Love Wins Part 8

And to that, that impulse, craving, yearning, longing, desire- G.o.d says yes.

Yes, there is water for that thirst, food for that hunger, light for that darkness, relief for that burden.

If we want h.e.l.l, if we want heaven, they are ours.

That's how love works. It can't be forced, manipulated, or coerced.

It always leaves room for the other to decide.

G.o.d says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.

Chapter 5.

Dying to Live Somewhere around 2005 Eminem dropped out of sight. No alb.u.ms, no tours-not much was heard from him. Word spread that he'd been battling a drug addiction, and many wondered if he'd ever come back. And then in the summer of 2010, he announced that he'd be doing a concert in his hometown of Detroit. A comeback, if there ever was one.

I remember standing there among forty thousand people in that baseball stadium when he first took the stage and his image was projected onto the ma.s.sive screens on the sides of the stage. It was then that I noticed something fascinating.

Eminem was wearing a cross around his neck.

Now, we see crosses all the time, that's nothing new.

They're around somebody's neck, on a church building, on a sign at a sporting event.

It's an icon, a sign, a sculpture, it's on someone's arm as a tattoo- the cross is everywhere.

Companies and inst.i.tutions spend millions of dollars to come up with logos that we will notice, remember, and a.s.sociate with certain products, people, or ideas. But this one, hundreds of years after its inception, this simple icon with its two intersecting sticks, has endured in a way very few images ever have.

But this ubiquity is dangerous, because it can inoculate. Familiarity can lead to unfamiliarity. We see something so much that we a.s.sume we know and understand what it is.

"Jesus died on the cross for your sins."

Yes, we know. We've seen that homemade billboard by the side of the road countless times.

Anything else?

Yes, there is.

___________________.

First, a question. How often do you slit the throat of a goat?

(Didn't see that coming, did you?) Now another one. Do you regularly head downtown to a temple, maybe on a Sat.u.r.day night, to sprinkle yourself with the blood of a bull?

And then one more. Do you ever strangle a bird and then place it on an altar for good luck?

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Because you don't. Ever. Just the thought of such practices and rituals is repulsive. So primitive and barbaric. Not to mention unnecessary. It doesn't even cross our minds to sacrifice animals.

Exactly.

We read in Hebrews 9 that Jesus "has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself."

In the ancient world, people regularly sacrificed animals-bulls, goats, sheep, birds. You raised or purchased an animal and then brought it to the temple and said the right words at the right time. Then the animal was slaughtered, and its blood shed on an altar to show the G.o.ds that you were very sorry for any wrong you'd done and you were very grateful for the rain and crops and children and any other gifts you could think of that the G.o.ds had given you.

Entire civilizations for thousands of years enacted sacrificial rituals, because people believed that this was how you maintained a peaceful relationship with the G.o.ds, the forces, and the deities who controlled your fate.

You wanted whoever controlled the sun and rain to be on your side.

You wanted whoever dictated whether a woman got pregnant to show you favor.

You wanted the one who decides who wins or loses in battle to decide that you should be victorious.

That's how it worked. Offer something, show that you're serious, make amends, find favor, and then hope that was enough to get what you needed.

So when the writer of Hebrews insisted that Jesus was the last sacrifice ever needed, that was a revolutionary idea. To make that claim in those days? Stunning. Unprecedented.

Whole cultures centered around keeping the G.o.ds pleased. This was obviously a very costly, time-consuming ordeal, not to mention an anxiety-producing one. You never knew if you'd fully pleased the G.o.ds and paid the debt properly. And now the writer is announcing that those days are over because of Jesus dying on the cross. Done away with. Gone. Irrelevant.

The psychological impact alone would have been extraordinary-no more anxiety, no more worry, no more stress, no more wondering if the G.o.ds were pleased with you or ready to strike you down. There was no more need for any of that sacrifice, because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that thoroughly pleased the only G.o.d who ever mattered.

That's how the writer of Hebrews explains what happened when Jesus died on the cross.

Perhaps you've heard all of this before.

Excellent.

Because there's more.

In a different book in the New Testament, Paul writes to the Colossians that through the cross G.o.d was reconciling "to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (chap. 1). "Reconciliation" is a word from the world of relationships. It's what happens when two people or groups have had something come between them, some argument or difference or wrong or injustice, and now they've found a way to work it out and come back together. Peace has been made.

They've been reconciled.

Paul takes something we experience in relationships and says, essentially, "That's what happened on the cross." G.o.d has made peace with "all things."

So when Jesus died on the cross, was it the end of the sacrificial system or was it the reconciling of all things?

Which was it?

But then in Romans 3, Paul writes that we've been justified by grace through faith in Jesus. "Justified" is a legal term, from the world of courtrooms and judges and prosecutors and guilt and punishment. Paul talks about our world as if it's a courtroom and we're guilty, standing before the judge, with no hope. Jesus, Paul says, paid the price for our sins, so that we could go free.

Again, which is it?

When Jesus died on the cross, was it the end of sacrifices or the reconciling of all things or the price paid to free guilty sinners?

But then Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1 that Jesus has "destroyed death," and John writes in chapter 5 of his first letter that "this is the victory that has overcome the world." "Victory" and "destroyed" are terms from battle-they're war metaphors from the world of armies and soldiers and conquest. In these texts, the cross is explained in terms of Jesus's winning a battle against evil.

And then, in the first chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes, "We have redemption through his blood." "Redemption" is a word from the world of business and finance and economics. To redeem something is to give it worth again, to revalue it, to buy it back.

So, back to the question: What happened on the cross?

Is the cross about the end of the sacrificial system or a broken relationship that's been reconciled or a guilty defendant who's been set free or a battle that's been won or the redeeming of something that was lost?

Which is it?

Which perspective is the right one? Which metaphor is correct? Which explanation is true?

The answer, of course, is yes.

So why all the different explanations?

For these first Christians, something ma.s.sive and universe-changing had happened through the cross, and they set out to communicate the significance and power of it to their audiences in language their audiences would understand. And so they looked at the world around them, identifying examples, pictures, experiences, and metaphors that their listeners and readers would have already been familiar with, and then they essentially said: What happened on the cross is like . . .

a defendant going free, a relationship being reconciled, something lost being redeemed, a battle being won, a final sacrifice being offered, so that no one ever has to offer another one again, an enemy being loved.

For the first thousand years or so of church history, the metaphor of victory in battle, Jesus conquering death, was the central, dominant understanding of the cross. And then at other times and in other places, other explanations have been more heavily emphasized.

This is especially crucial in light of how many continue to use the sacrificial metaphor in our modern world. There's nothing wrong with talking and singing about how the "Blood will never lose its power" and "Nothing but the blood will save us." Those are powerful metaphors. But we don't live any longer in a culture in which people offer animal sacrifices to the G.o.ds. People did live that way for thousands of years, and there are pockets of primitive cultures around the world that do continue to understand sin, guilt, and atonement in those ways. But most of us don't. What the first Christians did was look around them and put the Jesus story in language their listeners would understand.

"It's like this . . ."

"It's like that . . ."

The point, then, isn't to narrow it to one particular metaphor, image, explanation, or mechanism. To elevate one over the others, to insist that there's a "correct" or "right" one, is to miss the brilliant, creative work these first Christians were doing when they used these images and metaphors. They were reading their world, looking for ways to communicate this epic event in ways their listeners could grasp.

The point then, as it is now, is Jesus. The divine in flesh and blood. He's where the life is.

___________________.

So far, we've just explored the cross.

So now, the resurrection.

Because after Friday eventually comes . . . Sunday.

Lots of people were crucified in Jesus's day. That wasn't that unusual. What gave the early Christians such extraordinary fire and fuel was the insistence that Jesus's death on the cross was not the last word on this rabbi from Nazareth. What set all sorts of historic events in motion was his followers' insistence that they had experienced him after his death. after his death. Their encounters with him led them to believe that something ma.s.sive had happened that had implications for the entire world. Their encounters with him led them to believe that something ma.s.sive had happened that had implications for the entire world.

To understand their claims, it's important to remember that resurrection after death was not a new idea. In the fall in many parts of the world, the leaves drop from the trees and the plants die. They turn brown, wither, and lose their life. They remain this way for the winter-dormant, dead, lifeless. And then spring comes, and they burst into life again. Growing, sprouting, producing new leaves and buds. For there to be spring, there has to be a fall and then a winter. For nature to spring to life, it first has to die. Death, then resurrection. This is true for ecosystems, food chains, the seasons-it's true all across the environment. Death gives way to life.

A seed has to be buried in the ground before it can rise up from out of the earth as new life.

Think of what you've had to eat today.

Dead. All of it. If you ate plants, they were at some point harvested, uprooted, disconnected from a stalk or vine, yanked from the ground so that they could make their way to your plate, where you ate them so that you can . . . live. The death of one living thing for the life of another.

This death-and-life mystery, this mechanism, this process is built into the very fabric of creation. The cells in our bodies are dying at a rate of millions a second, only to be replaced at a similar rate of millions a second. Our skin is constantly flaking off and our body is continually replacing the skin cells with new ones; we have entirely new skin every week or so.

Death is the engine of life in the relational realm as well. Think about those firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11 rescuing people. Who isn't moved when they hear those stories of selfless heroism? We talk about how inspiring it is when people sacrifice themselves for the well-being of another. To inspire is to give life. Their deaths for others' lives.

So when the writers of the Bible talk about Jesus's resurrection bringing new life to the world, they aren't talking about a new concept. They're talking about something that has always been true. It's how the world works.

Although the cross is often understood as a religious icon, it's a symbol of an elemental reality, one we all experience every time we take a bite of food.

Once again, death and rebirth are as old as the world.

Second, then, these first Christians understood the cross and resurrection to be an event as wide as the world, extending to all of creation.

Here's an example from early in John's Gospel. John tells a story about Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding (chap. 2) and then mentions that this was the first "sign" Jesus performed. Then, two chapters later, Jesus heals an official's son, and John mentions that this was "the second sign Jesus performed."

Why does John number the signs?

One of the things you pick up in reading the Bible over time is that the writers were extremely clever, employing incredibly complex patterns with numbers and hints and allusions in their writings. Often just below the surface they would place another story, another point.

So when John numbers these first two signs, we are wise to begin asking questions. Why the numbers? What's he getting at? If we then read on, looking for more signs, we see Jesus heal a man by a pool in the next chapter. That would be the third sign in the Gospel. Then in chapter 6 he provides bread for the crowd and then walks on water. Those would be signs four and five. Then in chapter 9 he heals a blind man, which would be sign six. And then, in chapter 11, he raises Lazarus from the dead, a "sign" if there ever was one.

Seven signs.

Now ask: Is the number seven significant in the Bible? Does it occur in any other prominent place?

Well, yes, it does. In the poem that begins the Bible. The poem speaks of seven days of creation.

But there's one more sign in John's Gospel. In chapter 20 Jesus rises from the dead. Now that's that's a sign. The eighth sign in the book of John. Jesus rises from the dead in a garden. Which, of course, takes us back to Genesis, to the first creation in a . . . garden. a sign. The eighth sign in the book of John. Jesus rises from the dead in a garden. Which, of course, takes us back to Genesis, to the first creation in a . . . garden.

What is John telling us?

It's the eighth sign, the first day of the new week, the first day of the new creation. The resurrection of Jesus inaugurates a new creation, one free from death, and it is bursting forth in Jesus himself right here in the midst of the first creation.

The tomb is empty, a new day is here, a new creation is here, everything has changed, death has been conquered, the old has gone, the new has come.

John is telling a huge story, one about G.o.d rescuing all of creation.

When people say that Jesus came to die on the cross so that we can have a relationship with G.o.d, yes, that is true. But that explanation as the first explanation puts us us at the center. For the first Christians, the story was, first and foremost, bigger, grander. More ma.s.sive. When Jesus is presented only as the answer that saves individuals from their sin and death, we run the risk of shrinking the Gospel down to something just for humans, when G.o.d has inaugurated a movement in Jesus's resurrection to renew, restore, and reconcile everything "on earth or in heaven" (Col. 1), just as G.o.d originally intended it. The powers of death and destruction have been defeated on the most epic scale imaginable. Individuals are then invited to see their story in the context of a far larger story, one that includes all of creation. at the center. For the first Christians, the story was, first and foremost, bigger, grander. More ma.s.sive. When Jesus is presented only as the answer that saves individuals from their sin and death, we run the risk of shrinking the Gospel down to something just for humans, when G.o.d has inaugurated a movement in Jesus's resurrection to renew, restore, and reconcile everything "on earth or in heaven" (Col. 1), just as G.o.d originally intended it. The powers of death and destruction have been defeated on the most epic scale imaginable. Individuals are then invited to see their story in the context of a far larger story, one that includes all of creation.

Yes, it includes people. The writers were very clear that the good news of the cross and resurrection is for everybody. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that all of humanity died through the first humans, so "in Christ all will be made alive." He writes to t.i.tus that "the grace of G.o.d has appeared that offers salvation to all people" (chap. 2). And then, in one of his more epic pa.s.sages, Paul explains to the Romans that "just as one trespa.s.s resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all" (chap. 5).

He is not alone in this belief. The pastor John writes to his people that Jesus is "the Lamb of G.o.d, who takes away the sin of the world" and that Jesus is "the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world" (John 1; 1 John 2).

How many people, if you were to ask them why they've left church, would give an answer something along the lines of, "It's just so . . . small"?

Of course.

A gospel that leaves out its cosmic scope will always feel small.