Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
March 22, 2009

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Not that you need me to do it, but last week I once again gave you permission to discard the theory of substitutionary sacrificial atonement, also known as the classical theory of atonement. That’s the theory that says that God sent God’s Son in the person of Jesus for the purpose of suffering and drying to pay the price that God required to paid before God could or would forgive human sin. It’s a theory that most of the world, Christian and non-Christian alike, equates with the Christian faith. Most Christians probably can’t imagine what Christianity would or could be without it. Yet last week I called turning Jesus into the ultimate sacrifice, as this theory does, a betrayal of Jesus, as indeed I have done in print. I won’t go into the theological objections to the theory here. If you want to review them read the chapter “Beyond the Classical Theory of Atonement” in my book. There’s a copy of it in the church library if you don’t have it.

Last week I also said that when we preachers and theologians take away the understanding of Jesus as a sacrifice for human sin we have to replace it with a different, better understanding. For me, as many of you know, that different, better understanding is called theology of the cross. I consider it to be the most powerful, life saving, soul saving theology in the world today. I’ve preached it here before. I’ll preach it here again. It does something like this:

We begin in the same place that the classical theory of atonement begins. We begin with the confession that God became human in Jesus Christ. The main biblical foundation of that confession is found in those few verses from John that we just heard. There are two key parts to this central Christian confession. The first is that God is fully and truly present in the world in the person of Jesus. The second is that Jesus is fully and truly human. Both parts of the doctrine of the Incarnation are crucial for theology of the cross. The part of the doctrine that says that God is fully and truly present in Jesus tells us that what Jesus experienced, God experienced. In Jesus God entered into human life and human experience in God’s own person. This part of the theory also tells us that when we look at Jesus we see God. At least, we see God to the fullest extent that our finite human minds are capable of seeing and understanding God. The part of the doctrine that says that Jesus was fully and truly human tells us that what God experienced in Jesus is a true human experience, an experience of a human life like ours and not of some divine or quasi-divine life that bears no resemblance to ours. It also tells us that when we see how God relates to Jesus, we see how God relates to us. We see how God relates precisely to human beings, something that we would not see in Jesus if Jesus were not truly human. In Jesus, then, we see God entering fully and personally into human life and demonstrating to us exactly how God relates to, how God interacts with, human life, with our life.

So we have to ask: What then precisely do we see when we see God in Jesus entering fully and completely into a human life and demonstrating to us how God relates to that life? And we also must ask, What do we not see? I want to start with what we do not see. We do not see God intervening in Jesus’ life to prevent very bad things from happening to him. That something very bad happened to him is a central part of the Christian story. He was betrayed. He was wrongfully tried and convicted by the religious and secular authorities of his time, and he was executed by those authorities in a brutal fashion that was intended to and did increase the suffering of its victims. And God didn’t stop it.

Now, some Christians say that God didn’t stop it because the suffering and dying was why Jesus came in the first place, that his suffering and dying as a God-man are different from our suffering and dying because he was paying the price for sin in our place. That’s what the classical theory of atonement says. But we have rejected that theory, and with it we reject the idea that Jesus’ suffering and death were not the suffering and dying of a human being like us. We see his suffering and death not as the unique act of a God man but as a sharing in the suffering that is the lot of so many humans and in the death that is the lot of all humans. We see not only that God did not intervene to prevent Jesus’ suffering and death, we see that God does not intervene to stop human suffering and death in general. Why God does not do so is a question of immense importance and even more immense difficulty, but it is beyond the scope of this little sermon. What matters here is that in Jesus’ suffering and death we see that God does not, for whatever reason, intervene in human life to prevent suffering and death. That’s a truth that I think we all know from our personal experience as well. I know I do.

So the question the becomes: If God does not step in to put a divine end to human suffering and death, what does God do for us? Does God do anything at all? A great many people answer that question with an emphatic no. Indeed, the reality of human suffering and death leads many people to deny the reality of God altogether. It’s an understandable reaction, but it is not a Christian one. Theology of the cross provides a Christian answer to the question of what God does in the face of human suffering and death. It is an answer that the classical theory of atonement, with its emphasis on Jesus as a sacrificial offering to procure forgiveness of sin, cannot and does not give. Theology of the cross says that what God does in the face of human suffering and death is—God enters into it with us. God shares it with us. God is present in it with us. We know that because we see God doing it in Jesus on the cross. There we see a classic, tragic example of human suffering and death. And because we confess that Jesus is the Word become flesh, that he is God Incarnate, we see God present in human suffering and death. Present in it, not coming with an army of angels or anything else to stop it. In Jesus Christ on the cross we see that that is how God relates to human suffering and death.

And because it is Jesus who is on the cross experiencing human suffering and death, we see not only that God is present with us in our suffering and death but how God is present with us in those ultimate human times and conditions. The God that we see in Jesus is a God of compassion, a God who stands with the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized. We see that God not only stand with them—and us—but that God stands for them—and us. We see that God is with them—and us—giving all humans hope and comfort in their times of trial. In Jesus we see that God does not desert us when we are weak. God does not desert us when we sin. God does not desert us when we fail. God does not desert us when we suffer and die. Rather, God is present with us in all of that. God stands in solidarity with us in all of that. In everything that happens God is with us holding us in God’s unfailing arms of grace.

We know that because we see our living, compassionate, forgiving God enter fully and completely in God’s own person into human failure, human abandonment, human suffering, human despair, and human death in the person of Jesus Christ on the cross. In all of that God is with us and for us, always present, always caring, always consoling, and always working to bring new life out of death, both out of the little deaths of failure and suffering that we all experience in life and out of the final death that we all come to in this mortal life. We know these things because we see God present with and in Jesus on the cross. We see God entering into the ultimate human condition, not standing aloof from it. Not judging it. Not rejecting it. Entering it in God’s own person.

And so when we come to our times of suffering, despair, and death, we know where God is. God is right there with us. God is standing right beside us in total solidarity with us. Comforting us. Supporting us. Holding us. Suffering with us. Sharing everything we feel and making everything we feel holy, making it sacred, by God’s unfailing presence. We know that we are never alone. We know that God, the ultimate mystery behind everything that is, the spirit behind all of creation, is right there with us seeking to give us strength and comfort in whatever befalls us.

And that, my friends, is the best news there ever was or ever could be. We know that because we are human we are mortal, and we are prone to suffering. In Jesus Christ on the cross we see God being mortal. We see God suffering. We God demonstrating to us in fullest measure that God is present in everything human. Of course God is with us in our joy. We don’t have difficulty feeling God present with us in those times. The cross of Christ shows us that God is every bit as much with us in the hard times, in the bad times, in the time of suffering, and in the time of death.

We are approaching our annual commemoration of the end of Jesus’ earthly life and of his glorious resurrection that puts God’s sign and seal on Jesus and on his cross. As we enter into that commemoration, let us be mindful of the meaning of that cross. Let us open our minds, our hearts, and our souls to its saving power, the power to save us from sin to be sure but also to save us from doubt. To save us from despair. To save us from isolation. We are never alone. We need never despair. We know these things because with Paul we know Jesus Christ and him crucified, the wisdom of God and the power of God. The solidarity of God with each and every one of us. Amen.