God Loved So Much
Easter Weekend Message
April 10, 2004
Cornwall/Montreal
When we think of Incarnation, if we think of it at all, we think of it in the Christmas season. We understand that Incarnation has to do with God coming to be with us, and we understand that he did this by coming in Jesus as a baby. He came with all the wonder and awe that is appropriate for that part of the story in mid-winter, as we celebrate it. God, through Jesus, identified with men and women and came- as a special baby, yes- and Immanuel (God with us) was true.
However, we- humans and other creatures- are not only born. We live and we die. A German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, declared that our being is "being- towards- death". For Immanuel to be true, more than birth was necessary.
If our Creator, wanted to lovingly redeem the human condition, more was required. If our Creator and the Creator of all creatures, wanted to redeem us in and from our current condition, more than his birth was needed. Remember what Paul declares in Ro.8.22sq. - all creation groans waiting for the revealing of God’s children so they can be rescued from their state. To redeem the rest of creation and us, he "must" follow the life of creation through to the nonbeing- death- toward which all our lives move. This is the reality of our lives. Death is interesting in that it’s not just an end that comes sometime; it’s reality is embedded in our human consciousness all the way through. We know it’s coming. We’re aware that it’s coming and, at all stages of life, we think of it sometimes. We’re brought face-to-face with it when a parent dies, no matter how old or young we might be, or when a child dies, or a friend dies, or a parent of a friend dies, and so on.
Eccl.9.5- declares this reality of our lives, and this reality has a necessary impact on how God had to be in order to fully be Immanuel.
Christmas is beautiful. The story about Jesus, which we focus on at Christmas, is filled with wonder, because it affirms and celebrates the great good and worth of all creation. This is a perspective, by the way, that is found in no other faith. God declares the good- the nobility- of humanity. We, Christians, sometimes, focus on the nothingness and the sinfulness to such a degree that we miss the affirmative messages that God gives us. Christmas gives us such an incredible message about how highly God views us. But if that were all we had in the Christian story- and celebration year- God could not reach us in the reality of our lives. God’s love- that is ready to suffer birth in human form- "must" follow through, if He really loves creation.
About this, Francis Schaeffer, in "He is There and He is Not Silent", wrote:
"Another question in the dilemma of man is man’s nobility. Perhaps you do not like the world "nobility," but whatever word you choose, there is something great about man. I want to add here that evangelicals have made a horrible mistake by often equating the fact that man is lost and under God’s judgment with the idea that man is nothing- a zero. This is not what the Bible says. There is something great about man, and we have lost perhaps our greatest opportunity of evangelism in our generation by not insisting that it is the Bible which explains why man is great."
God’s great feeling for creation, and especially for humanity, is clear in one giant verse:
John 3.16- if this is true, to be born as a baby was not enough. He "must" suffer life, not only birth. And he "must" suffer death, too. There could be no other way. The reality is that some decisions lead to other necessary decisions, and there is no logical alternative. When God made one decision about being born human, He "had" to make other resulting decisions, too, in order to fully demonstrate what He had "decided" to demonstrate, to declare, and to be.
Think about this for a moment. IF incarnation were just about Jesus coming as a baby- that’s wonderful and it’s amazing- no question about it. If our problem were only that we are flesh, that would be enough, too. But that’s not all. Life is not less just because we’re flesh, although that’s significant. But life is…. well, life. God loving us only in coming as a baby is not enough. Incarnation that does not go on for the entire span of creaturely life could be said to "heal the hurts of my people lightly". Christmas is not enough. Incarnation must include Good Friday, too.
In the crucifixion day, we see the height of the Creator moving toward his creation. His decision to be "God with us" is brought to its final test. Gethsemane- the time of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane- was the cross before the cross- and shows the height of pain.
Lk.22.39-45
Jesus declared that he was sent for this purpose.
John 12.27- "…for this cause…"
His destiny was this, by choice.
Matt. 16.21- must suffer. Mark8.31- suffer and be rejected.
This is the "must" of his journey- the end which he had in sight. But it’s only "must" as long as God has the free decision to seek this measure of solidarity with creation. Jesus struggles with this in the Garden.
This is the Second Garden of Temptation (Matt.26.36ff. cf. Gen.3.1-6). Satan was present in both cases, as is aptly depicted in "The Passion of the Christ". Not only is this a time to decide whether he will, or won’t, submit to the execution the human enemies had been planning- but whether he will, or won’t, reaffirm the Divine decision to be Immanuel. Death is not the primary issue here- many have died for others or for a cause. The fundamental Question of our High priest representative is whether he will take the final step toward the world.
Matt.26.52-54.
The fundamental Question is whether he will say "yes" to our condition, including the mortality it implies. This is no light step he had to take. It is at least as hard for God to identify himself with fallen and distorted creation as it is for us to say "yes" to our creaturehood, including our mortality. I don’t know about you, but I still wrestle with this reality- I don’t like it and I fight it, but my mortality fights back very hard.
As the result of this, Good Friday is a celebration of Christ’s victory decision to take the final step toward the world that God loves- John 3.16. For all the pain, it is also a triumph over the pain, in the decision to go that far!
What this tells us is that Jesus, and God, ARE there with us in our suffering, even though we don’t understand. Everything ISN’T always wonderful. Life is life. I think back to Carla Becker- Christ was there in the suffering of that family. I think back to Metro and Rouga Swereda- and Joey- God was there in their suffering and in Metro’s in the last decade of his life. Jesus is there with the suffering saints- in the past and today- in brutal treatment and who die and don’t rise on the third day. Jesus is there with you in your times of suffering, doubt, anger at God, and disappointments. This is what life is all about and without Jesus going all the way, we would not have the assurance we do have.
The victory of Jesus is not reserved for Easter Sunday and resurrection- it is already fully present at Golgotha. The third day (Jewish reckoning- Friday is the first day, Saturday the second day, Sunday the third) "only" confirms, reveals, and emphasizes the scope and meaning of what has already occurred in the cross. In other words, God’s determination to follow the course toward which his sympathy pressed him is the victory in itself. To participate fully and unconditionally in the human condition so that it could be healed from within, is the victory, in itself. The human condition cannot be healed from without, but is healed from within- from Jesus within.
Implications
You and I have accepted Jesus as Saviour and as Lord. This means that we, too, must move toward the world as Jesus did. Although Jesus has achieved the goal of his movement toward the world, there is also a process- a ’not yet’- that we enter.
Paul writes of how he entered Christ’s suffering- Col.1.24. Christ declared that we would suffer, too- John 15.20. The world is a world with lots of suffering and, as Jesus entered the suffering of the world, so we must be prepared to do the same. (This past Wednesday was the International Day for Reflection- springing from the Rwandan genocide, it has been established for humanity to consider how to prevent that kind of suffering from ever happening again.) We cannot be isolated from the world and the suffering. It’s there. This is not because of any insufficiency of Christ’s work. Indeed, as He declared, "It is finished." But, this is because life goes on, the world goes on, history goes on, and for all that Christians might like to think that we’re to be spared suffering, for some reason, the reality is that we’re to be ’in the world, but not of it’.
John 17.15-18; Tit.2.12- some interpret this idea to urge toward isolation from the world, but that is not correctly understanding the entire message of the cross of Jesus. Resurrection life is not given us so we can isolate ourselves from the world, but so that we can go into the world and bring that resurrection life to the world. We are not to be tainted by the world. We are not to do like the world, anymore, but we’ve been given "Christ in us" so that we can be in the world, as He was in the world. And, as He bore fruit in the world, even as He suffered in the world, so do and will we!
God’s movement toward the world must continue. This is what the church is all about- the continuing of Christ’s movement toward the world. This becomes the "must" under which we labour. Our tendency is to want to move away from the world and into our own little worlds, or into some theoretic super world of our own making. But…
Ro.6.1f- by our ’baptism into his death’, we are being directed toward the world where HIS life is being lived, hidden among the lives of those especially upon whom the world seems to have denied the fullness of life.
Matt.25.31ff- this is where our life is to be lived, because of what this weekend is all about!
Conclusions
Discipleship of Jesus is nothing more or less than being sent with increasing insistence "into all the world" (Matt.28.18-20). The world toward which we are sent is in constant flux and it demands much of us to go to it- to try to figure it out, to deal with its changing. But it is this world- God’s beloved world- which is constantly unfolding and moving from one possibility to another- that is our mission field.
The shadow of the cross is over us this weekend. It doesn’t represent simply a nice idea or a profound theology. It impels us forward. Our question: How in this world of the here and now are we to perceive and understand the presence of the crucified Jesus, and how are we to translate that presence into words and deeds, or, even, sighs (Ro.8.26 RSV)? That is our challenge as we celebrate Emmanuel- God with us- by His choice and deep thought and labour. With the same choice, thought, and labour, we will minister, and where we minister, Christ will be at work!
