Sermon for Passion Sunday - March 9, 2008
“ neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. ”
IF YOU were to be sent into a world to save that world: who might you be, and what would you need to do? How would you begin, and how would you triumph over all that is wrong? What would your qualifications be in order to be this world's Messiah?
I asked my Bible study groups recently the essential question of this time of year, of any time of year, of human existence: What is salvation and how does Jesus obtain it for me? What made Jesus and His sacrifice affect our salvation? Did I need a perfect man to come and die for me, and how does His Blood buy back my soul? We say it all the time: Jesus died to save us from our sins. We say it in the Creeds. We read the words, but do we get it? What makes such a barbaric thing as a man on a cross the Good News we all seek? If “God so loved the world that He sent His only Son” to die in our place, is He a good God to ask such a woeful price for us? If it's the truth, and if we embrace it as the means of our saving grace, do we see how what He did gave life to us?
So you are sent to save this world. Many people have decided that was just who they are, and God save us from people like that! Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Jim Jones; folk die around such people. Myths rise around the movers and shakers and make them superhuman to our eyes, but the devastation is real. Self-made saviors hurt others to make their point, to create their version of paradise. Such people need mental help, not armies fighting in their names. When a man thinks of being a Messiah, he imagines himself to be something he's not.
The Jews anxiously awaited their promised Messiah, but they looked for Alexander the Great, a conqueror; another Caesar, Genghis Khan, King David with a blood stained sword—and glory, such glory as Solomon enjoyed. The enemy they imagined He would come to defeat was Roman. They never thought it might be themselves. When people clamour for their version of Messiah, they call for dictators, generals, rulers with rods of iron.
The enemy was not Roman, any more than he was Chinese, or Jewish. The enemy was what we had all become. We were fallen, sinful, broken, and lost. We had no idea any more of how to please God and get back to Him. We had ruined our world and needed a new one. And the peace we needed with God was not to be found on earth, not available by any of our sacrifices, our rituals or even obedience to everything we knew God wanted.
The salvation of humankind began with a birth, not a death. By rights God might have washed His great hands of us long before, but somehow He felt He wanted to help us out of our dilemma. And what was that? If you're going to save a world, you had better know what to save it from.
Two children wander off the path in a pristine forest, looking for an adventure. Soon they are impossibly lost. The fruit trees far behind them, they find themselves in desert places, live in caves, bear children up in a wasteland and make up a history for themselves. They dream up gods, worship things, become savages and after generations kill, eat and dominate one another. They make up right and wrong. Each generation is worse. At certain times, one or two of these creatures can hear the God who once set them amid the forgotten forest of fruits, on His path long ago lost. They feel badly about the lives their fellow creatures lead, and long for that lost relationship. But the bitter tale is in them all, wound around their hearts. It is the only life they've lived and the only world they've ever known. We have met the enemy, and he is us . Now: how do you save such a world of savages? And who must you be to save them?
“ Grace be unto you, and peace… from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty .” Rev 1:4-8
No less a Personage might even attempt such a rescue. The beginning and the end is no small title, nor is first begotten of the dead , and prince of the kings of the earth . Power is in such a Person, but is He only an alien to this lost world ? What does He have to do with us and why is He the One to come to our aid? “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” Col 1:15-17 It's His world! He made it, and it was made for Him. He has ownership of this planet and its inhabitants! This Savior doesn't just come from outside this world; He comes with complete authority as its originator, creator, author, owner. Whatever He says or does must be so.
Now, how is He going to get this lost tribe back on the path? He must first atone for us. As He is, that isn't possible: He is God the Son, eternal Spirit, Who—while our creator and the model upon which we are fashioned—can't die or suffer in anyone's place. So He becomes one of us. The salvation of our world begins with a birth.
All His life He is misunderstood. Not even His brothers believe Him. His mother alone knows the mystery, and not even she can fully appreciate what He is to suffer. His life so majestic, yet simple, necessarily gives His neighbors signs of His awesome power. Long He guards it, so only at the right time might He lay His claim and walk that path back to our first departure from the Way of Life. So many murders, so many sins to atone: His payment on our behalf has to be the very price of the universe. The blood He is to shed on Calvary—every drop—will be worth the world. Those He leaves with the legacy, the witness, and His Spirit will be His ambassadors to this world still lost, still raging, still so evil, but now so loved.
“He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.” Col 1:18-22 These ambassadors grew in understanding of what He had accomplished on that hill. They redrew the lines of the universe and discovered that His gift was the missing ingredient, the essential need of all people. It wasn't just in trying to be good. No one even knew what that was, nor could they achieve it by the most fervent effort. They needed to become new creatures . Somehow, the grace Jesus had won for them had to come to all, but how?
Armies? Governments? Religions? Starving themselves? They had tried them all, and only increased the misery. They had believed, but in the wrong things, looked in the wrong direction. Now they had a Savior, the true and only Messiah, and He had died, and then He had risen. A new joy and life had been born in them. He gave them His Spirit, and the Spirit showed them people must hear and believe, and they will be given back the path. Jesus is God the Son, become man, savagely treated, condemned to death, but by His stripes, by the nails in His bleeding body, we are healed and made new creatures through faith in Him.
St. Paul knew “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” Col 1:26-28 The Epistle to the Hebrews shows Jesus as the Great High Priest who made the best and most appropriate sacrifice. That is what a priest is, one who makes a sacrifice. But this sacrifice was Himself, His own blood poured out on the altar of the Cross: “with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption... And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death …that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance… Now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” Heb 9:12-28
It was hidden from the eyes of all, until His last act had prevailed over our broken hearts and ruined lives. The people could only be offended at Him, even His own disciples, though they tried to hide it. People called Him demon possessed, foreign, deranged, perverted. They claimed their descent from Abraham, the father of faith, and Jesus trumped that claim easily. “Before Abraham ever was, I Am.” Might they have known, they would have fallen down and rightly worshiped Him. Instead they took stones and would have killed Him right then. His hour came later, and His hour is now.
What are we to do with such a Savior? It isn't a Sunday School rhyme. Or if it is, let the children lead us. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so . But what is this Jesus? We ought to know. And if we know, we must believe and we must love Him. And if we love Him, we have to share Him. This is no secret society whose members hoard a mystery only for their benefit. There has never been a more precious, life-giving miracle as the beautiful, horrible death of Jesus. Come to the Cross and see. Come bring your loved ones and see what your Savior has done for you.
PFH+