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The most difficult lesson: Jesus didn't have to die; Jesus chose to die
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| 3/16/2008 |
On Palm Sunday, Jesus did not go to Jerusalem to preach; Jesus went to Jerusalem to die. He didn't have to die; he chose to go to Jerusalem. He understands that he must offer his life to complete his mission.
But why did he choose to die? How is it good?
In the back of the Book of Common Prayer, where we hide vague answers to the specific questions of the faith, you’ll find the pressing question “What is the great importance of Jesus’ suffering and death?” followed by this answer: “By Jesus’ obedience, even to suffering and death, Jesus made the offering which we could not make; in him we are freed from the power of sin and reconciled to God.”
When I share that answer with seekers, who are drawn in by the tether of the Spirit, but wonder what the content of the faith to be, they look at me with that look that seems to say, “Could you be any more obtuse? Jesus chose to die so that I could be in relationship with God? How does that work?”
I hope I can give some insight, and provide a basis for deeper faith in God’s love and mercy.
For Jesus, to be obedient to God’s will, even to experiencing suffering and a fierce, brutal death, was not a sacrifice, but an act of love.
Jesus said, “There is no greater love than this, that someone should lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends. . . .”
Is this a right use of one’s life? In modern psychology, we might ask, “Is this a healthy, self-differentiated decision, or a neurotic need to victimize one’s self?”
If the motive is driven by love, to give one’s life can be the greatest gift.
In the horror of war, we can imagine the hand grenade falling into our trench full of our brothers and sisters who find themselves in a fate assigned by the evils of the world. There is no time to think, but only to act. No one should have to fall on that grenade to save others, but someone will, out of the habit of love.
When we act out of habit, we can forget that we are acting out of choice. The habit of unconditional love is a choice, but when a fateful moment comes, we act rather than deliberate.
On a cosmic scale, our Christian faith proclaims that Jesus fell on the grenade of human brokenness and sin—the very same grenade that ticks away today, hidden in the guise of hunger, illiteracy, poverty, violence and oppression—to save us from ourselves.
But, the skeptic might say, “Did it work? If Jesus did indeed fall on a hand grenade of sorts through offering himself on the cross to suffering and death, there are still plenty of hand grenades falling into the trenches of life. Are you really saying that Jesus protects us still? That our relationship with God is secure? If we don’t even bother to get into the trench that you claim is inevitable, but stay out of it by living a good, worthy and intentionally secular life, why isn’t that a better plan?”
It’s a fair challenge. And the ongoing decline in church attendance and faith adherence show that increasingly our members in their teens, twenties and thirties, are answering the question without the help of the preacher!
Martin Luther King, Jr. did not want to die, but he understood that his life and message made him a target of assassins. But, compelled by love, and acting in love that he found in the example of Jesus on the cross, he took the risk.
That’s what the habit of love does—gives us the grace to risk the sacrifices that love demands. The more we love, the more we are willing to sacrifice for the people we love. Indeed, the habit of love, fueled by grace, helps us not fear the sacrifices that love demands. Jesus’ habit of love, which we believe is God’s very habit of love, was such that he would give his life for all of us to
follow in his steps.
Not that the habit of love doesn’t have expectations. I’ve never known a Mom or Dad who wouldn’t give up a kidney for a sick child without condition, but still expect the child to clean up his room or take out the trash first. I think God is the same way.
So, how do we develop this sacrificial, self-giving, habit of love. The habit is practiced by forgiveness, and radical forgiveness at that.
This Lent, we studied a book: Amish Grace, How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy.
The book tells the story of the Amish community after the massacre at their school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania on October 2, 2006. On that terrible day, ten school girls were shot, and five died, at the hand of a man, Charles Roberts, who was angry at God over the death of his own daughter. He was gripped with evil, and wanted to destroy the lives of other innocent children. He ended his attack by shooting himself.
The book chronicles how the Amish, instantly and reflexively, forgave the man for shooting the girls. Their message of forgiveness was uniform and explicit. Charles Roberts had been forgiven, and in some cases, this message was delivered by family members of the victims. Within days, members of the Amish community took messages of forgiveness, reconciliation and condolences to the killer’s family, attended the killer’s funeral, and shared donated financial resources that had come to the Amish families with the killer’s family.
The book is lovely in one way, but hard in another. How could any parent or member of the community forgive something so awful? Was it right to forgive? For some, their forgiveness rang hollow or caused outrage, as if President Bush said to Al Qaeda on September 12, 2001, “We forgive you for the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and all of the death and injury.”
It is a hard book because it challenges any Christian to examine their own ability to forgive. It challenges all who profess Christian faith to practice radical, complete, and unconditional forgiveness even to the most heinous actions, events and crimes.
Why? Because in Amish spirituality, the question, “Why did Jesus have to die, why did he willingly offer himself for death?” has a simple answer: Jesus offered himself to death to reveal that forgiveness and love are the weapons of the spirit that can conquer evil. And because Jesus showed God’s forgiveness to every human evil, every human must forgive likewise.
Forgiveness inculcates the habit of love.
For the Amish, as with many Christians, the portion of the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us, is an unconditional requirement of the faith, a habit that is practiced and practiced by a community until reflexive and automatic, even in the most heinous of circumstance.
This sermon is best summarized by paragraphs from this book which tell of the actions of one 13 year old girl toward the evil and hatred she faced in the killer. I include the paragraphs with some paraphrasing for clarity.
A textbook used [in the Amish school] is Our Heritage, which teaches about the Amish traditions of forgiveness. One chapter, “Peter Miller’s Revenge,” tells the tale of a non-resistant Christian who lived during the American Revolution. Miller and his friends could not conscientiously take part in war, nor could they take sides, the story explains. They strongly believed war was wrong but they never refused to help a man in need, whether he was a British soldier or an American. The narrative then introduces readers to Michael Whittman, a man who considered Miller “a stupid fool” for his nonresistant position and repeatedly harassed him.
One day, as Miller was tending to a half starved deserter from George Washington’s army, he learned from the runaway that Whittman was about to be hanged as a turncoat. Immediately Miller set to intercede for his harasser, walking three days through deep snow to appeal directly to General Washington. The general patiently listened to Miller but then explained that Whittman had received a fair trial and a just sentence. Had that not been the case, Washington replied calmly, “I would be happy to pardon your friend.” “MY friend?” exclaimed Miller. “He is my bitterest enemy!”
General Washington was shocked, unable to comprehend Miller’s desire to request leniency for his enemy. Nonetheless, Washington issued a pardon, and Miller delivered it to the place of execution in the nick of time.
Not all the girls enrolled at the West Nickel Mines School would complete their lessons in the eighth-grade textbook. Yet they had already absorbed Amish values from their families, churches and school—sources of teaching that reinforced one another.
On the day before the shootings, children in Amish households around Nickel Mines would have heard Jesus’ parable of the servant who begged his master for forgiveness but then turned and refused to forgive a fellow servant (Matthew 18:21-35). This story, which is part of the Amish lectionary for the weeks prior to their autumn communion service, suggests that Christians withhold forgiveness at their peril. Families attending church that day would have heard sermons on forgiveness. . . . When the parents of a ten-year old girl who would be wounded in the shooting asked her the meaning of the parable, she responded, “We must forgive others.”
And then this section of the book concludes with this powerful example of the same love that Jesus showed in giving his life, a love meant to save others:
The next day, when thirteen year old Marian asked the killer to shoot her first, apparently hoping to absorb his anger and save her classmates, her first response in the face of unprecedented risk was to sacrifice herself to save others.
Amish Grace, pages 110-112
We can still call ourselves Christians and not believe that we could do what Marian did out of the habit of love, following the example of Jesus giving himself to save others. And we can still call ourselves Christians and not believe that we could forgive such a perpetrator of evil.
But we should make no mistake that the faith of Marian, and the habit of her heart that fateful day, is the faith and habit we are called to. And the forgiveness of her community toward the man who took her life is the same forgiveness that God grants us, and expects us to grant to others.
To be a Christian is to move toward the reality that this unconditional love, fueled by forgiveness, is what will save us from the perils of human life.
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