This is the comment I would expect someone to bring.  Thanks, Roger.  I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you here.  The point I'm trying to make is not that atonement is unaccessible, historically speaking.  In faith as Christians we believe it is.  What I'm concerned about is the extent to which, especially during Christmas and Easter, we rush to it and miss out on important dimensions other than the one you're speaking of.  Do we give due considering to the suffering that we cause others?  Do we recognize the power in Christ's experience of suffering with the subjugated peoples of the world?  Do we have a social sense of salvation, a historical sense, rather than merely an eschatological, personal sense?  In other words, I'm saying we can't only speak of atonement as something in the past.  It must be relived, renewed, and re-waited-for in order for us not to get complacent and downplay the prophetic.  We must preserve the "not yet" as much as the "already."  This aspect of advent functions as a kind of theodicy even - maybe not for everyone, but for those whose lives have been robbed from them or overwhelmed by injustice, I think it definitely does.