(Based on Psalm 82, John 10:31-39, and John 14:8-14)
The cross is a pretty unusual
choice for a symbol, don’t you think? Christians display this symbol of torture
and bloodshed around our necks as a piece of jewelry, in our homes and
entryways, and, most obviously front and center in our houses of worship. As
one of my Jewish friends put it, “You Christians wearing crosses would be like
Jews wearing mini-gas chambers around our necks.” He’s got a point, right? Why
glorify or memorialize that particular portion of Jesus’ story, especially when
such a death wasn’t at all unique to Jesus. History and archeology confirm that
the Romans crucified thousands and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people
throughout their empire, both guilty and innocent. In one day alone, Romans
once crucified 6000 people. Jesus was, by no means, special or unique in terms
of the kind of death he endured. Crucifixions happened all the time.
So why did we turn the cross into our primary symbol? Why
not a basin and a towel – the items Jesus used to wash the feet of his
disciples? Why not a descending dove, reminding us of the Spirit’s living
presence with all of us? Why not a loaf of bread or healing hands?
Did you know that there is a fairly significant movement
within Christianity whereby many congregations are removing the crosses from their
sanctuaries? Can you understand why some thoughtful groups of Christians would
be making such a decision?
What does the cross mean to you, anyway? We’re you raised
like I was to believe that we are all terrible sinners, deserving of hell fire,
and that only by the blood of Jesus – shed on that cross - will we be made
clean enough for heaven? It’s perfectly fine if you were, but what I’d like to
do with you today is take another look at this cross and to see if there might
not be another way to understand just what happened on that day we’ve come to
call “Good Friday.”
Did you know that there are close to four hundred million
Christians in the world who don’t think that the crucifixion of
Jesus had anything to do with forgiveness of sin? I’m talking about our Eastern
Orthodox brothers and sisters. They represent one of the three main branches of
the Christian family tree, along with Catholics and Protestants. To them, sin
was never the problem of humans – death was. Eastern Orthodox Christians don’t
believe in original sin or dwell on Genesis 3 the way so many other Christians
do. In fact, these Christian brothers and sisters believe that we - and all
creatures - were born blessed, pure, wonderful, and – get this – divine! That’s
right! Eastern Orthodox followers of Jesus believe that God put a divine spark
in all of us from the very beginning, a sliver of divinity. Eastern Orthodox
Christians believe that we were intended to live forever, in total union and
unity with God.
But somehow, over the course of human history, we lost
site of our own original blessedness, our own divinity, and our own
immortality. So the human problem, according to this branch of the Christian family
tree has always been one of getting our divinity back, reclaiming our original
status as immortal, eternal children of God. The problem is that we die, that
our lives are finite and have a point of termination. This problem of death and
mortality is why Jesus came, according to Eastern Orthodoxy. Jesus didn’t come
to forgive our sins; he came to show us how to live into our divinity, our
immortality, our Christ-likeness.
Athanasius is considered one of the fathers of Eastern
Orthodoxy. He lived from 293-373. He didn’t see Jesus as divine, but rather as
someone who came to show us all how to achieve divinity. As Athanasius’s
quotation on today’s bulletin cover puts it, “In Jesus, God became a man so
that man could become God.” It’s a shocking way of putting it, especially for
those of us who grew up in Western Christianity. But it’s not all that shocking
when you look at it in the context of some of the very things Jesus said,
taught, and did.
Let’s take the John 10:31-39 passage Marilyn just read,
for example. Certain Jewish authorities are ticked off at Jesus, claiming that
he has blasphemed by calling himself divine. But did you hear Jesus’ response?
He quotes the Jewish scripture – Psalm 82: “Is it not written in your law, ‘I
have said that you are gods’? If David called them gods to whom the word of God
came…why do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said I am God’s son…Why do you
not believe and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father?”
And just four chapters later, when talking to his
disciples, Jesus adds, “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the
Father is in me…and I tell you the truth you will do even greater things than I
have done.”
Jesus told his followers many times that we had access to
the very same power that he did, the power of God, the power of the Holy s
Spirit. Jesus told us that we
could heal too, that we could restore others too, even that we would be able to
raise the dead.
So Athanasius had this understanding that Jesus came to
re-ignite the divine candle that is burning in all of us! It’s gotten covered
up; it’s gotten ashed over; but it is still there! Jesus came, in the view of Athanasius
and our Eastern Orthodox brethren, NOT to die for our sins, but to LIVE INTO
the divinity that is available to all of us – TO ALL OF US!
So the cross, for Athanasius and the hundreds of millions
of Eastern Orthodox followers, is a huge step on the path toward restoring our
divinity. Jesus, a human, faced death head on – in the worst possible way –
died, and then rose again. He conquered the one remaining barrier between
humanity and divinity, between people and God – death itself. In Jesus, God
became man, so that once again man could become God.
Folks, if this is a new and somewhat radical
understanding of the cross for you, please know that it is also quite new and
quite radical for me too. Nobody told me anything about any of this when I was
growing up. Nobody exposed me to much Eastern Orthodox Christianity, not even in
seminary. And please don’t think that I’m trying to force this particular understanding
of Jesus and the cross onto you. Rather, I’m inviting you to think through it
with me, because it’s exciting and I think it deepens and broadens our
understanding of Jesus and the crucifixion.
I’m drawn to consider this view of Jesus’ death, in part,
because I’ve never been drawn to all the blood atonement and sacrifice stuff
that dominates traditional western Christianity. I don’t believe that we were
all born horribly stained, dirty, and in need of some ritual cleansing or
saving. I don’t believe that God would create us or any of his children
blemished somehow or that he would ever want or need to send Jesus nor anyone
else to die for our sins. Blood sacrifice has never resonated with my heart nor
with the God I’ve come to know in Jesus of Nazareth. Has it for you?
So imagine this…What if Yahweh, the “beyond names” God of
the entire universe created us beautifully, wonderfully, without stain, without
blemish, and without sin? And what if Jesus came, NOT so much to forgive us,
but to remind us of our created
purpose? What if Jesus’ full and very human life was designed to show us the
way to get the absolute most out of life, to live into our created and divine
purpose? And what if…what if his death was about showing us that even the most
final and most terrifying barrier of all, death – the one that awaits every
single one of us, is actually penetrable, is actually something that we can and
will get beyond, that that huge, heavy, dark curtain that we, in our humanity,
thought was the end, isn’t the end at all. What if?
I’m glad that there are three full and diverse branches
in the Christian family tree. I’m truly grateful that Eastern Christians don’t see everything the exact same way
that we in the West do. I’m excited that this Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and
Easter Sunday don’t have to be celebrated in the exact same way I’ve always
celebrated them before. How great that I’m still learning, still growing, still
discovering more of the Truth. And I hope you are too! God has so much in store
for us…and it’s all good…it’s all so very good!
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