Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

Last week was the first in our Sermon Series on what we believe.  We left off with Creation.  There is much more ground than the newly formed earth that we need to cover, though.

You see, the project failed.  God created humankind to live in harmony with him.  In fact, theologians often say that we are made in the image of God (the Imago Dei).  What do we mean by “image”?  Is it because we are rational beings, or that we have souls, or that we have a gender, or that we possess some other trait that separates us from the amoeba and algae.  Maybe it’s because we figured out coffee and chocolate!

Actually, as Daniel Migliore claims, God is a community of persons who coexist in a perfect relationship.  That is the Trinity.  Being made in the image of God means that we are to reflect that interrelatedness in our lives together.  That is what the Church is all about: it is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners, as my friend and ecumenical colleague Father Edmund Babicz used to say.  It is the place where we are loved for who we are, not judged for who we are not.

But it’s not because we deserve this.  Far from it.  Sin caused the rift between us and our Creator.  It’s been a mess ever since.  If the story ended that way, we’d be the most pitied, as Paul would say.

Nope.  God did not abandon us.  He did not leave us like a ship adrift without a rudder.  He came here himself.  That is a crucial detail in the story of Creation and Redemption: God does not just send his Son; he is the Son.  We’ll get back to that in a moment.

Psalm 5:4 reads, “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.”  In other words, our God, who is the epitome of complete righteousness, cannot tolerate sin in his midst.  That creates a distance between us and God that can never be bridged — at least not by us.  Only God can do this, and God does so by becoming one of us.  That is the incarnation.

In the world of the Old Testament, and other ancient texts, making sacrifices to appease God (or the gods, plural) was quite common.  We see it throughout Homer’s epic The Odyssey, for example, which appeared some 800 to 500 years before the time of Christ.  In sum, Christian theology maintains that Jesus, the only pure and perfect human being to walk the earth, shouldered the sins of humanity and paid the price for them on the cross.  He takes the punishment for us.  We are justified before God by not only accepting such a sacrifice but believing that it saves us vicariously.

Not this raises serious questions for the casual (and I will add logical) onlooker.  How is allowing an innocent person to suffer the most horrific and painful death imaginable in place of someone who is guilty — how is that just?  But here is the issue — “here’s the rub,” as Shakespeare wrote: Jesus is not just a person.  He is God incarnate.  God is not inflicting a punishment on an innocent victim.  He is taking the punishment on himself.  That is significant.

But it isn’t just the crucifixion that redeems us; it is the entirety of the Gospel narrative.  Think about it for a moment: the crucifixion occupies a small part of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Do a word count and you will see.  If we believe that Jesus is the Messiah, we need to look at the entirety of his life, not just his death.  What do his teachings tell us about how we should live our lives?  Clearly, they are filled with moral instructions, and these teachings comprise a huge part of his ministry.  What about his healings?  What are we supposed to learn from them?  I am not saying that we have to someone try to develop the ability to heal people who suffer from debilitating diseases or conditions by simply touching them.  However, healing comes in many forms.  Maybe redemptive healing (at least as far as human action is concerned) has to do with us being empathetic, compassionate, and loving.  There is much to learn from Jesus’ teachings and miracles.

And then we have the resurrection.  Some of us focus so much on the crucifixion that we forget that this horrific event does not have the final word.  Jesus rose from the dead to open for all of us the gates of everlasting life.  Death did not have the final word.  New life broke forth from a borrowed tomb.  In fact, the resurrection lies at the heart of our faith.  As I’ve mentioned before, the reason why moist Protestant churches display an empty cross is because this is the Easter cross.  Jesus is no longer on it.  He has risen.  The Apostle Paul himself declared in 1 Corinthians 15:14, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”  Similarly, the contemporary theologian Michael F. Bird writes, “If our Gospel begins and ends on Good Friday, it is impoverished.”[1]

And our belief in Jesus even extends into the future as Christian hope sees Jesus’ return at the end of time as ushering in a new heaven and a new earth where the human focus on war, greed, and hatred, among a legion of other sins will be vanquished.  Footnote: we do not know when that will be.  Even Jesus said that he didn’t know — only the Father does.  That is why I laughed when social media and even traditional media announced that the Rapture would happen last Tuesday.  It didn’t happen.  Here we are.  Still waiting.  Still hoping, but that hope springs eternal.

These are the basics of what orthodox Christianity (with a small “o”) believes.  This is the theology of Christ that we proclaim.  But even this does not capture it all.  There is your own experiences with Jesus.  More likely than not, you are here because Jesus has a profound impact on your life.  You have experienced his love firsthand.  That is the most important aspect of Christology of all.  Jesus wants a personal relationship with each one of us, because he loves us.  Isn’t that the crux of the most often-cited verse from the Gospels: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  Isn’t this what Paul meant when he wrote to the believers in Ephesus: “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (5:2).

Embrace that love which exudes from the Word and is revealed in the fullness of the life of Christ: all he did, all he was, all he remains.  Allow that to pervade your life.  Allow it to guide you.  Allow it to reveal the fullness of God.  Amen.

[1] Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 436.