Since we're in the middle of Holy Week, it seems like a good time to stop and remember why Jesus died for us. This is something we take for granted...one of those things we talk about but don't really think about. I can guarantee you that in our society, and really in most churches, the cross is seen more as a nifty thing to hang on a necklace or a decoration for a church wall than as the instrument of Jesus' death. We talk about Jesus dying for us like we talk about the weather. "Jesus died for us" takes on the same conversational flavor as "It's raining out". Both are true. Both affect our lives...sorta. But neither one is going to change how we go about our day.
While all Christian folk would happily admit that Jesus died to save us, I'd wager that relatively few could explain why or what it means to our faith and daily lives. That being the case, are we really remembering and honoring him?
To understand why Jesus died for us we need to go back to the nature of sin.
Adam and Eve lived in the garden of Eden, a life free from sin and death, eternal and fulfilling. Had they not bitten the fruit in disobedience neither sin nor death would have been part of the human experience. When they bit that fruit, though, they changed the world. Selfishness, mistrust, anger, blame, jealousy, power struggles...that single act wove all of these things into the fabric of creation.
Once that happened, God was in a pickle. He could (and did) forgive them but he could not undo their acts, nor the effects of those acts, short of wiping out everything and starting over with Fred and Judy. He didn't want to wipe out the world and start over because he loved Adam and Eve and was committed to being faithful to them even when they had not been faithful to him.
On the other hand, God could not just let creation go on as before. It was built to be permanent...living forever. That was fine when everything was good, but now the whole world was bent and broken by sin. "Forever" works really well after "love" and "peace". When put after "selfishness" and "mistrust" and "anger" it becomes a horror. Think of all the things that have stemmed from that first sin: war, poverty, racism, illnesses, disease and hunger. To let those go on forever would be cruel, not loving.
This is why God's response to sin had to be death. Many interpret the pronouncement of death as a punishment given in anger. Others interpret it as God's way of saying, "You messed up, now you owe me." Neither is accurate. Death is God's merciful response to the suffering brought on by human sin...his way of saying, "Don't worry, this won't last forever." Nothing impure or evil can last forever without ruining eternity, so God doesn't let that happen.
Born into a world bent by sin, growing up with needs and pains that bend us inevitably to selfishness, all human beings end their lives in death. Not one of us is able to walk up to God and say, "I'm perfect! Let me into heaven!" If we tried, God would have to look at us and say, "What about that thing there?" The slightest imperfection would be enough to deny us admittance to forever, for then that imperfect thing would live forever with us.
Death has claimed every human being since the beginning of time and done so properly, righteously, justly. Death has put an end to our sin and kept the possibility of an unstained "forever" alive.
The problem here is obvious. "Forever" is still unstained but it's also empty...empty of human beings anyway. With none of us able to get in, God was looking at a forever labeled "Heaven, Population: 0". This was not his plan. Remember the whole point of allowing this existence to continue instead of starting anew was that he loved Adam and Eve and all their children, including us. He could not allow evil to live forever, destroying our lives forever. But he wasn't willing to live without us either.
This is why he sent his Son, the Savior who would get us all--humans and God--out of this nasty pickle. Jesus was the only one who ever resisted temptation (remember the wilderness and the devil), the only one who ever lived his life righteously, the only one free from sin. He was the shining example of everything humanity and God were supposed to be.
This meant that finally someone qualified to get into heaven and live eternally. Jesus could have walked up to God and said, "I'm ready to come in!" God would have looked at him, responded with a "Well done!", and the sign would have said "Heaven, Population: 1" forevermore. No death was necessary, nor judgment, nor even much of an examination. It was done! Jesus was the one. Had he desired it, that would have been his fate.
But Jesus looked around him. He saw his disciples: poor, mixed-up guys bumbling around and trying to get it right without a hope of doing so. He saw the woman at the well, the tax collectors and prostitutes, the hungry children, the sick and blind and lame. He saw the Pharisees and Sadducees, he saw the Romans, he saw all the people who wouldn't ever know that God cared about them. He remembered Adam and Eve, the hope that they could one day be redeemed from their mistake, and his father's love for them. He saw all of these people, all of their ancestors and descendants, and he realized that "Heaven, Population: 1" wasn't what he wanted. Given the choice to save himself or remain with them, he chose them. He chose us. He chose love.
But in order to remain with humanity, Jesus had to go where humanity goes...into death. His death was particularly horrible: ritual execution on a cross at the hands of people so blinded by sin and self-interest that they saw his love for the world as dangerous and destructive. The one, sinless person in all of history was destroyed by the sin of everybody else, for fallen humanity could not abide him.
And just like that, Jesus was gone. He had taken the path of millions before and billions after. At the end of his life, he died. Just like us. Because he loved us and would not be separated from us no matter what the cost.
But this moment of death was different than any other. As I said earlier, death was the just and merciful end to human sin. That was its purpose. Death was like a machine, its jaws closing on each sinful person in turn, swallowing them and making an end as it was meant to do. No human could stand before it. Our sin condemned us all. But death could not swallow one who was perfectly righteous, perfectly holy, without sin...one who had loved broken humans so much that he walked willingly with them into its grasp. When death's jaws closed on the rest of us, we broke and ended. When death's jaws closed on Jesus, it might as well have been trying to chew a boulder. It was not designed to end this kind of man, nor could it. When death tried to chomp down on Jesus, death broke and Jesus remained.
There are no words in any language devised on this earth to explain the effect of that moment. It changed the entire course of creation: our history, our destiny, everything.
For those who had been consumed by death before his sacrifice, Jesus broke through like a ray of sunlight beaming into a dark cave. He reached out to Adam and Eve and all their children and said, "It's OK. I've come. You can come home now. Your sin won't trap you anymore. Be made clean." For all of us who come after we now pass through the broken jaws of death as if they were an arch, the gateway to heaven and new life. We, too, see Jesus ahead of us on that path, reaching out his hand to us and saying, "Come! I'm here. Come home." He was the first and only person to break the power of death and sin. He was the first person to walk the path to everlasting life, but no longer the only one. That "Heaven, Population:" sign now reads uncounted numbers because Jesus wouldn't leave without us...because he loved us.
When we get to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday we remember that, had Jesus not loved us and given himself for us, we'd still be walking into the jaws of death without hope. We'd be victims of our own sin if Jesus hadn't chosen to become a victim for us. He did not do it for himself. In fact he took on unimaginable and wholly unjust suffering that he didn't have to experience. He could have walked into heaven and lived forever. Instead he chose the cross, and us.
Tomorrow: The much shorter, but absolutely indispensable, practical faith lesson this story teaches us.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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