Mark 16:1-8 (Easter 2011)

04/24/11

Mark 16:1-8

Hudson UMC

It is amazing to read the same story in each of the four gospels and see how each evangelist emphasizes some details over others and, all together, help us to understand the fullness of the event.  Some people throughout the years, have pointed to these slight narrative differences and claimed that they undermine the truth of the Bible.  This argument would go something like this:  “If each of the four gospels do not agree in every single detail, at least one of them is wrong, and if one of the gospel writers is wrong, the whole authority of the Bible gets thrown out the window.”

This, of course, is something of a weak argument.  After all, why would the church preserve four gospels if they agreed at every single point?  It seems like such a waste.  If every detail was absolutely the same, we would not have four gospels but only one.  If that were the case, those who have already made up their mind to doubt the gospel would simply claim that, since there was only one testimony preserved, it is not reliable for it could easily be falsified.  If not that, it could be claimed that all the witnesses to the resurrection conspired together so that they would have only one story.  If that were the case, it would be claimed that there was only one gospel because the early church worked out a single lie between them.

And yet, it would do us well to remember that the church has never been all that worried about the differences in the details between the different gospels.  It is true that, from time to time, certain individuals felt a little uncomfortable about it so they made what we call a harmonization of the gospels, where they try to get all the details to come out, but it is my opinion that this has tended to do more harm than good, because, however serious the discrepancies might be, creating a new account that comes from all of the gospels and yet agrees with none of them, seems the wrong approach.

But if we actually look at the details that don’t all agree, we find that absolutely no key claim of Christian faith is at stake in any of them.  The evangelists do not all agree as to who got to the empty tomb first, but they all agree that the tomb was, indeed, empty.  They do not all share with us the exact same last words of Christ on the cross, but the all agree that he was crucified innocently on our behalf and in our place.  It would be better if we thought of the differences between the gospels as being something like the differences between what each of our eyes see.  After all, the whole point of our having two eyes and not only is that they each see two different images, images that are actually different at every single point.  However, they are not fundamentally incompatible, but combine together to provide a three-dimensional view of the world, with a layer of depth that is missing from each image on its own.  When we examine each of the gospels and think them together, we see Jesus in a depth that we would miss if we read only one gospel.

The reason why I share this, in addition to any help it might provide to any who might be struggling with such things, is because Mark has a very interesting ending to his gospel.  Matthew tells us that, after the resurrection, the Roman guards conspired together with the priests and elders and agreed to say that they fell asleep and Jesus’ disciples stole the body.  Luke tells us the story of the two men walking to Emmaus and of Jesus’ ascension.  John, as we saw earlier in the year, tells us of the many meetings of the risen Christ with his disciples, including that marvelous interaction between Jesus and Peter on the seashore.

Mark, however, has a somewhat different ending.  There is good reason to believe that Mark’s account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus ended at verse eight.  You will find that your Bibles continue on for another twelve verses.  Don’t worry, they have been there for a long time and the church has, as far as we have records, always acknowledged those verses as scripture.  The practice of multiple authors was not at all uncommon at the time and we should not let this shake our confidence in that to which the Bible bears witness.

However, it does raise the question of why Mark might end his story like he did.  We read about the two Mary’s and Salome coming to the tomb, being utterly astonished that the stone had been rolled away and that Jesus was no longer there, and being told by the angel to, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”  But what do we read after this?  Do we hear about how the women immediately went and did what they were told, rejoicing that their Lord was alive?  Not at all.  We read, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and the said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  To make it even more awkward of an ending, the very last word in the very earliest Greek manuscripts of Mark is the word γαρ, which means, “for,” as in, “for they were afraid.”  Imagine a book that ends with the word “for.”  It seems ridiculous.

What amazes me is that there are some Biblical scholars who have drawn some absolutely amazing conclusions from this abrupt ending.  Some have said that there is no resurrection account in Mark, that Mark does not really believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, that Mark’s Jesus repeatedly refused to call himself “Messiah,” because he wasn’t Messiah.  These are rather shocking conclusions to come to, and I must say that they strike me as quite wrong.  After all, the very first verse of the gospel according to Mark reads, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.”  Clearly, there is no confusion in Mark’s mind as to who Jesus really is.  So, what can we do with this somewhat abrupt ending?

Well, we could say, as some have done, that it was not really the original ending, that we just lost what was originally there and that is why someone else tried to put it back from memory.  That doesn’t really help us, either, though, because that just means that we don’t really have any idea how Mark wanted to end his story.

In my opinion, I think we should consider what might be the case if we actually allow Mark to have ended his book in this sudden, somewhat awkward way.  After all, there can be no doubt that the people for whom Mark wrote his gospel would have been confused about what happened next.  It was, after all, a Christian community, a group of people who had been decisively formed by the story of Jesus.  People then, much like today, did not pick up and read the story of Jesus without knowing the end.  The suspense is seldom so great that we could imagine that someone was sitting there, with a copy of Mark’s gospel in their hand, reading to the end and saying, in all seriousness, “What happened next?”

Whoever reads of this unexpectedly empty tomb and the angel who proclaims in no uncertain terms that Jesus is alive and is going to meet with them and was unclear about what happened next is surrounded by a community of people who can all testify that Jesus indeed was raised from the grave.  Their community only existed in the first place because Jesus was resurrected and had actually met with his disciples.  Tradition tells us that Mark’s gospel actually has its origin in the preaching of Peter, whom Mark followed and wrote down what he heard.  Surely the people had heard of Peter.  Though he had been such a bonehead while Jesus was ministering on earth, though he had been so wishy-washy and had denied Christ three times within a few hours of professing his undying devotion to him, the people who heard or read Mark’s story of Jesus would have been intensely aware of the fact that this is not how Peter remained.  This one who had made so many mistakes had been utterly transformed by Christ’s resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit and became the rock upon whom Christ built his church.

What does this mean for us?  It means that Mark might just have ended his story suddenly because he expected the people to be so aware of the resurrection, because their very lives were bound up with it, that they would realize that what happens next is not just another story, but something which involves them in every way.  The story ends suddenly and if anyone were to ask what the next chapter of God’s story looked like, the people could say, “That is where we come in.”  The end of the gospel is only the end of one tiny part of God’s story.  It ends suddenly because we find ourselves suddenly swept up in it.  We, too, in our own way have seen the resurrected Lord, have had the Holy Spirit poured out in our lives, so we, too, are involved in the next chapters of God’s story.

Brothers and sisters, the story of the gospel is not over.  The evangelists told us the story of Jesus, told us of when God became one of us and one with us, but the story was never meant to end there.  The life, death and resurrection of Christ was the central event in all of human history whose effects ripple out like a stone thrown into a calm lake.  The four gospels all end here, not because there is not more to tell, or because there was not more teaching and preaching of Christ to tell us about, but because they have told us enough to go and rejoice in the good news.  Christ has risen!  God has demonstrated that he is victorious even over death!  This is truly good news.  God has so loved the world that he gave up his only begotten Son so that we might not perish but have everlasting life. 

Brothers and sisters, if this is indeed true, what a difference this makes.  It means that God has not closed himself off from us but ahs come oh so very close and met us where we are, transforming our lives and the lives of others.  It means that we have a God who cares for people, even while they are yet sinners.  It means that we have a story, as the song says, to tell to the nations.  It means that God has revealed himself to us fully and finally, doing the unthinkable and dying on our behalf and in our place.  Christ is alive, he is risen and he has ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, where he prays for us even to this day.  If this is not cause for rejoicing, I do not know what is.  So let us rejoice, for we have a God whose compassion knows no bounds, and who has adopted us as daughters and sons of the Lord of the universe.  Let us truly join in God’s story for that is why Mark ends so suddenly.  Christ was raised, not just to be a miracle once upon a time, but for God to break into our world of space and time and work miracles every day, by healing the broken, saving the lost, and giving us the very life of God.  So let us go forth with praise.  Let us pray.

AMEN

Maundy Thursday 2011

04/21/11

Maundy Thursday 2011

Hudson UMC

Tonight we commemorate one of the most significant days in the history of the world.  Maundy Thursday, or the night that Jesus was betrayed to his death, has three events that are significant enough that the gospel writers tell us about them.  The first of these is Jesus’ washing of his disciples feet, the second is the last supper that Jesus shared with them, including Judas, the one who would betray him, and Peter, the one who would deny him three times in a matter of hours.  The third event is that of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Though we will indeed celebrate communion tonight, our focus will be on the agonizing time of prayer that Jesus spent before he was arrested.

There was a theologian in the early twentieth century named Karl Barth, who, in so many ways, returned traditional Christian faith, as professed throughout history, especially in its early days, to intellectual credibility.  He was a controversial figure in the church at the time and he still stirs up the emotions of people today.  I do not always agree with his conclusions, but I have found his writing to be intensely thought-provoking and insightful, empowering me to read the Biblical text with new eyes to see what has always been there but to which I have been blinded.

I say this because the majority of what I have to share with you tonight comes, more or less word for word, from Barth’s enormous theological work, Church Dogmatics.  He begins by comparing and contrasting the scenes we have in the gospels where Jesus faces temptation in the wilderness and where Jesus faces temptation right before he is arrested and executed.  I want to clarify one point, lest it be misunderstood.  Barth will refer to the will of God and the will of Satan to be one and the same at this point.  What he means is that, while Satan wants Jesus to die to achieve victory over God, the Father wants Jesus to die to reconcile himself to humanity.  It is true that there is a very significant difference between the goals of God and Satan in the death of Christ, but, to the ordinary observer, they look absolutely the same.  Both God and Satan are united in their will that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, must die.  Now, hear the words of this significant interpreter of the Gospel:

“There is a striking difference between the story of Gethsemane and that of the temptation in the wilderness.  In the latter [that is, the temptation in the wilderness] there is not even the remotest glimpse of any hesitation or questioning on the part of Jesus himself.  Self-evidently and with the greatest precision the tempter is at once resisted.  But then it was only a matter of continuing without deviation on the way he had entered at Jordan.  Now he had to face the reckoning.  Now he was confronted with the final fruit and consequence of what he had begun.  Why is his attitude so different?  Especially, why is it so different from that displayed by many a Christian martyr, by a Socrates, [and by many others]?  It is obviously not simply a matter of suffering and dying in itself and as such.  But what then?  What is the frightful thing which, according to these passages, he foresaw in his suffering and dying, which now forces him to this terrified and shaken halt, to this question whether it really has to be, as had not been the case in the wilderness?

“It is only with reservations that we can call the prayer in Gethsemane a “conversation” with God.  In the texts there is no mention of any answer corresponding to and accepting the address of Jesus.  We might think of the appearance of the angel to strengthen him mentioned in Luke.  And this naturally recalls the angels who, according to Mark and Matthew, came and ministered to him in the wilderness.  But this strengthening him in the Lucan account does not form a conclusion, but is, as it were, refreshment by the way.  It is only after the strengthening which comes to Jesus that we hear of his agony, of the sweat which fell to the earth like great drops of blood.  It is not an ending of the necessary conflict brought about from heaven, but, according to the presentation in Luke, the battle in which he is engaged only becomes severe after this strengthening.  Jesus does not, in fact, receive an answer, any sign from God.  Or rather, he has “the sign of the prophet Jonah” who was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly.  For him, as for all this evil and adulterous generation, the only sign will be the actual event of his death:  “So shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”  God will give his answer to the prayer only in this inconceivable, this frightful event, and not otherwise.  For the event of his resurrection lies beyond the answer.  It is the disclosure of its meaning.  The answer which Jesus receives is in itself this and no other, this answer which was no answer, to which his prayer itself alluded.  Note that it came in the same language in which Satan now spoke with him as the prince of this [age], triumphantly avenging his contradiction and opposition in the wilderness.  The will of God was done as the will of Satan was done.  The answer of God was identical with the action of Satan.  That was the frightful thing.  The coincidence of the divine and the satanic will and work and word was the problem of this hour, the darkness in which Jesus addressed God in Gethsemane.

“This brings us to the main question of the content and meaning of this address.  For a moment it holds out before the reader another possible form of the coming event: not in an clear outline, only vaguely – for Jesus is not proposing to God any alternative plan – defined only in a negative way; not this event, the frightful event which now impends.  Jesus prays that this hour, this cup of wrath might pass from him, might be spared him.  He prays, therefore, that the good will and the sacred work and the true word of God should not coincide with the evil will and the corrupt work and the deceitful word of the tempter and of the world controlled by him, the sinners.  He prays that God should not give him up to the power and the temptation of which he had resisted and willed to resist in all circumstances.  He prays that God will so order things that the triumph of evil will be prevented, that the claim of Satan to world dominion will not be affirmed but given the lie, that a limit will be set to him, and with him to the evil course of the world and the evil movement of men.  He prays that, directed by God’s providence, the facts might speak a different language from that which they are about to speak, that in their end and consequence they should not be against him, just as he had decided for God and not against him in the wilderness.  He prays that for the sake of God’s own cause and glory the evil determination of world-occurrence should not finally rage against himself, the sent One of God and the divine Son.  Surely this is something which God cannot will and allow.  Such is the prayer of Jesus prayed once in Luke, twice in Mark and as many as three times in Matthew.

“’Thy will be done’ means that Jesus, like all this “evil and adulterous generation,” is to receive only the sign of the prophet Jonah, but that as the one man, the only One in this generation.  He willed on behalf of this generation to see in it the true sign of God.  “Thy will be done” means that he put this cup to his lips, that he accepted this answer of God as true and holy and just and gracious, that he went forward to what was about to come, thus enabling it to happen.  “Thy will be done” means not only that Jesus accepted as God’s sentence this language of facts, this concealment of the lordship of God by the lordship of evil, this turning and decision against him according to the determined counsel of providence, but that he was ready to pronounce this sentence himself and therefore on himself; indeed, he was ready to fulfill the sentence by accepting his suffering and dying at the hands of sinners.  That is what he did in his prayer when there was none to stand by him, when there was none who could or would help him, when he was not surrounded or sustained by any intercession, when he could only intercede for others, when he prayed for his disciples and therefore for the world that most necessary, most urgent and most decisive prayer, the high-priestly prayer.

But what happened when Jesus prayed in this way in Gethsemane?  How was this prayer heard, which no other ever could pray or ever has prayed before or since, but which was in fact heard as no other prayer was heard when it received the answer which it requested?

One thing is clear.  In the power of this prayer Jesus received, [that is], he renewed, confirmed, and put into effect, his freedom to finish his work, to execute the divine judgment by undergoing it himself, to punish the sin of the world by bearing it himself, by taking it away from the world in his own person, in his death.  The sin of the world was now laid upon him.  It was now true that in the series of many sinners he was the only One singled out by God to be its bearer and Representative, the only One that it could really touch and oppress and terrify.  That the deceiver of men is their destroyer, that his power is that of death, is something that had to be proved true in the One who was not deceived, in order that it might not be true for all those who were deceived, that their enmity against God might be taken away from them, that their curse might not rest upon them.  This was the will of God in the dreadful thing which Jesus saw approaching – in that conjunction of the will and work and word of God with those of evil.  The power of evil had to break on Jesus, its work of death had to be done on him, so that being done on him it might be done once and for all, for all men, for the liberation of all men.  This is what happened when Jesus took the cup and drank it to the last bitter drops.  “For this cause came I unto this hour” is what he says in John 12:27 when he had just prayed on this occasion too:  “Father, save me from this hour.”  If the Father was the Father of Jesus, and Jesus his Son, he could not save him from this hour.  That would have been not to hear his prayer.  For Jesus had come to this hour in order that the will of God should be done in this hour as it actually was done.”

Brothers and sisters, Karl Barth reminds us that we all too often imagine that we understand the work of God in our midst, only to find that God is doing something far different than we expected.  However, this difference is not to say that God’s work is somehow less than what we thought it was, but so much drastically greater than we would have ever imagined.  It is very likely that few of us, if any, will have to endure the kind of torture and death that Jesus did (though, it must be said, such deaths are not at all uncommon in various parts of the world, and even famous Western Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer have been martyred in so-called “civilized” nations).  It is difficult to know how we would face that trial if we had to go through it, but we are reminded that the death of Christ is not merely the death of a human activist like have met their deaths so often throughout history.  Jesus faced a horror far beyond what we will ever know, and he did it for us.  As we gather around the table and as we share once again in the promises of God, let us remember that the hope we have in Christ is something that passes all understanding and gives us joy beyond measure.  Let us pray.        AMEN

Palm Sunday 2011

04/17/11

Matthew 21:1-11

Hudson UMC

As we come ever closer to the end of the season of Lent and towards that most joyful celebration of the Christian year known as Easter, we find ourselves considering the events of Holy Week, the last days that Jesus was ministering among the people until they put him to death.  I always find it interesting to reflect on the events of Holy Week because they seem to stir up the entire range of emotions.  What is perhaps amazing is that it isn’t that all the events, taken together, generate all the emotions, but that, in many cases, any individual event does so.

The reason for this is because it is during Holy Week that the holiness and majesty of God came into closest and most intense proximity with human brokenness and evil.  These events are simultaneously the most joyful events in of all history and they are, at the very same time, the most tragic and heartbreaking events.  As it is Palm Sunday, let me use the events of this day to demonstrate what I mean.  When I look at this story and think about how, in Christ, God is entering his very own kingdom and is being welcomed by the masses, I rejoice because that is how it ought to be.  When God comes, we should welcome him, we should stand and shout and wave banners, or palm leaves if that’s what we have.  We should get so excited that our God is here that those who do not love God would be absolutely baffled by our celebration.

However, when I look at Palm Sunday and I remember that this crowd of joyous celebrators will, in only a matter of a few days, reject the one they have welcomed; instead of crying “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” they will cry, “Crucify him!” I weep because that is just how we often are.  We get really excited that someone is coming or that something is going to happen and then, once the hype wears out, our excitement turns to indifference or even hatred.  I get so excited to think about the detail we hear from another Gospel, that if the people kept quiet, even the rocks would cry out in their place.  However, when I see just how short-lived those shouts of praise really were, it breaks my heart.  Theologically speaking, we could say that, when God comes close after seeming far away, we are overwhelmed with emotion and we are so happy that God has come, but when God keeps coming closer and closer, not stopping until we have been catapulted out of our comfort zone, and yet he comes closer still, we don’t react so well.

Let us consider what is going on in the story of Palm Sunday.  First, we need to ask ourselves what it is that we see in the story.  This doesn’t call for any deep reflection on the meaning of the text, but a relatively superficial reading of it.  We see that there is a crowd of people who are shouting praises.  The words we read are, “A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!’”

It doesn’t take too much thought to realize that the people are welcoming a king to the city.  The crowd surrounds Jesus but does not hinder his traveling, they are laying out their garments and branches to “pave” this royal road, and they are shouting out, calling him the Son of David.  Now, it is true that Jesus was, ultimately, a descendent of David, but the real point being made by calling him this is that they are deliberately connecting this man Jesus of Nazareth, a Rabbi from Galilee, with the mightiest and most well-loved king from Israel’s past, the one of whom God said, “He is a man after my own heart.”  There is no doubt that the people see themselves as welcoming a mighty king.  Indeed, they are doing so, but we need to ask a few more questions.

What is a king?  This might seem like a silly question to anyone who has read their share of fairy tales, but I am being absolutely serious.  What, at the end of the day, is a king?  Judging by popular culture and the history of Europe, we would say that kings are people of tremendous power, who rule over a nation, often with absolute authority, though this is sometimes limited by some kind of parliament.  This power was gained, most often, either by killing or overthrowing the previous king, or by inheriting the throne from their parents.  They live in splendid palaces and are surrounded by an extensive entourage.  It is important to do what you can to curry their favor, either by serving in the king’s armed forces, or by making a special gift, or by setting yourself apart in some other way.  It is very important that you do this because, if you get on the king’s bad side, you might be put in prison, or worse.  Kings are powerful, they are fantastically wealthy, and they can, more or less, do whatever they want.

Perhaps that is a bit of a caricature.  Some would say, rightly, that not every single king in the history of the world has been quite like that.  But, if you speak to people, especially in America, where we are not all that excited about royalty, this is the kind of king they will often think of.  Though there indeed have been some, or perhaps many, kings who have loved their people and actually done whatever they could for them, there is a reason that various countries have revolted against their monarchy after generations of abuse by the ruling class.

Alright, if that is the kind of king that comes to mind for many people, we have another question to ask.  What does it mean that Jesus is king?  When we think about it, Jesus seems to be a pretty funny kind of king.  After all, he doesn’t have a large entourage, just twelve ordinary people like fishermen, tax collectors, and others.  He doesn’t live in a large palace.  In fact, he says, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  He is a homeless, itinerant preacher who is so far from living in luxury, he gave away all the money he had.  He doesn’t have an army.  He wasn’t in dialogue with other great leaders until he was on trial.

It almost seems like, if what we usually think of when we think of kings is the definition of what a king really is, then it is hard to believe that Jesus is a king.  On the flip side, if Jesus is the real definition of what it means to be a king, then we have to imagine that all these other things we associate with royalty might not have anything to do with being a king.  As Christians, we proclaim that Jesus is Lord, that he is God, that he is king.  What we need to realize is that, if it is Jesus who is king in its fullest and most absolute sense, whatever we mean when we say that other people are kings, we can’t mean it in the same way that we do when we say that Jesus is king.  The very fact of Jesus utterly transforms our understanding of the word “king.”

We find that, when we look at what we see in Christ, that all kinds of words get radically transformed, to the point that, if we aren’t very careful about how we use the words, we might be very much misunderstood by others, who are not using Christ as their center.  Just two chapters later in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says the somewhat astonishing, “Do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.  Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, he who is in heaven.”

We Protestants like to pull this text out to critique the Roman Catholic practice of calling their priests “father.”  I once read a famous Catholic biblical scholar who retorted, reminding us Protestants that we refer to people as “doctor,” that is, “professor,” as well as “teacher,” which is what Rabbi means.  I would take it a step further.  Even if we do not call our pastors “father,” we are not free of Jesus’ command.  After all, we call people “father” all the time.  We call our male parent “father” without a moment of hesitation.  People will often try to find a way to explain this practice to make it seem that those other people are violating Jesus’ words but we are justified in what we say.  And yet, when Jesus says, “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, he who is in heaven,” we have to come to terms with the fact that Jesus fully intends to overthrow and radically redefine what we mean when we say “father.”  We will often talk about God being Father by starting with human fatherhood and then reading that kind of fatherhood back into God.  Jesus is saying that, if we really want to understand what fatherhood is, we must start with God, learn what it means for God to be Father, and then we can decide whether or not the male parents we know are really fathers like God is Father.

By coming and teaching us how we need to understand these words that seem to be so incredibly self-evident, Jesus is showing us in no uncertain terms that we need to be saved, not only from our evil deeds, not only from our natural inclination to take the place of God as the one who gets to call the shots in our lives, not only from our participation in the abusive and unjust social structures that exist all around us, but that even our words and concepts need to be redeemed.  If we look at this Jesus on a donkey (and an awkward donkey at that, since it had never been ridden on), surrounded by the dregs of society, waving branches instead of banners, and say, “Whoever this person might be, he is certainly not a king,” then we are told by the gospel that the problem is not with Jesus’ royalty, but with our understanding of royalty.  Such a reaction would mean that our whole way of thinking needs to be readjusted in light of who God actually is in light of God’s self-revelation in Christ.

As we continue into Holy Week, we must be prepared to have the framework of our knowledge shaken to its core.  When we see Christ hanging on a cross, we see a new definition of what victory is.  When we see Jesus forgiving those who betrayed him and interpreting his death as an atoning sacrifice for us all, we see a new definition of mercy.  When we see the Jesus we know as God in flesh sweating blood in the face of the suffering he was about to endure, we see a new definition of obedience and agony.  When we see the God of the universe laying down his own life for people like you and me, we see a new definition of love.  When we see Jesus interpreting his offering as taking our place and answering for us from within our personal responsibility, we see that even our way of understanding repentance needs to be reshaped.  In all of these, we see that our standard way of thinking does not even come close to doing the work of God justice.

Surely there has never been a time, either before or since, when God has so radically reshaped the world as we know it.  Surely there has never been a time when we have seen love manifested so powerfully.  If we place ourselves at the mercy of God, we will find that we begin to live differently, that we begin to speak differently, and that we even begin to think differently.  As we have taken this Lenten season to reflect and to sacrifice, let us even be prepared to sacrifice the definitions of our words and concepts, so that they might be molded and shaped by God.  Let us pray. AMEN

Three Themes of Redemption in the Old Testament

04/10/11

Three Themes of Redemption in the Old Testament

Hudson UMC

We have spent the last several weeks in Lent exploring some classic passages that speak of sacrifice and atonement. By doing this, I hope that we have come to a more complete understanding of what the sacrifice of Christ means. When we considered the story of Adam and Eve, we saw that God took the initiative to sacrifice, that humanity would not be doomed to clothe themselves but be clothed by God, symbolic of God’s mighty providence over our world of space and time. In the story of Abraham and Isaac, we saw God providing a substitute for the very best that Abraham had to offer, teaching us that it is only when we trust in what God provides and not in our own ability to make an offering that we will rest secure. The story of Passover highlighted the idea of sacrifice as a ransom, a price paid to liberate the people. Finally, last week, we saw in the ritual of the Day of Atonement that the mere shedding of blood alone is not sufficient to atone for the sin of humanity, but something must be driven out of the community, rejected, scorned, and radically excluded as a bearer of sin.

When we looked at these themes, we primarily looked at key passages that display, better than perhaps any others, the issues at stake. However, this week, the last week before we more specifically focus on the events of Holy Week, I felt it would be appropriate to draw out three primary themes of redemption as we see them in the Old Testament. By focusing on these themes, I hope to emphasize that, when we take the insights we gain from the Old Testament and apply them to the death of Christ, we are not free to simply pick and choose which theme is our favorite, but must understand that these themes overlap with and interpenetrate each other in a dynamic and powerful way. Some of the ideas we have already seen over the last few weeks will pop up here and there today as well, but where the main focus before was the distinction between the themes, the focus of today will be to see their interweaving.

The first of these themes is associated with the Hebrew word Padah and refers to the dynamic and powerful nature of God’s redemption of Israel. The most classic example of how the Old Testament speaks of this aspect of redemption is the exodus from Egypt. There are many psalms, one of which we have just heard, which recount how God led Israel out of its captivity with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, plundering the Egyptians and fulfilling his promises to his people. The idea here is that God is far more powerful than even the mightiest nations.

An important facet of this is that the emphasis is on the tremendous cost of redemption.  Israel was not freed from Egyptian slavery without a cost.  The firstborns were killed.  The only reason that Israel was spared from this horrible fate was because God intervened and provided a sacrifice to substitute for the Israelite firstborns.  The emphasis is on radical deliverance and liberation from oppression in all its forms.  We see redemption from Egypt to the Promised Land.  This theme of redemption also manifests itself as deliverance out of divine judgment and alien oppression into the liberty of the kingdom of God.  When God’s people were held prisoner by things that are not God, we see God entering into the situation and delivering mightily when there seemed no hope.  We can see this in the story of David and Goliath, where deliverance came to Israel from an unexpected source.

We see this theme at work when we see people redeemed from the terrible power of sin and guilt.  When human beings were unable to deliver themselves from their fallen state, God took the initiative and forgave when he was the offended party, something that we can see in our world today is not all that common among human beings.  God’s people find themselves enslaved by evil over and over again.  Part of redemption is the breaking of oppressive and addictive structures and liberating the people for abundant life.

In the New Testament, the place we see this the strongest is in the resurrection of Christ from the dead.  God had delivered his people from Egypt, from the Philistines in a different way, from the Babylonians, and others.  In Christ, God delivered his people from a even greater enemy:  death itself.  As those who are bound to Christ through the Holy Spirit, we are promised that we, too, will join in Christ’s victory over death.  A major thing we need to understand about being redeemed in Christ is that, in Christ, we are victorious over that ancient enemy, death.

The second major theme of redemption in the Old Testament is associated with the Hebrew word Kopher which refers to the price of the redemption we have just been talking about.  The primary stories that illustrate this theme of redemption should seem very familiar, because we have been considering them throughout Lent.  The main stories are the story of Abraham and Isaac and the Passover.  In this case, the penalty or hardship that was coming upon a person or nation was deflected and endured by someone or something else.  It is interesting to notice that God never finally eliminates suffering or hardship, but deflects it, providing a substitute to suffer it in place of the other.

This is powerfully shown to us in the suffering and death of Christ.  Over and over again, we read in the Old Testament that the sin of humanity is so serious that blood must be shed, something must die to atone for it.  When we see Jesus on the cross, we do not simply see a tragedy, that the best human being who ever lived was dying as the result of false accusations.  We see the amazing compassion of God that, rather than standing by idly while we bring the punishment for sin on our own heads, entered into our brokenness and willingly laid himself down to suffer on our behalf and in our place.  At the end of the day, it was not the Jews who put Jesus to death, nor was it the Romans.  In a sense, it was all of us, but even that does not get back to who is really responsible.  It is God the Father who offered up God the Son as an atoning sacrifice through God the Holy Spirit.  The dreadful price of redemption was not born merely by a human, but by a human who was also the fullness of God.  God suffered, bled and died, so that we might be delivered. 

It is as the wonderful hymn by Charles Wesley says, “Tis mystery all, the immortal dies, who can explore his strange design?  In vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine.  Tis mercy all!  Let earth adore; let angel minds inquire no more.”  Nothing else demonstrates to us that God is not like human beings more than the death of Christ.  Who among us would enter into a covenant with people who were not, and would not ever be worthy of it, who would continually let us down; and not only let us down but deliberately attack us over and over and then, after many years of this, intentionally endure tremendous suffering and death just to preserve the bond of love with these unholy people?  The fact of the matter is that history teaches us that human beings simply don’t do this, especially in the West and especially in America where we are so deeply influenced by the idea that we need to be looking out for what is best for us.  Our God’s mercy and compassion are so strong that they sometimes baffle us as incomprehensible.

The third major theme of redemption in the Old Testament is associated with the Hebrew word Goel.  If the first, dynamic theme was primarily concerned with the mighty act by which redemption was worked out, and if the second, cultic, that is to say, the sacrificial, theme was primarily concerned with the tremendous cost of atonement in the shedding of the blood of a substitute, this third theme is personal in character and is mainly concerned with the person of the redeemer.  When we see this theme in the Old Testament, we are struck by the fact that redemption is not something that just anyone can do, but that the nature of the redeemer is crucially important to the redemption.

The shortest and clearest example in the Old Testament illustrating this theme is from the book of Ruth.  Ruth was a pagan woman who married an Israelite who died early in their marriage.  She chose to return to Israel with her mother-in-law, leaving behind all her family and friends and moved to a foreign land.  She began to gather the bits of grain that were missed in the harvest so she could survive, a common practice of widows at the time.  She found out that Boaz, the man who owned the field that she was gleaning from, was a close relative of her late husband and that, if he wanted, he could redeem her, which at the time meant marrying her and having children with her ensuring that her late husband would still have an inheritance.  What this means is that for Boaz to redeem Ruth, he had to give up either all or part of the inheritance he might be able to give to any other children he might have.

What we need to notice here is that it was not as though just anyone could redeem Ruth; only a close relative of her late husband could.  If no close relatives were interested, she would have been out of luck.  The other thing we need to notice is that redemption is costly, that one has to make a significant sacrifice to do it.  After all, this is why the other relative in our reading refused to redeem Ruth; he did not want to compromise the inheritance he was planning for his own children.  Redemption was not something that one did lightly because, in spite of a desire to help another person, to actually redeem them involved a willingness not only to help, but to make one’s own life harder, to make incredible sacrifices, and even limit one’s resources.

A very common way to think about the atonement and the nature of redemption according to Christian faith is to think of it entirely in terms of legal satisfaction and is often spoken of as an external relationship, that is, relationships that impact us on the outside, but do not go to the core of who we are and fundamentally change us.  It most often takes the form, “We have a debt, God pays it, so we are free.”  Now, there is certainly an element of this in the Bible and I would not want to say that God does not relieve us from the tremendous burden of our sin, because he does, but the Bible speaks of a redemption and atonement that is far greater, far more dynamic, far more personal than that way of thinking implies.

We learned from the last several weeks that atonement and sacrifice is an act of extravagant grace from God as he provides a reconciliation that we could never achieve on our own.  We learned that our sin is so serious that it cannot be dealt with unless blood is shed and something dies in our place.  We learned that the sacrifice that God wants is not the best of what we have, but God wants to give the sacrifice that he provides that replaces the best of what we have and we trust in faith that it is indeed, for the very reason that God provided it, a better sacrifice than anything we could come up with.  We learned that when God’s people are in bondage, God moves decisively and provides dramatically for the deliverance of his people.  We learned that we cannot understand atonement simply in terms of sacrifice, but must think it out also in terms of one being exiled and driven out of the community on our behalf and in our place.

When we combine all these things with these three major themes of redemption in the Old Testament, we see that salvation as taught in the Old and New Testaments and affirmed by the church throughout the ages is not a dry, flat transaction that looks just like every other religion’s understanding of sacrifice.  We find that salvation is multi-faceted and complex in its simplicity.  We see that when we say that God has saved us by coming among us in and as the man Jesus Christ we don’t just mean that God has waved his magic wand, but has done a dynamic and powerful thing beyond what we ever could have expected.  When we remember the interpretational framework set up by the Old Testament, we see that when we say we are saved because of what God has done in Christ, we are saying that God has done an absolutely mighty deed, on the level of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, to free us from our bondage to sin and death, that God has done so at incredible cost to himself, laying down, not just another life, but God’s very own life so that we might live, and that our salvation is something that neither we nor anyone else could have done but only the God who is who he is and was willing to make a sacrifice so that we might have an eternal inheritance, that we might be, as Paul says, children of God and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ.

Next week we will leave the topic of atonement as our dominant focus, but we will not ever leave it completely behind.  We Christians need to reclaim the fact that atonement is a really big deal.  We have lost some of the most important aspects of our faith when we portray God as simply a generous banker or when we think of our salvation as if it were nothing more than a cosmic bailout that did not fundamentally change the kind of people we are.  We need to remember and rejoice in the fact that God spent thousands of years interacting with the people of Israel, shaping their patterns of language and life, continually guiding them, even when they didn’t want to be led, all so we can understand what God does when he comes among us and shapes the world forever afterward.  We are indeed the people of God and we have been bought with a price.  God’s unbridled love and mercy for us is far greater than we can think.  Let us love God in return, as his people, the people he died for, and let us go and share that love with others for whom Christ died, who do not yet realize it.  Let us pray.

AMEN

Leviticus 16:1-34

04/03/11

Leviticus 16:1-34

Hudson UMC

If most people were to make a list of books in the Bible they have never read, or perhaps, have no desire to read, Leviticus would be toward the top of it.  For some reason, we have gotten it into our heads that the books of the law are boring.  I know that they are not as engaging as the well-known stories in the Bible, I know that it doesn’t have the same kind of passion that we see in Paul’s arguments, but if we forget to read the books of the law, we will miss some very significant stuff that is actually incredibly helpful for understanding the ancient Jewish mindset and the framework through which Jesus interpreted himself.

In particular, our text for this morning tells us the temple ritual that is to accompany the observation of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  This is a Jewish holiday that many Christians do not know much about.  Unless you live in an area with a high Jewish population, and so got school off for it, Yom Kippur often goes by without too much fuss.  This is actually very interesting because it is one of the most important holidays in the entire Jewish year.  The Jewish holiday that is closest to this level of importance that most Christians know about is Passover, because our own celebration of Easter is so closely bound up with it.  The only other Jewish holiday most non-Jewish people could mention is Hannukah, which is really a relatively unimportant holiday, it has just been incredibly publicized and emphasized in the last few decades because it takes place in December, so close to Christmas.

However, this is an amazingly important celebration and it is incredibly interesting in how it helps us to make sense of the human condition and the nature of atonement.  The whole passage is written in the dry language of sacrificial instructions, so we won’t go directly back to the text, but rather draw out the most important ideas.

First, the high priest is the one who has to make atonement for the people.  This is not so surprising in itself.  After all, who else would we expect to make such an important sacrifice?  However, what is interesting is that the high priest can’t simply walk into the Temple and get on with it.  Before he can even begin to make atonement for the people, he has to make atonement for himself.  This is incredibly significant.  Sometimes, we think of religious leaders, especially high priests, as being a little more holy than everyone else, a little closer to God.  However, the high priest has to make atonement for himself before he can make atonement for the people and, while it takes two goats and a ram to make atonement for the whole nation of Israel, it takes a bull to atone just for the high priest.  It is important to notice that the high priest has just as much need for atonement as everyone else, perhaps even more so.

After the high priest washes himself according to the ritual and offers a bull to atone for himself, he takes the two goats and lines them up and casts lots for them.  One of the goats is designated for the Lord and one is designated for Azazel, a term that is very unclear, but has traditionally been translated as “scapegoat” or “the goat of departure.”  We will leave the scapegoat for the moment, since the text deals with it second.  First, let us turn our attention to the goat that is set aside for God.

The first goat is slaughtered and offered as a sin offering, an offering that is intended to deal with the sin of the people for the entire year.  The people broke the covenant that God made with them over and over again.  If they had to make atonement for every individual violation of the covenant, nobody would be able to afford the animals that would have to be sacrificed.  God did not burden them with that kind of lifestyle.  However, it was extremely important that the Israelites understood the fact that God was not indifferent to their sin, that their sin was a big deal.  To this end, God instituted the single Day of Atonement, where all the sin of the people would be dealt with at one time, and it would be such an important day that everyone would remember that, because they as a nation were not what they ought to be, blood had to be shed, something had to die.

What really set this sin offering apart from ordinary ones was the fact that it was on this one day a year that the high priest would go behind the curtain, into the holy of holies, and step into the very presence of God.  We don’t read this in the Bible, but early tradition tells us that it was the practice of the priests to tie a rope around the leg of the high priest before he went into the holy of holies.  The reason for this is because, if the high priest got the sacrifice wrong and God struck him down, he would need to be retrieved and, as you might imagine, most people were not interested in going in themselves.

It is the scapegoat that I think we really need to pay attention to, because it is such an unusual aspect of this ritual.  The second goat was not killed as part of the atonement ritual; rather it was left alive and the high priest laid his hands on it and confessed the sins of Israel over it.  This is what we read.  “Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task.  The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.”

Apparently, atonement is not complete with just a sacrifice.  Apparently, something more than just the shedding of blood must take place for God to be reconciled with his people.  This is odd because we don’t see anything like this anywhere else in the Old Testament.  A goat is made to bear the sin of the people, but is not killed.  What is going on?  Perhaps the goat is released with the idea that it will be killed in the wilderness, likely in an even more brutal way than at the hands of the priests.  Perhaps it is to remind us that we cannot put God in a box, that we cannot even decide what has to happen to be redeemed.  God reserves the right to do whatever he wants to do with that goat.  It could die, but it could also live.

In any case, it symbolizes for us the fact that sin, even sin that was atoned for, could not stay in the camp, but had to be driven out entirely.  It was not enough to simply make the sacrifice; after all, the first goat was killed before the second goat was involved at all.  Sin not only meant that something had to die, it meant that something had to be driven out, had to be removed from the community, had to be exiled for the sake of the others.

So what, you might ask?  We in the Christian church do not observe Yom Kippur and we go on our daily lives without giving it a second thought.  Does it even matter if we understand it?  While it is true that we do not observe this holiday, it is equally true that this passage and this incredibly important tradition needs to play a significant role in our understanding of what Christ has done.  Early in several of the Gospels, Jesus receives baptism.  Immediately after that, we read that he went out into the wilderness.  Mark’s account is particularly clear.  We read, “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”  This idea, of being driven into the wilderness, is a clear allusion to the ritual of the Day of Atonement.

There is a tendency to think of the atonement as if it could be boiled down to this kind of summary:  We have a debt because we sin.  By his death, Christ paid that debt.  Now we get to go to be with God.  There is certainly an element of truth to this, but there is much more.  The biggest problem I have with this is that it doesn’t seem to take the Old Testament into account at all.  All we have to do is apply the idea of secular law and debt to the death of Christ and we can come up with this.  This is probably also why it is so popular; it is easy to understand because it doesn’t challenge our understanding of atonement and sacrifice.  However, we have seen over the last several weeks that how we understand sacrifice and atonement is radically challenged and transformed by the Old Testament.

What we learn from this passage is that our atonement and our reconciliation with God is more dynamic and powerful than we often think.  We cannot collapse the atonement to just the death of Christ.  Before he even began his ministry, Jesus was driven out into the wilderness like the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement.  The atonement began at least at his baptism.  In fact, it seems that, when we take the fact that we do not only need a God who dies for us but a God who lives for us seriously, we realize that all of Christ’s life is involved in the atonement.  Jesus does not just bear our sins on the cross, he bears them away, being ejected from the community, driven out into the wilderness.  Our faith is in a God who provides atonement in a holistic and complete way, not limited simply to our understanding of the payment of a debt.

It is remarkably appropriate that we come across this text on a Sunday where we celebrate Holy Communion.  Yom Kippur is a celebration that emphasizes that God has made the atonement, God has made the first move, God has provided, not only for the debt of sin, but has actually taken the sin away from them.  It is a holiday that, to those on the outside, might seem like a somber time, but, though the people spent the day in fasting and prayer, it was a day of tremendous celebration.  After all, God has made atonement, God has reconciled his people to himself.  Though the people could never have made the atonement themselves, God demonstrates his love and grace by redeeming the people and reminding them of this every year through the two-fold sacrifice of the Day of Atonement.

And so it is with Holy Communion.  There may not be a time when the people of God are more seriously at prayer and devotion than at the Lord’s Table.  I have heard that there are people in the world who will deliberately avoid their church on the days that Communion is celebrated because they are overwhelmed by the gravity of the meal.  And yet, the seriousness of the ritual and the focus of the people should not make us think that this is in any way meant to be an intimidating thing.  Rather, it ought to be the most joyful of times.  After all, what do we celebrate at the Lord’s Table?  We celebrate the fact that our God has come among us, taking our brokenness upon himself and nailing our sin to the cross.  We celebrate the fact that our God has reconciled us to himself, all at tremendous cost to himself, just so that he might not be without us.

And so, as we gather together around the table, let us remember the fullness of God’s atonement that has been worked out completely in Jesus Christ.  God has made atonement, God has reconciled us to himself, God has provided the sacrifice, God, indeed, was the sacrifice, on our behalf and in our place.  Let us rejoice that, in this one meal, we are one body, joined to God the Father through God the Son and in God the Holy Spirit.  Let us pray.

AMEN