacrifice.

The idea of God completing Abraham's sacrifice with Her own Son was an obvious model for making sense of Jesus' death. Today, the idea of a parent 'sacrificing' their own child is simply abhorrent and this model for understanding Jesus' death no longer works. It can no longer be regarded as the definitive 'meaning' of that event. There is no 'mysterious' transfer of righteousness from Jesus' 'sacrifical' death to anyone else.

In order to understand Jesus' death today we need to look at other interpretive models than 'substitutionary' sacrifice. It is also time we put Luther and Calvin down and realised that faith as a 'state of mind' (or heart) is of no value except as the foundation of a righteous life by which I mean 'feeding the hungry', 'healing the sick', 'visiting the prisoner' and so on.

You are partly right about rituals. No particular ritual is necessary. It is, however, essential for humans to have rituals but no particular ritual is absolute. I regard the Christian sacraments as universal in scope but not absolute in meaning or value.

Jesus' death remains always incomrehensible just as the death of a child can never be fully reconciled in our minds. Any 'interpretation' of Jesus' death that purports to comprehensively 'explain' its meaning must be regarded with deep suspicion