Introduction To Christianity - pg. 221

Why should God take pleasure in the suffering of his creature,
indeed his own Son, or even see in it the currency with which
reconciliation has to be purchased from him? The Bible and
right Christian belief are far removed from such ideas. It is not
pain as such that counts, but the breadth of the love which spans
existence so completely that it unites the distant and the near,
bringing God-forsaken man into relation with God. It alone gives
the pain as aim and a meaning. Were it otherwise, then the
executioners round the cross would have been the real priests;
they, who had caused the pain, would have offered the sacrifice.
But this was not the point; the point was the inner centre that
bears and fulfils the pain, and therefore the executioners were not
the priests; the priest was Jesus, who reunited the two separated
ends of the world in his love.