“Experience the Passion” Series
“Experience Ultimate Wholeness” (The Cross)
March 19/20, 2005
** This sermon weaves a chapter from Lucado’s "He Chose the Nails" with reflections on freedom from the conseguences of sin and ultimate wholeness.
(Max Lucado: He Chose the Nails) “What would have happened to the Beast if the Beauty had not appeared? You know the story. There was a time when his face was handsome and his palace cheerful. But that was before the curse, before the shadows fell on the castle of the prince, before the shadows fell on the heart of the prince. And when the darkness fell, he hid. Secluded in his castle, he was left with glistening snout and curly tusks and a very bad mood.
But all that changed when the girl came. What would have happened to the Beast if the Beauty had not appeared? Better yet, what would have happened if she had not cared? And who would have blamed her if she hadn’t? He was such a . . . beast. Hairy. Drooling. Roaring. Defying. Ill mannered. And she was such a beauty. Stunningly gorgeous. Contagiously kind. If ever two people lived up to their names, didn’t Beauty and the Beast? Who would have blamed her if she hadn’t cared? But she did. And because Beauty loved the Beast . . .
The story is familiar, not just because it’s an exquisite fairy tale. It’s familiar, I suspect, because it reminds us of ourselves. There is a beast within each of us. It wasn’t always so. There was a time when our face was beautiful and palace cheerful. But that was before the curse, before the shadows fell across Adam’s garden, before the shadows fell across Adam’s heart. And ever since that curse, we’ve been different. Beastly. Ugly. Defiant. Angry. Ill mannered. We do things we know we shouldn’t and wonder why.
Max Lucado is one of my heroes. Not just because his gift with words is so extraordinary. Not just because he is so perceptive with Scripture and human nature. He’s one of my heroes because he is so ordinary. Apparently he can be a madman in a car. His sin makes me feel better about my sin. Here’s one of his stories (could have been one of mine). He says:
The ugly part of me showed his beastly face the other night. I was driving on a two-lane road about to become one lane. A woman in a car beside me was in the lane that continued. I was in the one that stopped. I needed to be ahead of her. My schedule was, no doubt, more important than hers. After all, am I not a man of the cloth? Am I not a courier of compassion? An ambassador of peace? So I floored it.
She did, too. And when my lane ended, she was a fender ahead of me. So I growled and let her go ahead. Over her shoulder she gave me a sweet little bye-bye wave. Grrr. I started to dim my headlights. Then I paused. The beastly part of me said, “Wait a minute. Am I not called to shed light on dark places, to illuminate the shadows?” So I put a little high beam in her rearview mirror.
She retaliated . . . by slowing down. To a crawl. This woman was mean. She couldn’t have been going more than 15 miles per hour. And I wasn’t going to take my lights out of her rearview mirror. Like two stubborn donkeys, she kept it slow and I kept it bright. After more unkind thoughts than I dare confess, the road widened and I started to pass. Wouldn’t you know it? A red light left the two of us side by side at an intersection. What happened next contains both good news and bad. The good news is, she waved at me. The bad news is, her wave was not one you’d want to imitate.
Moments later, conviction surfaced. “Why did I do that?” I’m typically a calm guy, but for 15 minutes I was a beast! Only two facts comforted me: One, I don’t have a fish symbol on my car, and Two, even the apostle Paul had similar struggles. “I do not do what I want to do, and I do the things I hate,” he said. (Romans 7.15)
I suspect it’s one of those preacher vices. Mike Breaux tells of a time when another car cut his off. As he pulled around the dork he yelled and he pointed – he was administering ministerial discipline. Then, as he pulled in front of the guy, he remembered that he had a clergy sticker on his back window, and he was nearing his church. That could be embarrassing. So he pulled into the church next door. You guys here at Capital City can be grateful that your ministerial staff is exceptional, far more mature and gentle and godly when we drive. And you can be grateful that there are no fish symbols on our cars.
“I do not do what I want to do, and I do the things I hate.” Ever felt like saying those words? You’re in good company. You can find that beast within just about every person in the Bible. Abraham and Isaac lying, putting their wives at risk; Jacob, stealing his brother’s blessing; Shechem raping Dinah; Simeon and Levi murdering Shechem and his friends; Moses murdering an Egyptian; David stealing another man’s wife then murdering him; Solomon seduced by his love for women more than by his love for God. In the New Testament one Herod murdering Bethlehem babies, another Herod murdering the Baptist. Disciples running when Jesus faced death. If the Bible is the good book, it’s not because its people are.
But the evil of the beast was never so raw as on that day. Disciples slept, then ran. The Priests wanted revenge. Herod and the crowds wanted a show. Pilate wanted out. And the soldiers . . . they wanted blood.
First they whipped Jesus. Maybe scourged is a better word. Their whip had several leather thongs interwoven with pieces of stone, or metal, or glass, or bone. The goal was to beat Jesus until he was almost dead – then stop. That was the first deed of the soldiers. The crucifixion was their third. Though his back was shredded and bleeding, they tied a cross to his shoulders and marched him to a place called Golgotha where they executed him.
Perhaps the soldiers can be excused for these two deeds – their first and third. Perhaps. They were just following orders. But what they did in between . . . The Bible says, “Some of the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire battalion. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. They made a crown of long, sharp thorns and put it on his head, and they placed a stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery, yelling, "Hail! King of the Jews!" And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and beat him on the head with it. When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then (and then, and only then) they led him away to be crucified.” (Matthew 27.27-31)
Their assignment was simple: whip him, then crucify him. But they wanted some fun first. Strong, rested, armed soldiers surrounded an exhausted, nearly dead, carpenter and tormented him. The scourging was commanded. The crucifixion was ordered. But why take pleasure out of torturing a dying man by dressing him up, beating thorns into his head, and spitting on him. Spitting isn’t intended to hurt the body – it can’t, really. Spitting is intended to degrade the soul, and it does. What were these soldiers doing? Elevating themselves by denigrating another? Feeling big by making another look small?
Ever do that? Maybe you’ve never spit on someone, but have you gossiped? Slandered? Raised your hand in anger? Rolled you eyes in arrogance? Blasted your high beams in someone’s mirror? Made someone feel bad so you would feel good?
That’s what the soldiers did to Jesus. And folks, when you and I do the same, we do it to Jesus too. Jesus said, “What you do to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to me.” (Matthew 25.40) How we treat others is how we treat Jesus. We’re not innocent, are we?
There’s a word for that beast within us – it’s called SIN. And it is in us, isn’t it? The Bible says, "No one is good – not even one. No one has real understanding; no one is seeking God. All have turned away from God; all have gone wrong. No one does good,
not even one." (Romans 3.10-12) The Bible says, “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s standards.” (Romans 3.23) And I suspect that includes me, and I suspect it includes you.
Is that too cynical? Some folks think – maybe some of you think – “I suppose I sin a little, but I’m not so bad. Compared to most folks I do pretty well.” You know, a pig might say something similar. He might look around at his partners in the mud pen and say, “I’m as clean as any of the rest of them.” But compared to a human, the pig needs help. Well, compared to God, we need help. You see, we don’t measure our sin by comparing ourselves with other sinners, we measure our sin by the standards of God. And we are . . . beasts.
Don’t think so? Try this. For 24 hours lead a sinless life – by God’s standards. Not a perfect year, or a perfect month, or a perfect week – just one perfect day. Could you do it? One day of worry free, anger free, lust free, pride free, completely unselfish living. Not one sinful word, not one sinful act, not one sinful thought. Could you do it? How about one hour. If I could pick the hour – say starting 2:00 a.m. and ending at 3:00 a.m., and if I could take an Ambien so I wouldn’t wake up, maybe. The fact is, we are sinners, and the wages of sin are . . . many.
Do you know what sin does? You’ve heard some people say, “I know I sin, but I’m only human.” Did you know that every sin – every single sin – diminishes you. Every sin makes you less than you could be. Every sin makes you less than fully human.
Sin breaks things, always. Do you honestly think God hates sin because he’s some prude? God hates sin because sin always hurts his kids – always. Sin corrupts, and warps, and perverts, and pollutes, and distorts the beauty God planted in us. Do you believe that?
Let me show you what sin does. It breaks down our relationship with God. Our sin builds a wall between us and God – a wall we can’t tear down. Our sin creates a chasm between us and God – and we can’t undo it. When we sin we want God to avert his eyes. When we sin we try to close our eyes and pretend he can’t see us. When we sin our intimacy with God, the intimacy we long for, the intimacy our Abba longs for – is broken.
And more than that, sin breaks down our relationships with each other. Our sins build walls between us. With our sins we use each other, and we abuse each other, and we neglect each other. Every sin, no matter how pleasurable it seems, no matter how justified it seems, diminishes someone. It ruins friendships, it ruins marriages, it crushes our kids. It brings fear, and distrust, and anger, and shame. Folks, sin breaks things, always. It breaks the relationships we have with each other.
And more than that, our sin withers our own souls. The apostle Paul said, “I know I’m rotten through and through, as far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t. . . I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. (And here’s what it leads to, he says) . . Oh, what a miserable person I am!” (Romans 7.18-24) Ever feel that way? You know what self-loathing feels like. You know the depression sin that can plants in you. You know the anger, and the bitterness, and turmoil sin plants in a soul. The beast always breaks down the beauty God purposed for us.
It corrupts our relationship with God, and it corrupts our relationships with each other, and it withers our soul. And we can’t fix it. But he can. And that’s what this cross was all about – fixing what we broke, healing what we diminished. Restoring intimacy with God, reconciling brothers and sisters, healing wounded souls. The Bible says, “He was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed.” (Isa 53.5)
But there’s even more than that, I think. It’s about wholeness, ultimate wholeness. There’s a plaque in our elevator that says – “There are no wheelchairs in heaven,” and it’s dedicated to Ray Burton. I was taking a couple of kids downstairs a couple weeks ago. One of them said – “Who’s Ray Burton.” I said, “He a guy who died a few years ago, he was in a wheelchair.” The kid thought for a minute and asked, “He die in the elevator?”
He had had 18 surgeries, vascular disease was eating his body away, his legs were gone – a paraplegic. A simple man, embarrassed a bit by his smoking. And yet there was something about Ray Burton – his body was no longer whole, but there was a wholeness in his spirit that was rare. He’d tasted something. Ray was loved by this family. He was one of the sweetest, gentlest, most godly men I have ever been around. He kept a prayer journal – folks in this church didn’t know about it, till after he died. He was a bit embarrassed by it – parts typed, parts handwritten, scratches and misspellings – 50 pages single spaced, multiple columns of names – names of people he prayed for, every day. If you came to this church Ray prayed for you every day. If you had ever come to this church and he got your name, he prayed for you every day. Four hours a day, five days a week, for twelve years he prayed for us. He said, there’s nothing else I can do, so I pray. His body was broken, but in another way Ray was more whole than any of us.
Real wholeness isn’t about a beautiful body, or a balanced budget, or a beautiful wife and perfect kids, or an enviable social circle. Real wholeness isn’t about temporary things. Real wholeness isn’t found in things our world pursues so obsessively.
Jesus said, “I came that you might have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10.10) “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” It’s more than patching up our sins, and giving us a better self image, and restoring our peace with God – though that’s plenty. Its about real love, and it’s about real joy, and its about real peace, and its about real purpose – the kinds that will last, forever.
How do we get there – to this ultimate wholeness?
(1) We have to admit we’re broken. He can’t begin healing us until we admit we’re broken. God’s forgiveness won’t take until we admit we are sinners. The Bible says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, he saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Ps 34.18) He can’t fix you until you admit you’re broken.
(2) We have to admit we can’t fix ourselves. A lot of us admit we’re broken, but we’re bound and determined to fix ourselves. Won’t work. A lot of us think that if we try a little harder, or a little smarter, or a little longer, we’ll be able to clean ourselves up. Won’t work. Folks, you don’t just sin, you’re a sinner. You’re not strong enough to defeat your sin. But he is. We have to admit we’re broken, and we have to admit we can’t fix ourselves . . .
(3) We have to accept his grace. Jesus took the beating for our sins. Jesus died the death you and I deserve. If you’ll just ask him – he’ll clean you up (forgive your sins), and he’ll make you his kid (adopt you into his family), and he’ll begin to shape you into what you were meant to be. And you’ll begin to get a taste of that ultimate wholeness God wants for you.
Let’s go to God right now . . .
(1) admit we are broken
(2) admit we can’t fix
(3) accept his grace
Do you know what Jesus did with our sin? He carried it to a cross. What if we let the spit of the soldiers symbolize the filth in our hearts. And then observe what Jesus does with our filth. He carries it to the cross. Through the prophet he said, “I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting,” (Isaiah 50.6) Mingled with his blood was the essence of our sin.
He could have done otherwise. In God’s plan Jesus was offered wine for his throat, So why not a towel for his face? Simon carried the cross of Jesus, but he didn’t mop the cheek of Jesus. Angels were there. Couldn’t they have taken the spit away? They could have, but Jesus never commanded them to. For some reason, the One who chose the nails also chose the saliva. Along with the spear and sponge of man, he bore the spit of man. Why? Could it be that he sees the beauty inside the beast?
But here the correlation with Beauty and the Beast ends. In the fairy tale the beauty kisses the beast. In reality the Beauty does far more. He becomes the beast wo the beast can become the beauty. Jesus changes places with us.
What if the Beauty had not come? What if the Beauty had not cared? But he did. The sinless one took the face of the sinner so the sinner could become a saint.
Because he emptied himself of all but love, you can be filled. Because his body was broken, your life can be whole. Because he was forsaken, you will never be alone. Because he was buried for you, you can be raised. Because he reached down to you, you don’t have to work your way up to him. Because he became sin, you ca experience ultimate wholeness.
