Sunday 19 February 2023 - What did Jesus do? (Rev Rebecca Apperley)
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“So why did Jesus have to die? Couldn’t God and Jesus just have a nice meal together and call it even?
Dr Jessica Hendy, University of York.
Over the last three weeks we’ve been exploring just who this Jesus guy is anyway. Last week we had fun with Richard exploring where we find Jesus. We’ve also explored who Jesus is – God in human form – and why we follow Jesus at all.
This final week we have a ‘what’ question – what did Jesus do? Or, put another way, why did Jesus die on the cross and come back to life? AND…why does that even matter?
First off, let’s acknowledge the hard stuff of the week. It’s been crap. It’s easy to doubt that God is a loving God.
The kind of God who allows cyclones, or earthquakes, who sits impassively with his hands tied sadly watching it all unfold, or worse, sits on a cosmic sun lounger with a mojito, able to make it all stop but choosing not to because of a choice God has made not to intervene until God decides it’s time.
It’s times like this that we really need to wrestle. We need to lament. Why need to ask why. To pretend that everything is OK is not healthy or robust and does not do ourselves or God justice.
At Friday small group a couple of us felt God encouraging us to wrestle with God as we reflected on the text of Mary outside Jesus’ tomb: ‘woman, why are you weeping?’ Why is your heart heavy?
Nicky Gumbel, founder of Alpha, says that the message at the heart of the universe is that we are loved. With all that’s gone on, can that really be true? That’s the question I want us to keep in the back of our minds as we explore why Jesus died on the cross.
The quote that I put up at the start [repeat] is a bit of a red herring. It’s not from a theologian or from a prominent atheist. It’s actually my sister, at the pub, yesterday. And the honest truth is that when she asked that, I stumbled. All the way home I wrestled with why I wasn’t able to answer, playing angry music to myself very loudly and genuinely laughing out loud when I saw this truck:
[when in doubt, mumble].
Getting our heads around why Jesus had to die is genuinely mind-boggling. It requires the grace of your housemates when you flip out in panic and rant all over them.
It requires us to understand some things about how God works, and how we work.
Firstly, that God is holy. Set apart. What is not holy cannot come near. God is all goodness, all light, all truth. Take off your shoes, because the place you are standing on is holy ground. The temple curtain. None shall look on his face and live (Exodus 33.20).
And secondly (other rather, 2a), that we are marvellously created for relationship with God. We are loved by God. Picture the thing / people / person that you love most in the world. [question mark person silhouette] Living or departed. Feel that love you have for them. Remember that feeling that you would do anything for them. You would run over burning coals. The delight you feel when they turn up at your door. We are made in God’s image, made for love, made for relationship, made for goodness and creativity and radical kindness and generosity and joy and wonder and dancing and laughing so hard that it hurts and marvelling at a beat drop, the beauty of sand under a microscope, or the perfect goal. Made to know God and know that we are loved and special and of great, great worth.
But (2b) we’ve screwed up. Sin. Sin pollutes our lives - it spoils our relationships, it causes addictive patterns of behaviour that we find it impossible to escape even though we know they’re bad for us; sin divides us, causing us to avoid people when we’ve hurt them; it places ‘me’ at the centre instead of being in right relationship with God and other people; it makes us cry out for justice for other people who do wrong stuff but try to escape the penalty when we ourselves do the wrong thing.
Thirdly, we know that bad things need to be made right. THat longing in your heart, that longing for something more - that’s the longing of each of us separated from God and knowing deep within us that wants it to be fixed. There is something deep within us, something that reflects God’s character, that understands that justice is important. That things need to be made right. It is an intrinsic part of the human character, which has outworked itself in many different forms across human cultures.
So the solution: God comes close to us, and he chooses to do so by coming to be with us in the God-human of Jesus. And dying for us - remember, Jesus CHOOSING to die for us, not forced - was the only option, which we can think of in four main ways:
The cross as penal substitution
Jesus was the only one who could die on the cross because as both God and man he could display the love of God at the same time as paying the penalty for humanity. God’s need for justice is satisfied on the cross (in what happened to JEsus) and God’s longing to love is satisfied (in that God himself was on the cross). Christ on the cross is the only solution to the dilemma of God’s holiness and love. (Romans 3:26 ‘to be just, and the one who justified’. God is holy and therefore is justice. God is love and so he is the one who justifies.’
Isaiah 53: By his wounds we are healed.
The cross as reconciliation
If you fall out, you need to make peace. ‘You’d expect the one to be at fault to be the one who had to make amends.’ God, the wronged party, came to draw us together with him by making peace. ‘Just as Jesus, fully God and fully human, unites God and man, so Jesus in his actions on the cross brings together God and the human race.’ Jesus on the cross ‘Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.’ (Luke 23:34). And because of this, we are able as Jesus people to love one another. We can come home; we can be reconciled. The prodigal son. Jacob’s return.
The cross as redemption
We are bought by Jesus. We are slaves who have become free. Sin is often called slavery in scripture. 1 John 3.1. Slavery: literally a bondage from which you could not escape unless someone paid the ransom.
The cross as victory: Christus Victor.
The death and resurrection of Jesus broke the power of death and evil in our lives: ‘Is it finished.’ John 19.30. John 10:10 ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy: i have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ That’s why the cross of Jesus only makes sense with the resurrection - that proof that death is defeated. We see this in action in our own lives as we journey in closeness with Jesus and become more and more like him and more and more transformed: as the power of the things that bind us is overcome.
We’ll explore this more as we go through Lent and Easter.
The cross as freedom from shame.
All of the shame we have. Of who we are, not good enough, Jesus experiencing deep deep shame. A death that was so repugnant it wasn’t used for Roman citizens. That took place outside the city walls. Choosing to bear that shame for us. “the cross has taken our guilt away.” It is personal. St Paul: ‘the son of God loved me and gave his life for me.’ If you were the only person in the world, Jesus would have died for you. You are worth everything to me.
None of these ways of thinking about why Jesus died is more right or wrong than others, but all are true, and all are easier to grasp at different times, for different people, and for different reasons. For example, the idea of Christus Victor, triumphing over death, was more popular in the medieval period, around the time of the Black Death.
You might find that at various points in your life, one of these has more resonance than another.
[reflection time?]
So ultimately: back to that question: can we now see that at the heart of the universe an act of love?
Love is not a feeling, or words, it’s action. It’s God, coming to earth in Jesus, to willingly choose to stretch out his arms on the cross in the greatest of embraces. Walking alongside us, and, as billions of Christians will attest to, still doing that today, despite all of the heartache we see around us.
To finish I’ll end with sharing which of the 5 ideas currently has the most resonance with me: it’s the cross as reconciliation. My favourite bit of the story of Jesus’ death is Matthew 27: 51- the moment when Jesus dies, and the curtain in the temple rips itself apart. This curtain separates the most Holy Place, where God himself lives, and only the High Priest, God’s representative on earth, can go, from the people.
It’s a symbol of the divide that separates each of us from the holiness of God. And so Jesus, our High Priest, removes the barrier, top to bottom, from heaven to earth, and so, we are made right with God. And with that, comes the most, amazing freedom and peace.
[let’s tear this curtain!]