Cross Purposes

The scriptures referred to are Philippians 2:5-11 and Matthew 26:14-27:66.

I remember being taken by my mother to see the film The Greatest Story Ever Told when it came to the theaters in 1965. I was 10. At 3 hours and 45 minutes it was the longest film I'd ever seen at that point. I still remember several scenes vividly but I especially remember being upset at Jesus' death. Heroes rarely died in films back then and Jesus' death seemed so unjust. What I didn't understand then was that was the point.

When you're a kid, you are taught by children's movies and TV shows and books that good always wins out over evil. Virtue is rewarded in this life. Yes, the hero may have to face challenges but he will overcome them and defeat the bad guy and win the girl. The romance angle didn't really interest me when I was a kid; I was more interested in the triumph of good over evil. Whether the hero used his brains like Sherlock Holmes or his strength like Superman, the moment when the bad guy got what he deserved was the payoff I had been waiting for.

Of course, in real life I became aware quite early that good does not always win. Bullies often got away with terrorizing and humiliating smaller kids. And as I grew up I realized that even worse injustices take place. The Nazis were bad guys in comics, movies and TV but I never realized just how evil they were in real life until I saw the 1978 miniseries entitled Holocaust. And the more you study history and listen to the news, the more you realize the true scope of man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Although it does make you think that being “inhuman” to others is all too human.

Last week we looked at the very human reasons Jesus' opponents had for wanting to get rid of him. Today I want to look at his death as God's response to injustice.

Jesus' name in Hebrew means “Yahweh saves.” Joseph is told to name him that “because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) Jesus said “For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) He further said, “I have not come to judge the world but to save the world.” (John 12:47) Paul says, “This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.'” (1 Timothy 1:15) Jesus' whole life was a rescue mission.

But the New Testament doesn't say exactly how he saves us except that it involves his crucifixion. There are clues though. At the supper on the night he was betrayed, Jesus takes the cup and says, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28) Covenants were sealed with a sacrifice. Both Paul and Hebrews speak of Jesus offering himself as a sacrifice to God, specifically for sins. (Ephesians 5:2; Hebrews 9:26)

Making sacrifices to a god is as old as religion and just as universal. People have been making animal sacrifices since the Middle Neolithic period between 4800 and 4000 BC. We find it in Egypt, Spain, Mesopotamia, Persia, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, China, and Japan. It was part of the Old Norse religion, Celtic religion, traditional African religions, Hinduism, Islam, and, of course, Judaism. It's still part of Santeria. The general idea is to appease the gods and bring good fortune to the people.

Human sacrifice was also practiced worldwide, notably here in the Americas, with the exception of Judaism where it was forbidden. Nevertheless the judge Jephthah and two kings of Judah practiced it. (Judges 11; 2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chronicles 33:6) Yet the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac, and then God stopping him and providing a ram instead, shows that God will not ask that of us. (Genesis 22) In Exodus, because they were spared from the tenth plague, all the firstborn of Israel are the Lord's. Firstborn animals were therefore sacrificed but firstborn children are redeemed by animal sacrifice. (Exodus 13:12-15; Luke 2:22-24)

So Jesus' death is a sacrifice and by it he redeems us. Jesus said, “...the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:27-28) The Greek word translated “ransom” refers to the price paid to free a slave. It is related to the verb we translate “redeem,” again used of buying someone out of slavery. Jesus said, "Everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin." (John 8:34) Which is why we call Jesus our redeemer as in the Old Testament God is called the Redeemer of Israel for freeing his people from slavery. 

There is another meaning of the word sacrifice: to make sacred or holy. You give something up to God to be used for sacred purposes. During the exodus, the Israelites made an offering of their treasures and their skills to be used in the building of the tabernacle. (Exodus 35:20-29) Thus what was ordinary was dedicated or set aside for God's purposes and transformed into something holy. But since Jesus already dedicated his whole life to God's purpose, he isn't made more holy. Instead by his death, he offers us eternal life. But only God is eternal, without beginning or end. So the life Jesus is giving us is his life. He is making us holy like him, dedicated to God's purposes.

Sacrifice is not a word that sits easy with us today. We don't like giving things up. It's not fair that we give up what is ours for someone else. And yet sometimes it becomes necessary. People give up jobs to take care of parents or spouses when they are extremely ill. Parents make sacrifices for their children's welfare. Firefighters and police risk and sometimes give up their lives to save or protect others. Sacrifice is a part of life. It is often a part of making a choice. Taking a job may mean giving up living in your hometown and moving to another state. Marrying one person means giving up sleeping with other people. Having kids often means giving up sleeping, or at least giving up sleeping all night for a while. But we weigh the cost and the benefits and make our choice. If we choose unwisely, we learn that our choices can have dire consequences.

We see that in the world we have made for ourselves. The world has become something other than the paradise God intended it to be. We inflict pain and suffering and death on others. That's not just. And all ancient peoples realized that atonement must be made. And they realized the cost of doing so involved sacrifice, giving up something costly, like a life. This seems to have arisen in humans spontaneously. In Genesis 4, Cain and Abel make the first sacrifices without God asking for them. But in Isaiah, we learn that God does not need or want sacrifices, especially if they are empty of a real change of heart. (Isaiah 1:11-19) As it says in Psalm 51, “For you don't delight in sacrifice or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17)

And perhaps that is another part of what Jesus was doing on our behalf: not only taking on the consequences for our sins but showing the willing penitence we can't. Sometimes we focus too much on Jesus' physical sufferings. Spiritually he gave up his privileges as God. He humbled himself, as our passage from Philippians says. And he gave up his sense of God's presence. When he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” his spirit and his heart were broken. And when he said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” he was offering that broken spirit to God. (Luke 23:46)

The innocent suffering because of the guilty is unfair. Usually it is unwilling on the part of the innocent. They don't seek it out. And usually no good comes out of it. But God has taken this fundamental injustice we inflict on each other and flipped the script. As it says in 1 Peter, “...Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring you to God...” (1 Peter 3:18) Jesus willingly took on the injustice we dish out to the innocent and turned it into another kind of injustice: giving the guilty what they don't deserve—grace. To break the cycle of injustice and suffering someone has to make the first move. The one who does that is the bigger person. And in this case that person is God in Christ.

I don't think we will ever know exactly how Christ's sacrifice worked. But we know why. In sacrifice something precious is given up to obtain something considered more valuable. Which means that reconciling us to God was more precious in Jesus' eyes than the cost of his dying on the cross. The cross shows us how great his love for us is.

So every year we remember Jesus' death. And it should keep us humble and make us penitent. It reminds us of how horrible we humans can be. The cross was intended both as the most horrific way of killing people and as a warning to others of what happens if you cross those in power. And first someone had to come up with the idea of the cross. And then someone had to work out how to make it. And then someone had to build one. Then someone had to actually put a person on it and make sure it killed them. And then people had to copy it and improve on its design and spread it all over their empire. And then people in the empire next door adopted it. That's a long chain of evil, from the idea to its expression to its execution. And it's all on us. Humans made Jesus' cross. Humans nailed him to it. They did it to advertise their power and their ruthlessness. The cross reminds us of the evil we have done. It also reminds us of how God chose to respond: by transforming something so evil into a means of unbelievable goodness and grace.

And that's why the cross became the symbol of the gospel. The good news is that God took our killing of his son and transformed it into our freedom from our slavery to sin. And he transformed the instrument of Jesus' death, which was conceived out of hatred, into the channel of eternal life offered out of his great love.

Paul said, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God....we preach about a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 23-25) Someone came up with the cross to show their power. But then Christ became one of us and let those in power nail him to the cross to show everyone what real power is—the power of the God who is love.