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The rattle of the dice slows to a halt, and there is silence. The gamemaster stares at them for a few seconds, then looks up at you and says two words: "roll reflex." You're in trouble now. You don't need to look down at your character sheet to know that you have a rotten dexterity score and a correspondingly pitiful reflex save. You can't make the escape. The lightning bolt the enemy wizard has just cast at your character is going to hit him, and kill him. No matter what number comes up on the dice, the heavy penalty your character carries will reduce the result to a failing score. Nothing you roll can save you, but what else can you do? You take a deep breath and reach for the dice. Suddenly, the GM brushes your hand aside. Before you can ask why, she picks up the dice and hands them to the player across the table, the player with the highest-level character in the game, with ability scores as exceptional as yours are awful. "Here," says the GM, "you roll for him." Then she turns to you and assures you, "Your character's going to be fine- just use his result and his bonuses instead of your own."

This scenario probably sounds farfetched to you. What GM would ever do such a thing? Certainly none I've ever played with. After all, what possible reason could a GM have for letting weak characters share the benefits of others' strengths? No one would ever let his or her players off that easily. No human, that is- but this is exactly what God has offered to do for us. He permits us to ask another to roll the dice in our stead. What's more, He permits us to ask this of the most powerful player in the game- Christ. Why would God let us off so easily? First of all, because He cares for us. He wishes good, and not ill, for his PCs, unlike many a GM. But secondly, and more importantly, because easy or hard has nothing to do with it. God is simply letting us off, the only way He can.

Let me explain. In D&D, a saving throw is a roll you make to attempt to lessen or avert misfortune. In the case of the earlier example, the saving throw represents the character's chances of dodging the lightning bolts. Similarly, a character who had been poisoned would make a saving throw to represent his immune system's chance to fight off the effects. Based on your ability scores, you may have bonuses added to, or penalties subtracted from, the number you roll. A character with a low dexterity score is clumsy or slow, and much less likely to be able to get out of the way. A frail or sickly character, one with a low constitution score, probably won't be able to take many shocks to his system. The irony is that the less able a character is to make a successful saving throw, the more likely he or she is to need one. A character with a high constitution can probably shrug off the poison, but even if he had not been able to, he probably will not die. He has so many hit points that he can lose twenty at once and still stay on his feet. A character with a low constitution, though, cannot withstand as much damage. Someone who only has ten hit points cannot afford to lose twenty. To do so would kill him. The same weakness that makes him need protection makes him less able to protect himself. However, the rules of the game are clear. If a character cannot make a successful saving throw, he or she must bear the full brunt of the attack. If the damage kills him or her, so be it. Rules must be consistent, and actions must have consequences.

God's campaign has rules, too. When we make poor decisions, someone has to pay the price. When we are struck, someone has to take the damage from the blow. When we stumble into the fire, someone has to take the fall- and burn. And, unfortunately, we humans keep making poor decisions, setting ourselves up for hits and falls. We lie, steal, and hate, the spiritual equivalents of poking traps, taunting wizards, and tossing pebbles at sleeping dragons. We knock on trouble's door, but are often surprised when trouble answers, and indignant when we discover the dual consequences of our ways. In an RPG, foolhardy actions will not only cause other characters to mistrust you, but will also get you injured, even if your companions continue to think the best of you. Poke the trap, and it will snap down on your fingers and crush them, regardless of whether anyone else sees or knows. Likewise, in life, when you do wrong, even if you avoid detection and the social consequences of your actions, you are still doing yourself harm. The difference is that in an RPG this harm is physical, damaging the character's body, while in this campaign the harm is spiritual, eroding the soul. If the damage were to our bodies, we'd all need a lot of splints and bandages, because we've all been hurting ourselves on a regular basis. If we're honest with ourselves, we all know that in the past week, or more likely in the past 24 hours, we've done things that were significantly less than good, right, and noble. We have taunted the wizard of sin, and now the lightning bolts are falling. Don't hope in your saving throw to protect you, or you'll only be disappointed. The DC for this save is high, very high, and just as in a game, we who need it most are least likely to be able to meet the criteria. The same weakness that makes us need saving makes us unable to save ourselves. The more wrong we do, the more we need atonement but the less we are able to atone. We have a -3 penalty on our righteousness save, and we're trying to roll a 30. Any gamer knows it's mathematically impossible. We have fallen into the fire, and someone has to burn for it.

The good news is that "someone" doesn't have to be us. We can't dodge the lightning bolts, but a more powerful character can throw himself between us and the danger, and take the hit that was meant for us. We can't evade the damage incurred by our wrongdoings, but we can let Christ step in and take the backlash. This is what Christians call the Atonement or the Redemption. God knew we humans were in mortal peril. He knew the rules said we had to die, and He could not break them. But He could not bear to lose us, so He did the only thing He could to keep us. He became a PC in His own campaign. He became Christ, became human and died in our place. He took the hit that would have destroyed us- and rose from it.

This, though, is where the analogy of Christ to a heroic, high-level PC starts to break down. Pain is a very abstract concept in D&D. A character with 1 hit point is perfectly fine, while a character with 0 hit points is barely conscious. There is no quantitative measure of the gradual accumulation of weariness and wounds in the game. A character who is down to one-fourth of her full health should be bleeding profusely. Her condition should be at least distracting, and probably debilitating, but the game takes no notice of this until she slumps to the ground two minutes later. This is not very realistic. We all know that being beaten or stabbed or burned hurts, even if the injury is minor. Christ was human, and He felt pain, too. He might not have suffered any permanent harm, but He still suffered agony. The Romans used crucifixion as the ultimate punishment precisely because it was the most painful and lingering form of death they were able to inflict. Christ was systematically flogged, forced to carry a heavy plank up a hill, staked to it by nails that punctured the mesial nerves, and hung for hours in a position that made every breath a struggle. It certainly hurt. It hurt more than dice and rulebooks can attempt to measure. Few PCs would drain their own character to the dregs for the sake of a fellow adventurer, in a setting where damage costs no pain, and yet Christ spent Himself for us. It was not cheap or easy for Him, but He did it to save all of us, even the ones, like us, who weren't in the campaign yet.

We can refuse the gift. We can shut our eyes to our failings and pretend nothing is wrong. We can stubbornly continue trying to prove our independence, all the while slipping further away from our goal. We can push away the character that runs to shield us. We can snatch up the dice and insist upon rolling them, but why, when we know it will be in vain? Christ "rolled the dice" in our stead, twenty centuries ago. Anyone who wants to can write His score on his or her character sheet and walk away from the adventure intact. The ultimate saving throw has already been made. The Master has approved it. The dice are still. He is waiting for our decision.