Seven Last Words: "Purpose Driven Death"

(The Sixth Last Word from the Cross)

John 19: 29-30

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Passion Sunday, March 28, 2010

This week in Washington and around the country people are wondering what, if anything has been accomplished with the signing of the Health Care bill?   I can imagine that much the same confusion took place around the cross.   What, if anything positive did Jesus accomplish in his terrible death?

But notice very closely, in this sixth word from the cross, that Jesus does not say, “I am finished”, but he says rather, “It is finished.”    The English may be a bit ambiguous here, but the Greek is not.  

In English it could mean “It’s over,” “done”, or even “I’m done for.”  But in Greek it says, “It’s completed,” “perfected,” or at best “It has been accomplished!”   The Latin version gives the best translation of all:  “Consummatum est.”   When all seemed to be nothing but ugly, agony and defeat, Jesus announces God’s victory and that he has accomplished what God had for him to do. 

SO, WHAT HAS JESUS ACCOMPLISHED?   

In John 4:34, Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish (or finish) his work.”    There is that word again.  Jesus says he has come to do God’s work.  The one who drank sour wine is also the vine and our very life source.   The one who is starving came to be the bread of life.  This one who thirsts offers us the living water so we will never thirst again.  The one who dies such a excruciating death promises resurrection and eternal life.   All God’s saving work is said to be accomplished through this Jesus, who is dying on a criminal’s cross.

You can’t miss the irony of it all.   Exactly when you think Jesus fails, this is when he is said to succeed.   Everything needed to be done to bring life, has been told to be accomplished a death on this cross.  But the truth is, we can look straight into this moment and still miss it.  Though the cross means everything to some, it still means nothing to others.  It is a mystery which either compels or it offends.   So, what is this saving work Jesus is said to accomplish?

When John the Baptist first saw Jesus coming to the Jordan River to be baptized he cried out: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”    But here is exactly the where the mystery starts.  How can the sin of the world be taken away when there is still so much sin around everywhere we look?    Almost every day we can hear of some new type of evil, new weapon or way of destructiveness, or new incarnation of evil that has been manifested in our world?   How can John’s gospel tell us that sin has been taken away, when sin, suffering, evil appears to be around just as much now, as ever before?      

A powerful illustration sin’s unrelenting presence is given by preacher Fleming Rutledge, who tells of a 2003 New York Times article which was written during the heat of the Iraq war.   The article describes the distress of a young corporal from Chicago, a gunner on an Abrams tank that had “Bush and Co.” stenciled on its gun barrel.   He was one of many idealistic, proud, even a little bit cocky, America soldiers fighting for his president and for the America way of life, and he stood well trained and ready to kill anyone or anything that got in the way.  But according to the article, all those dreams of “guts and glory” were tattered a bit by the fact that this “well-meaning” solider had killed two civilians by mistake.  Members of their families who were preparing the bodies for burial shouted at him, “Is this what you Americans call freedom?” 

The reported wrote that the young corporal’s face showed a “sadness that was beyond affection,” and he asked for a translator so that the could say something to the families.  “Tell them,” he said, “tell them the fact that I pulled the trigger that killed some of these people makes me very unhappy.  Tell them that America did not want things to happen this way.  Tell them that I wish Iraqis will live a better life.”  (From a New York Times article by John F. Burns, April 12, 2003  recalled by Fleming Rutledge in the Seven Last Words from the Cross, p. 65).

We can all appreciate and understand exactly what this young man said.  But no matter how good the words, they do not take away from the fact that even “unintended actions” have consequences---and even eternal ones.   Our actions, which are often destructive to ourselves, to others and to the “glory of God” are called by the Bible “sins” which cut short our lives and the very glory God has intended to be realized in our lives.   And what’s more, we also know that just as this soldier’s unintended actions had real and terrible consequences, so our sins too, both intended and unintended exact a cost for us and for others in this world. 

The Bible puts the core reality of our lives in a very direct, unmistakable way: “The soul that sins is the soul that shall die” (Ez. 18:20).    If nothing else gets our attention, this is the one reality should gain our fullest attention.  It is not just what sin does to Jesus on the cross, but it is what sin does to all of us that is revealed:  BECAUSE OF SIN….WE  DIE TOO.  Don’t think that any of us will get out of this world alive.  If nothing is done, if no action is taken, or unless there is some divine intervention, death is the ultimate fate awaiting every person.  “When you’re dead, you’re dead” is our final destiny, unless there is something God has accomplished on the cross.

THE ATONING WORK OF GOD

Since the message of the cross is a matter of life and death, let’s understand how the cross of Jesus is believed to be an intervention on behalf of our sin and death destined lives.

Did you read the book or see the recent academy award winning movie, Atonement, by Ian McEwan which tells the story of a little sister who makes up a lie about her older sister’s boyfriend, whom she is jealous over.  The lie is so destructive that the boyfriend is charged with rape.   But finally, under pressure, the little sister finally tells the truth and her older sister and boyfriend are able to renew their relationship after a long time pain and separation.   But, unfortunately, as the story ends, you realize this is only a story that has been made up.   The younger sister is now and old woman, in the early stages of dementia and dying.   In reality the truth was never told and the boyfriend went to war and died in the battle at Dunkirk.   The older sister also died in the Blitz bombing of London.   The love they had for each other was forever lost because of the younger sister’s lie.  Now, the younger has rewritten the story to tell us the way things should have turned out, rather than how things actually happened.   She writes the truth for us, in hopes that by coming clean she can find some sort of “atonement”.  

That is a strange word, isn’t it, especially to our culture today?  Atonement refers to a way that is found to “make up” for misdeeds, sins or failures in a way that redeems or buys back life.   Is this something we can even grasp, with our lack moral seriousness or declining education in spiritual things?

My wife Teresa, recently told me of another movie talked about in her education class, entitled “From Homeless to Harvard,”  which displayed the importance education.  The story is about a young girl raised in a home where, because of mental illness and neglect, neither parent took time to teach her anything, even about the most basic lessons of how to change clothes and wash herself.   This young girl did not even know how to change her underwear, but would just wear them until they started feeling bad.  When she did try to take a bath, the bathtub was so filthy, black with grit that she had to use a pot she turned upside down upon herself.   It was so unbelievable that the girl, who eventually became homeless, practically grew up with a “blank slate” and knew practically nothing about anything normal.  But the miracle was, that somehow, she realized her deficiencies and self-taught her way into Harvard.  

The catch however was this: she had both the capacity and desire for knowledge.   Only when people “want” to know do they start to rise above their circumstances.     In the same way, we and our children will know nothing about God, about faith, about salvation, and about the cross, unless we teach them and unless they want to be taught.  

Without making any assumptions, what does the Bible teach us about the cross?   Can we even understand the cross when we’ve almost lost all understanding about what the Bible teaches about sin? In a ground-breaking work, (Sin: A History, Yale University Press), scholar Gary Anderson says that within the biblical story, sin is understood with three important images: First, sin is understood as a “stain” that needs to be removed, but can’t.  Secondly, sin is understood as a burden that is too be carried, but it gets to heavy.  Then, finally, and perhaps most dominate in the Bible is the image of sin as a “debt” that must be paid, but is impossible to pay back.   

When I think of sin as a “debt” that must be paid, I think of the historical sign I once saw on Highway 360 in Virginia on my way to work on my doctorate in Richmond.   The signs referred to the spot where a “debtor’s prison” once stood.  This was the place where they put people who got into trouble with their creditors, who pressed charges and had the “debtor” thrown into prison until their debt was paid.  The question I put to myself was this:  How does a person repay a debt when they are in prison and unable to work?   Of course, the answer is that that a person remains in prison until someone else raises the money and pays their debt, that is, somebody who thinks the person is worth it.

More than any other metaphor, the Bible says “debt” is what sin is and what does.   Sin creates a debt, a debt which requires payment and that most often results in a payment that is impossible for us to repay.    Think about what happens if no payment is made.   One of two things happens.  If the debt is owed only by one or a few people, then the debtors can be charged and then be held accountable and forced to repay the debt or punished?    But what happens when the debt is too big, or the debtors are too many?   Isn’t this exactly what has happened in our economy today?   Due to bad, irresponsible loans which don’t stand for real capital and due to irresponsible “hedged” investments standing for speculation rather than reality, the American and even the global economy has created for itself a debt which no government, bank, or any person can pay or is able to stand behind.   They tell us that overall, 40% of the world’s wealth has been lost.  What happens if the debt gets too big to pay back and the value of everything falls?  When I once asked my Father what is the standard that determines the value of money, of gold, of stocks and of bonds, my Dad gave me this ominous answer.  He said the true value is whatever someone is willing to pay for it?  If someone doesn’t guarantee the value, there is no value?   Value is only in the value someone is willing to pay.

Now, with this little economics lesson, we come back to the lesson of the cross.   What is the value of your life, my life, this world, even this world that can be so evil, sinful, broken and in need of losing all value,  unless someone stands behind the world to value it and pay off its every growing debt?  Unless there is a guarantor that stands behind life, what keeps life from becoming worthless?     

The value behind life depends on “who” will hold up it’s value?   At the cross, Jesus is declared to have spiritually entered God’s highest, holiest, most valuable place (Heb. 10:12), once and for all, and to have paid the great price for sin,  so that life’s value is redeemed from sin’s high, overwhelming costs.   Someone has rightly said that “the cross is the great “plus sign” which overcomes the and finally points us clearly to the positive value of everything based on the redeeming and reconciling love of God.  Even in the most negative moment imaginable, through the death his son, God forgives sin and God guarantees value to life which we can’t guarantee for ourselves.

If we have our spiritual eyes are open today, and if we really want to see, we can see perhaps more clearly than any illustration the Bible has ever given, that there is no sustaining value to life other than the value God gives.   Just as our money, our houses, our lands, and everything else we have loses all value when we lose honesty, integrity and a sense of reality,  our soul only retains its value when we ascribe worth to God and we claim his righteousness as necessary for our lives.    

BUT WHAT IS REALLY ACCOMPLISHED FOR US?

Will God keep valuing this world as it is, and we as we are, or can the debt of sin become so great there is no value left because God becomes unwilling to guarantee it?   Do you think there can be point where even the great payment of the cross doesn’t have enough “capital” to stand behind the all the sin, greed, and evil of this world?   Can our world reach a point of no return, where there is nothing left to value?    I want to leave you today with two biblical images of our human options toward God’s divine accomplishment on the cross.  

The first image is from the Book of Hebrews which says we can “trample under foot” the blood of Jesus on the cross (10:29).   What the writer of Hebrews means is that if “after we have received the knowledge of the truth of what Jesus has done, and it no longer does nothing in us, then “there remains no more sacrifice for sins”  (10: 26).   The point is this: when we no longer understand the cross, no longer value the cross, then for us the cross has no more value for us and there is no more “Spirit of grace” coming to us in this world.  This is the fearful moment of “falling into the hands of the living God” without the atonement of the cross because there is nothing left but our sins calling for punishment and judgment. (Heb 10:26-31 KJV).  

In a world where the cross means nothing and where we see no value in what God has done to value us, just as the cross means nothing to us it has no real value and as the text says, there is “no more sacrifice for sins” and we are left with no other destiny than death in our sins.    For those whom the cross means nothing, it means nothing and nothing is gained and we have only our human destiny of death.

But the other image and option to us in understanding the cross is how Paul took the cross as the only “value” in his life.   Paul wrote at the close of letter to Galatians, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (6:14).  The cross means everything to Paul and it does everything for him.   He even writes a few lines later, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” (Gal. 6:17).  By this Paul means that it is through Jesus sacrifice for him and his sacrifice for Jesus that his life regains its value.  And just as Paul bears in his body the marks of the Lord, it is by his “stripes that (he and) we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).   The cross is the way the value of life is bought back that we call redemption.

Do you remember that moving scene in the movie “Saving Private Ryan”, where the dying Tom Hanks character—Captian John Miller is killed after his platoon has gone behind enemy lines to save Private Ryan, who is played by Matt Damon.   When Private Ryan approaches the dying Captain, the man who has sacrificed his life for him gives him these last words, “earn it!”    When the Captain says “earn it,” he doesn’t mean Private Ryan has to earn this salvation he’s given, because it is handed to him as a free gift.   But he is being challenged to live a life worthy of the sacrifice.   In the final moving scene Private Ryan falls down at the grave of the brave Captain who died giving him his life, and with tears, he declares he has tried to live a life worthy of the sacrifice.  

Let me ask you this final question.  How do you live a life worthy of his sacrifice?   Is your life a “trampling under foot” or is it a life that “bears the marks” of the Lord Jesus?   There no lasting glory or value in a world of sin and death, other than the hope given to us through the saving work of Jesus on the cross.  It’s all or nothing.   The cross is the great irony you simply can’t take for granted.  Either the cross is the greatest offense or it is the most compelling truth.  Either the cross gives your life back its value, or your life has no lasting value at all.  There no in between.  The cross that cost him everything must also mean everything to you or it will mean nothing to you.  And when the cross means nothing, it brings nothing and our lives remain nothing, because ‘nothing plus nothing is nothing.’  But when the cross means everything to us, the Father who stood beside his son in his death will stand behind our lives in our living and dying, and he will guarantee the value of our life with the gift of eternal life as we value the life and the death of his son who is our only true savior.  Amen. 

© 2010 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.