Sermon prepared for
Easter Day,
So…
What’s the Difference?
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Throughout
this past season of Lent at our Wednesday evening services we’ve been
responding to questions that we are often asked as pastors. Where is my dead child? Do we have to believe or agree with
everything in the Bible? Do we really
have to forgive everybody for everything?
What should we pray for? Why do
bad things happen to good people? Why do
we say that the wine and bread are the blood and body of Christ?
Last
week this issue of Time Magazine came
in our mailbox at home. It asks yet another
question, “Why Did Jesus Have to Die?”
And—as you would suspect—the article jumps off from, and makes much of,
the recent Passion movie. Among all the different reactions people have
had to the movie, many people were moved to tears, some of them realizing for
the very first time the difference between hearing it as a way back then story in
the Bible, and finally considering it as a real happening: real pain, real
suffering… a real and horrible death.
But
what jumps the gap? What jumps the gap—from
all this suffering and death—to meaning?
It’s hard to tell whether people are moved simply by the violence and
unfair treatment and capital murder of Jesus as an innocent man, or was it something
more? Because it still leaves that
question unanswered: Why? What makes
this story, what made this man’s death any more important than any other
martyr’s in history? Why did have to Jesus
die? And what difference did it make?
You’d
think that would be the question I should have taken care of a couple evenings
ago on Good Friday, but I agree with the very last sentence in this article in Time.
It says, “The question of why Jesus died requires some sort of response
from anyone who reasons out his or her faith—and that question will not
evaporate come Easter Sunday.”
The
question will not evaporate come Easter Sunday.
The question remains: Why? And what difference does it make? For me, the difference is Easter.
I
want you to think of an answer to a question.
I’ll explain it in it a bit, but answer this question: why play
baseball? Think about that for a moment. Now, turn to the person next to you and
finish this sentence, “People play baseball because…” How many different answers do you think there
are? Almost as many answers as people
here this morning.
I
encourage you to read this article in Time
Magazine, at least for information sake.
It does a pretty good job of summarizing, in a little more than four
pages, the last 2000 years of “atonement history.”
And
see, “atonement” tries to answer that question, “Why did Jesus have to die?” Atonement is about humanity being reconciled,
or reunited, with God. Brought together,
that’s what we say, that somehow Jesus’ life, suffering, death and resurrection
somehow caused or helped us to be reconciled with God… atonement.
“Atonement,”
it sounds like a big brainy theological word doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. Atonement literally is just two English words
that were stuck together sometime in the 15th Century. Atonement is “at ONE-ment,” God’s will and
plan to be at one with his people, his creation. At onement.
Atonement.
Exactly
how Jesus’ death did this is described several different ways in the Bible and
throughout church history. There are
almost as many answers as to why Jesus had to suffer and die, as there were to
the question of baseball.
Some
have insisted that the devil needed to be appeased or fooled. Others said that God and his wrath needed to
be appeased, or that the demands of the Law needed to be paid. Believe me, all of these ideas can be backed
up by various Biblical scripture, and with all kinds of logical deductions,
metaphysics, checks and balances.
Pretty
soon God, Jesus, and our salvation all begin to look like a great mathematical
flowchart, or some kind of financial ledger.
You and I could all sit down and debate this question of “Why?” for
centuries. And really, much of this
language of “substitutionary atonement,” “exemplary theory,” or other such
theological jargon, it can be very interesting for a while (and fun for some
people), but it begins to sound like a verbal game for brainiacs trying to fit
God into their calculus equations.
On
the other hand others will say, “Oh, it’s just a great cosmic ‘mystery.’ We don’t have to understand, and we can’t
understand it. It just is.” Well, that’s just about as delightful and waxy
as a hollow chocolate Easter bunny! I
just don’t believe that God is some great anal retentive bookkeeper, making
sure that Jesus suffered enough to pay up for all our guilt. At the same time, I also believe that it must
be more substantial than some airy “mystery.”
Atonement
is easier, and more meaningful than all of this. Listen to our gospel lesson this morning. The women came to the tomb, ready with oils
and spices to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial. The men in brilliant clothes asked the women,
“Why are you looking for the living among the dead?”
“Why
are you trying to find the living among the dead?” And this is my advice to all who try to find
meaning or purpose solely in reflecting on the suffering and death of Jesus as
some kind of “cosmic equation” to be solved or a “ransom” to be paid: Stop
looking for the living among the dead.
He is not here; he has risen.”
The
question of atonement isn’t so much about why Jesus had to suffer and die. It is a question of what God was able to do
with it, come Easter morning. I’m not
saying that the meaning is only found in the resurrection of Jesus. I’m saying that the meaning of Jesus’ death
is found in his resurrection from the dead. And the meaning of his resurrection is found
in the death that he was raised from.
Christian
meaning, victory and salvation are shown in the death and resurrection—what
God was—incredibly—willing and able to with the complete destruction, and annihilation
of his Son, Jesus Christ. The real
question is not “Why?” The real question
is “What is the difference?”
For
me, as I suggested last Friday night, one of the biggest things is that Jesus,
even after his resurrection, Jesus appeared with the nail prints and wounds,
human scars, all still there. It was
just a brief glimpse at the end of the movie, but so very important: the nail
holes were still in his hands.
And
in raising Jesus then, these human wounds, including all the emotional hurts,
the pain, the abandonment, loneliness, these human scars—because of Jesus death
and resurrection—these human scars will be forever imprinted in God. He knows.
Jesus knew, and God knows, exactly what it is… to be human.
Because
of Jesus Christ, humanity is forever imprinted into God. That’s the difference. The difference is that God’s love was finally
and fully shown through Jesus. And
through Jesus, humanity was fully accepted into God. Brought together: atonement, at onement.
Why
did Jesus suffer, die and rise from the dead?
Because we needed to see it; we
needed more than words, but to actually see the extent of God’s love, his
willingness to reach out and touch and heal, his willingness to stretch out his
arms on the cross, and forgive even those who tortured him. And then we needed to see the power of God in the resurrection. He proved his complete power of forgiveness,
by showing us what he could do with humanity’s worst crime of all. —He rose…from murder and death.
Jesus
was no longer to be found among the dead.
He is not found in theory and abstract.
Jesus will always be found among the living. Humanity is forever imprinted in God, and God
will be forever found in humanity, in us.
Jesus Christ: from the cross, through the grave, and in each other,
forevermore. AMEN.
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