PALM SUNDAY: CHRIST DIED FOR ME

Christ Died for Me (Condensed) (Luke 18:31-34; 23:33a) (3/20/16)

As an adult returning to the faith, one of my first questions of my pastor was, “Why did Jesus have to die?”  Why did Jesus have to die?  I mean, this was God.  Why couldn’t he have come to earth, looked around, declared our salvation and go back to heaven?

How about you?  As Christians we believe that Jesus died on the cross.  We all say he died to save us, but how does that work?  We’d all like a pat answer.  We want to know the formula.  I’m not sure there is a formula, something as simple as two plus two.  More than likely it is a drama, a metaphor, a story.  We need a story to understand.

So when I asked my pastor Frank why did Jesus have to die, he gave me a story to read.  I can’t remember the book, I can’t remember the author, but remember the story:
“This young couple, madly in love, married.  But unfortunately, three or four years into their marriage the wife was unfaithful, had an affair which she grievously regretted.  It tore her apart.  Just looking at her faithful, loving husband filled her with guilt and regret and destroyed her relationship with him.  All he the husband knew to do was to try to love her all the more.  He longed for the relationship they had once known but it seemed never to be.  Twenty years passed by.  The guilt and the broken relationship remained.  On spring in the garden, the two were on their knees preparing the flower bed and he looked at her in love and said, “I forgive you.”  She lashed out at him and said, “How dare you forgive me.  You have no right to forgive me!”

What we are talking about here is our strong desire for atonement, reconciliation with God.  At-one-ment.  We want our relationship with God restored, the relationship between God and sinful humanity

Incarnational Theory of Atonement

So, let’s start with my story.  “How dare you forgive me.  You have no right to forgive me.” 

Unless you have walked in my shoes, experienced my grievous guilt, your words alone cannot reconcile us.

Jesus came and lived among us, experienced our temptations, lived as we lived, vicariously shared our experiences, and then took to the cross all of the sins and guilt of sinful humanity so that in his humanity he could experience the grievous guilt of us all.  Because he shared our sin, shared our guilt, he has the right to forgive us, to reconcile the broken relationship with us.

This is called the incarnational theory of atonement.  It is not just a formula, it is poetry, an emotional drama played on the cross that explains why we are separated from God, why God had to become like us in order to save us, why he had to suffer to bring us back into relationship with him.

The incarnational theory of atonement.  There are a dozen such theories all giving us a little different picture of the drama that we call salvation theory.  Some work for us, some don’t.  Some find us right where we are.  In other cases, we need a different story, a different drama.

Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement

That was the incarnational theory.  A second one.  The most popular is the “Penal Substitution Theory.”  Christ substituted himself to pay our penalty.  Humanity’s sin has cause a great gulf between us and God.  Because God is perfect and we are not, because God is holy and we are not, there is a gulf between us that cannot be bridged.  And without that gulf being bridged, we will experience God’s wrath.  Because we are sinful, we deserve punishment.  There is nothing we can do ourselves to avoid God’s wrath.  Try as we may, we fall short and are judged.  Jesus took our place, took the punishment for us all, took it to the cross, and in so doing bridged the gap between us and God. We have received God’s just punishment through Jesus’ substitution, and we can be reconciled with him.

Like all metaphors, all stories it breaks down.

Here’s where it breaks down for me.  It portrays a wrathful God.  While there is judgment in the New Testament, it doesn’t seem to portray the loving, forgiving God that Jesus describes.  It doesn’t tell of the seeking God of the lost sheep, the searching God of the lost coin, the longing God of the Prodigal Son who celebrates when reconciliation takes place.  It doesn't sound like good news at all. It doesn't seem to portray grace.

If it works for you fine.  If parts of it work for you fine.  If it doesn’t, set it aside or combine it with another story. I think the next two will be helpful.

The Perfect Penitent Theory of Atonement

The next is from CS Lewis called “The Perfect Penitent.”  (See Mere Christianity pg 44 for a full explanation)

Lewis emphasized that we may not need to fully understand how God through Jesus Christ has reconciled us to him, but it does work.  I does work, we just need to know the outcome.  Here it is: “Christ was killed for us.  Somehow his death has washed away our sins, and by dying, he has disabled death itself.”

He starts out by saying we are not just sinful, we are rebels.  It is our nature to rebel against God.  As an army in rebellion, we must surrender, submit, lay down our arms.  But not only that, we must repent, turn around, eat humble pie, kill the rebellious part of ourselves, our sinful nature.  That’s hard.  Army in rebellion, surrender, repentance, killing our sinful nature. That’s hard.

If it were easy, we could do it ourselves.  But if it were easy to do, we probably wouldn’t be in this fix in the first place.

Here’s the predicament that Lewis proposes: Only a bad person needs to repent; but only a good person can repent perfectly.  That same badness that make us need repentance, turning back to God, keeps us from being able to do so.

We need a perfect penitent.  But only God is perfect.  But since God is perfect, he has never needed to repent.  Repentance is not in God’s nature.  There’s nothing in God’s nature that tells him to surrender, to submit, to suffer, to die to self.  God could never be the perfect penitent.

But, suppose God became man, he could help us.  And because he was the perfect man, he could be the perfect penitent.  He could surrender, he could submit, he could die to self, he could repent perfectly because he was also God.

That is the picture.  Lewis is quick to point out that it is only a picture, it is not the real thing.  The real thing is that “Christ was killed for us.  That his death has washed away our sins, and that by dying Christ has disabled death itself.” 

The Moral Theory of Atonement

That with the moral drama of the cross, that God is trying to change your heart.  Because you witness the drama, you are part of the story and therefore become a changed person. 

In getting ready for today, I bumped into a story of an amazing man, a man named Brennan.  He was not always an amazing man.  In fact, his name was not always Brennan, it was Richard and he was part of sinful humanity.

Born in Brooklyn in the 30s, he spent two years attending St. John’s University, dropped out, joined the Marines and was serving in the Korean War.  While in a foxhole in a lull of battle, he and his best friend were sharing a candy bar, a grenade rolled into the foxhole and his best friend without hesitation rolled onto the grenade.  Instantly horrified, he looked at his friend as his friend turned his head toward Richard and winked.  Then it was over.  His best friend was dead, killed and he was alive. Richard came home from Korea and changed his name from Richard to Brennan, the last name of his best friend.  He was a changed person. The life, death and sacrifice, the moral drama of his best friend had changed him.

In a way, that’s what happens to us isn’t it?  It is the moral life of Jesus that changes us, the sacrifice of our best friend, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” that loves us and gave his life for us, who told us “No greater love than this than to lay down one’s life for a friend.”  And when we see that, we change our name too, to Christian.

The Moral theory of Atonement that the moral life of Christ including that of laying down his life for all of us changes us.

There other theories and they may be helpful: Jesus as the Passover Lamb who saves us as the blood of the lamb did for the Children of Israel; Christ the Victor who took on all the forces of darkness including evil itself.  Just when it appears as though evil has won on the cross, God overcomes death.  “O death where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”  Christ the Victor.  “New Covenant Theory”  “This is my blood of the New Covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” 

All of it drama, poetry a love story.  When it fits, use it.  Where it doesn’t, set it aside.  What matters is the outcome: “Christ was killed for us; and somehow his death has washed away our sins, and by dying, he has disabled death itself.

God has done so through His mighty acts in Jesus Christ “who loved us and gave his life for us.”

Jesus came to experience life, to vicariously take all of our sins, all of our suffering, all the guilt, all of our pain to reconcile us to God.  In the same way he lifts our sins from us, our grievous guilt from us, so that a man and a women on their knees in a flower bed can be reconciled and experience love again.

One last thing, the cross, the cross Rick, why the cross?  The extreme cruelty of the cross?  Yes, I understand that Jesus died for me, by why the incredible cruelty of the cross?

I can only describe it one way: God chose the cross to show that there was no length, there was no limit that God would not go to, to show his love for us.  He would put on display all of his Power, his unlimited love, to save us. There is no lengths to how far go would go to show us his love. Paul tells us, “The message of the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The incredible power of God’s love.

It is the love of God, the unfathomable love of God that he would enter this world to demonstrate his unlimited love for us.

There is one last part of the story, of this drama. And that is no one asked Jesus to die for us. No one asked Jesus to enter Jerusalem this day knowing that his destination was the cross.  It is a pure act of grace. Grace. We not only did not ask Jesus to die for us, we did not deserve it. “You were saved by faith through grace,” each and every one of you. It is not something you did.  You are incapable of saving yourself. You received salvation by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ was killed for you; he has washed away your sins; he has overcome death itself.  Grace.  Here’s what you must do: Trust that it is so.  That is faith.  Amen.