April 5, 2009

Palm Sunday

On a Palm Sunday a few years ago, I overheard two conversations that gave me great pause.  The first was between a young boy and his mother after the service.  He posed the question, “I don’t get this.  Did Jesus know the soldiers were coming after him when he went to the garden?”  His mother answered, “Yes, he knew somehow he was going to be taken away by the authorities.”  “Well, why didn’t he just run away?  Why didn’t he just get his friends to hide him?”  “Because he understood that the arrest and the trial were part of God’s plan.”  “Well, why would God want such an awful thing to happen to his Son?  That doesn’t make sense to me.”  As I heard this exchange, I thought that is the natural reaction of a child to an unnatural and complex event.  As he matures, the meaning will become clear to him. 

A little while later, as I was leaving the church, an older woman stopped me and said, “My whole life, I’ve heard the Passion and I’ve never, never understood why Christ had to die.  Why would God allow that to happen, especially to his own Son?”  In that moment, I realized that while we say every single Sunday, “Here, Christ is present in the bread and the wine, take, eat, remember that he died for you,” we might not know why his death was necessary.  So, this morning, as we are thrust dramatically into the last hours of his life, I thought we should examine the theology of the crucifixion.  What was God about in this terrible action, and why was Jesus willing to participate? 

The “why” begins soon after our beginning.  You remember that when the world was created, everything was made good.  Everything was perfect, whole, and balanced.  Every single celled organism, every blade of grass, every season, and every weather front operated and unfolded in exact right order.  There was in the universe no disruption, no pain, no sorrow, or death.  Nothing suffered, nothing ever died.  Perfection reigned everywhere.  The last organism introduced into the order was the human.  The most complex, the most advanced creature was set into God’s paradise and given two distinct attributes.  Over all other life forms, God gave humankind the ability to reason and the gift of choice.  Man was made to make a unique decision, either love and honor the creator, or love and honor your own accomplishments.  Humans made their choice early and turned from God to their own glory. 

When humankind put themselves ahead of God, in the place of God, everything changed.  Paradise was ruined.  What was ordered and pure and balanced became corrupted and skewed.  In that moment, the possibilities of disruption were introduced into the universe.  As the earthly stewards of the domain, our poor choice brought into existence the negative forces we now know.  War, poverty, isolation, addiction, violence, jealousy, hatred, fear, worry, greed and scarcity came into being.  These are our contributions to the creation process.  When God saw how our pride overcame our devotion to him, he was grieved.  He understood the trajectory of our choice. Human pride creates the dynamic for all sorts of horrors.  He saw his perfect universe destroyed.  Something so much less was left in its place.  He had to respond, so he said, humans, you will be left to live with the consequences of your choice.  Your pride introduced negativity and brokenness into your world, now live with the fallout.

Paradise lost is your doing.  My punishment for your disloyalty is the introduction of death.  No more will you be immortal.  You and all parts of creation will age, die, and pass away.  Once you die, you will disappear from all memory for all time.  God created perfection.  We rebelled and broke what was wholly good.  God answered back. We were doomed. God, in his infinite mercy, reconsidered.  The creating father said I do not want to be separated from what I created in love.  I do not want to be estranged from my children forever.  I desire reconciliation.  How can reconnection be accomplished?

God recognized that humans as wise, as capable as he made them, did not have the means to repair and restore his original work.  Humans could break, they could not perfect on their own: [break the glass]  No matter how much intellect, talent, love, intent or energy they gave, humankind could not overcome the disorder they let loose in the world nor could they conquer death by their own devices. [shards of glass cannot not be put back whole and seamless] Divine intervention was required.  If God and humans were going to be reunited, if the world was going to be put back to its original glorious state, then God would have to create the mechanism for the great change and personally intervene to make everything right once more.

So, as he did when he called everything into being, God called forth his Son.  He said you go.  You go for me.  You go into the world and live as one of them.  Walk in their shoes. Experience their existence.  Feel their weariness and worries.  Know their laughter and confidence.  Teach them my ways.  Help them feel the full power of my love and affection for them. Give them everything they need to make the right choice this time!  When you’ve taught them the lessons, they need, when you’ve shown them the example they need to follow, do the last necessary thing.  When they know how to reverse the consequences of the negative forces they unleashed, when they know how self-sacrificing love can overcome the brokenness they created, you can then undo death. 

In the end, you, my beloved Son, may take all your divine power on again.  Then you may bring back eternity.  You are big enough, strong enough, and Godly enough to take on death.  Go to the end of your earthly “human” existence.  As that soul leaves your body, go to the generations and generations of humans who came before you.  Go to the place of the dead and bring their souls back to me in heaven.  Go crush out the absolute hold of death.  For the people living on earth this day, for the generations to come, you go and restore the possibility of immortality and make real reunion with me in my heavenly kingdom. 

My dearest son, you alone have what is necessary to repair the brokenness my other children let loose.  You can set up the mechanism for abundant life on earth and eternal life in heaven.  But…your work will not be easy.  In order to undo their mayhem, you must be alive and present in the world, which means you will experience the world as they do.  You will feel the physical pain they endure.  You will know the emotional angst of dread and fear.  You will not rise above inner doubt and anxiety.  You will go through it all.  Restoration, reconciliation, reunion with God Almighty is not easily done.  Bringing all humanity for all time back to perfection is reversing the direction of the universe.  This is not stretching a hand out to calm the sea.  This is not bringing sight to a man born blind.  Overcoming sin – those dark forces of human nature and putting down death forever is mighty, mighty work.  A supreme sacrifice is required.  You, my son, are the only hope and the only answer for human beings.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

And the Son said “yes.”

And the Son became the Gift of God for the people of God.

Remember this day and every day that Christ died for you.

Remember and know why.

Amen.