Passion Sunday

This is a rough work in progress- I frequently preach on the themes of the atonement and the meaning-if any-of Jesus’ death.

Matthew 26-27

How did it come to this? From triumphal entry into Jerusalem, declared king, to dead in less than a week. What possessed the crowd? The same thing that has always possessed humans and still possesses us. Humanity has a problem, and the problem is sin–we fail to live the lives that God intends and we choose our own way for our own ends rather that God’s desire. We know this–I don’t know too many folks who lack any sense that their lives are not what they should be. We all know that we are weak and broken creatures.The problem arises when those of us who desire a relationship with God take a long and hard look at what scripture and tradition teach us about what God demands via the Law, and we come to the frightening realization that it is simply impossible for anybody to ever come close to meeting the demand of the Law. This can lead to despair, as in Luther’s case or to a rejection of the whole scheme, which I have to say is tempting when there are so many public examples of Christians behaving badly—nationalism, homophobia, sexism, racism, anti-intellectualism, to name but a few. (yea, I’m one of “those liberals”)If one rejects the whole scheme of seeking a relationship with God, or a spiritual path of some kind, there are numerous options, which in our current world includes seeking satisfaction and comfort through the accumulation of wealth or relationships or power or addictions or any of the myriad ways that we humans have of self-distraction or self-medication. I am by no means saying that faith in God or Christ is the only way to experience a fulfilled life—but in our context, the traditional setting of “Church” is still the way that most of us connect with a faith community. I happen to know some quite happy and healthy atheists—yet I would say that there is something unique and powerful in the Christian story of human-God relationships via Christ and the cross. If this is where we find ourselves, as part of the Christian story, then we have to wrestle with what happened that week in Jerusalem.

The power of sin and guilt remain, even when we try to numb or distract ourselves from our predicament. In our heart of hearts, we truly do seek God. We choose to live our lives apart from God , because the truth is too painful and frightening–we know that we cannot ever get to God. God, of course, knows all this and so God finds a way to break through all of our rejections and distractions. Even in our rejection and fear, there is a question that we address to God: we ask, “how do we sinful, broken human beings, having broken your Law, how do we work our way back to the garden—the way You meant life to be?” And then God answers our plea. God says, “you can’t and you won’t come to me, so I come to you, in the person and life of Jesus of Nazareth. Look into his eyes, look at his life with me and follow Jesus and know that you are loved.”

This does not sit well with us—we reject God’s offer and we lash out and kill the One sent by God. We then say to God, “Everything has a price. Somebody has to pay for our sins—blood must be shed to restore order and balance (see Rene Girard’s work on the scapegoat) What is the price of your love? More than that, prove your love!” God answers, “O.K., I will.” And so God gives Godself over to death on a cross as a sign of love.

Blood has value—the Israelites and virtually every culture in history understood this, and so do we—we have not evolved very much in this—we’re dealing with primordial forces and deep human feelings and metaphors–we still know that shed blood has value—blood represents life—the life-force of living creatures—blood sacrifice got its power and efficacy from this idea. We honor the shed blood and sacrifice of heroes with parades and monuments because we know that life blood is precious.

Jesus’ death on the cross is an incomparable price to be paid for sin. This scheme only works if we acknowledge what Jesus said about himself—that He and The Father are One. If Jesus’ had not been identified as God-in-the-flesh, then the cross would have no power to save us—it had to be Godself on the cross to get the point across to humanity—nothing less would do. This self-giving of God to us demonstrates God’s love. This is my main point: Jesus’ death did not change anything about God or God’s attitude toward humanity. Jesus’ death is meant to change us and our attitude toward God.

It’s not a case of an angry, vengeful God being appeased by a human sacrifice—no! God’s mind wasn’t changed—Jesus’ death should change our mind about God and the nature of self-giving love. Remember the deep mystery, the paradox, the mind-twister—when we look to the cross and see a crucified Jesus we are at the same time seeing a crucified God. So does it end here?
We’ll have to wait and see—and not just until next Sunday morning.

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