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Atonement Text: Matthew 21:1-11 ● "Hoshana" is a Hebrew word meaning “please save or save now”. In ancient times, palm-branches were symbols of victory and triumph. The Romans used the palm branches to reward their champions of the games and celebrate military triumphs. “Hosanna”: This is the cry of a people in need of rescue; in anticipation of a deliverer; someone to come and free them from the oppressive systems under which they live and establish God’s rightful rule. The Jews identified this person as ‘the Messiah’. We find ourselves often, as the crowds on Palm Sunday, full of anticipation and full of frustration; full of hopes and full of fears; joyful, and outraged. This is more of a ‘mob mentality’ than a parade. ● The people are almost demanding that he exert himself and eliminate injustice; desperate for him to be able to do something about our suffering… “please save us now”! ● Jesus always spoke and acted as if God’s promises to Israel were coming to a climax in and through him. His mission had been announced by angels at his birth… “he will save his people from their sins”. But Jesus seemed, at times, almost hesitant to connect himself with the title ‘Messiah’ because he knew the expectations, widely held by the nation of Israel, and the inconsistencies with his own sense of fulfillment. ● Jesus believed and acted upon (2) vital points, both of which are critical components of the story: 1) He believed that the good Creator-God had intended from the beginning to address the problems evil in creation through the nation of Israel. That although this act of rescue and restoration would come through the Jews, its impact and effect would reach to the entire world (non-Jews and creation itself) [John 4:22 “… salvation is from the Jews…” ] 2) Jesus believed that this act would be accomplished through the nation of Israel experiencing a climactic moment in which Israel herself would be forgiven of her sins, liberated from her enemies and become the means through which God would, at last, set things right. ● In fact, when the first Christians attempted to formulate a summary of Jesus’ mission, it was often presented something like this: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). It doesn’t mean that Jesus’ death was referenced in the scriptures, but that Jesus was the Christ, Israel’s true Messiah and that to understand his death, you have to understand the story. To say that “Jesus died according to the Scriptures” was to claim that Israel’s ‘sins’ had been dealt with and the time of forgiveness had arrived. ● During the Easter season, we meet this big theological term “atonement”. But, to use that word is to find yourself in a story which has decidedly Jewish roots. In the Hebrew, the word is multi-faceted: ‘to cover over, to cleanse, to make reconciliation, to forgive, to cancel a debt, to pardon’. ● In a word, then, “atonement” is… … every movement of God toward his creation motivated by his purpose of setting things right (many have suggested the simple expression ‘at-one-ment’). ● Just as the human predicament is so immense that it could not be ‘defined’, but best ‘described’ through multiple metaphors, so God’s restorative work in Jesus is best understood as it is portrayed through its various imagery. The goal of atonement: the restoration of relationships with God, one another and the world which makes possible a community of people living out shalom. ● If sin is, as I have suggested, a relational term (and not merely a legislative one), then atonement is essentially the healing of broken relationships. ● Although the Bible addresses the idea of sin and demonstrates the effects it has had on humanity in many ways, we might summarize our predicament in (4) essential ways: 1) Alienated 2) Condemned 3) Enslaved 4) Depraved Alienated… Because sin drove us all in the wrong direction- away from God and each other, Jesus came to provide reconciliation. Romans 5:10-11 “For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.” Condemned… Because we stand ‘guilty’ before a holy God, Jesus came to somehow absorb the consequences of sin and satisfy the wrath of God. ● Guilt always stands as an obstacle to relationship. Guilt is always associated with the perceived wrongs we have done (or, what’s wrong about us). Guilt is the ‘stain’ or residue left on our lives from sin. Guilt produces feelings of avoidance; every time I engage the one I’ve wrong, I wonder if how they are feeling toward me. ● The only remedy for guilt is to remove the offense standing between the (2) parties: “forgiveness”. ● The picture that Paul gives us often is one of a ‘law court setting’ with God as the Judge and humanity as the guilty party. It This view holds that God is holy and that humanity is sinful. Because God is holy, he cannot simply ignore sin because it would be an affront to his holiness. Therefore, God’s holiness demands ‘justice’. So, Jesus takes our place and absorbs the punishment for sin. Not only does God take all of our sin and place it on Jesus, but, in turn, takes his righteousness and gives it to us. He declares us ‘justified’ (in right standing with God). So, God has satisfied the just demands of punishment for sin and, at the same time, forgives sin and restores sinners back into relationship with him because of Jesus’ obedience. Justice, as understood from God’s perspective, is not just ‘retaliation’, it’s ‘reconciliation’. ● Let’s not make the grave mistake of seeing Jesus’ as the ‘unwitting victim’ or ‘uncooperative party’; Jesus is not simply ‘intercepting the Father’s wrath’. With the idea being that the Father has been disgusted with humanity since Adam and has set in motion a plan to ‘take it out on someone’ and Jesus is the innocent target of God’s arbitrary anger. 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God”. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…” (we read earlier) Enslaved… Because sin had a way of masquerading as ‘freedom’- causing us to pursue the very things that would enslave us, Jesus came to offer himself as the price for our freedom. ● The Bible often uses the metaphor of ‘slavery’ to describe the effects that sin has had upon us. Jesus sees his own death, somehow, as ‘payment’ to ensure the liberation of those oppressed and held captive. Psalm 130:7 “O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is lovingkindness , and with Him is abundant redemption.” Matthew 20:28 “…just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." Colossians 1:14 “…in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Depraved… Because of the desperation of our condition and inability to remedy it on our own, Jesus came to die with us, for us and instead of us. ● The Bible depicts this as “identification”: becoming like us in human flesh, yet without sin. [‘first Adam’ and the ‘second Adam’] Romans 5:12-21 - Adam comes as the ‘icon’ of God and lives disobediently; Jesus’ comes as the ‘icon’ of God (Hebrews 1) and demonstrates what it’s like to be fully human. - Adam’s single act brought death to all of creation; Jesus’ single act reversed the devastating effects and made new creation possible. - Adam’s single act disconnected him from God and everyone else; Jesus’ single act made possible right relationship with God, each other and creation. ● What helps identify the condition of our relationship is whether we are ‘in Adam’ or ‘in Christ’. The point that all of these metaphors are attempting to make is that if we are identified with Adam, we are still disconnected; still experiencing the consequences of sin. If we are identified with Christ (‘in Christ’), then everything that’s true of him is true of us! ● All that being said,.. ►The central theme of the story of Christianity is that Jesus’ death with, for and instead of us somehow put us back in right relationship with God, each other and the entire created order: ‘new creation’. Before all of our explanations, theories and attempts to understand, there was Jesus, on the cross, saying “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”. Even as a child, as repulsive as the scene was represented in art or in word, I remember wondering… “How could I not love a God like that?” ● At the heart of all of our theories is the story of “exile and exodus”: Passover. The old story required that the blood of a lamb be smeared on the doorposts of the house to protect from death and liberate Israel from slavery to Egypt. The new story is that Jesus is ‘the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world’. Instead of smearing blood on the door, Jesus asks his followers to drink the wine (as representative of his death for them) so that they might not have to ‘taste death’, but that he could ‘taste death for them’. Hebrews 2:9 “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” ►Without a view toward God’s future (hopeful view of God’s determined future: eschatology), atonement makes no sense. A few words about ‘judgment’ and ‘wrath’ here: Judgment… is God’s refusal to let anything stand in the way of ‘shalom’. ~ It is the demonstration that God refuses to allow creation to remain in its corrupted condition; it’s his passionate response to the corruption of all that he loves. Wrath… ~ Within freedom is also God’s jealous displeasure with all of the corruption that his good creation experiences. It’s protection of all that is rightfully his! ~ Wrath is God’s protective love at work to restore shalom among his creation. It’s his wrath that motivates him to re-create; to offer a new path for restoration. ~ God’s wrath is as much an expression of his love as his holiness. The world is sinful, that’s why God does not affirm it indiscriminately; God loves the world and that’s why he doesn’t punish it in justice (give it what it deserves). ►Live today as if tomorrow had already arrived. The author of Hebrews uses the word ‘today’ with the understanding that God’s work in Jesus was somehow decisive and final and, as a result, new creation had begun. ►God always meets us at the place of ‘mercy’ (Exodus 25:22) ‘mercy seat’- on the ark in the holy of holies. ►Atonement ensures that God is always faithful to his justice and his determination to set things right- which always requires mercy.
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At this point, your ‘head might be reeling’
(head should be hurting) but your ‘heart should be ecstatic’; ‘overwhelmed’ by
the indescribable, unexplainable love of God. |
