(Preached on March 25, 2012)
How did Jesus come to understand the
nature of God’s call upon his life?
Certainly he prayed. Certainly he
had conversations with others. And certainly
he read and knew the Bible which at that time was only the Old Testament. And in those 40 books were the some passages
that shaped Jesus more clearly than others.
I believe some of the clearest are the four servant songs in Isaiah.
(Isaiah 42:1-9, 49:1-7, 50:4-11 and 52:13-53:12)
Each Sunday in Lent we have looked
at one of the Servant songs and asked, ‘How did we see this song in Jesus?’ and
‘how might this song be present in us?’
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
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| Image by Friedrich Peter |
13
See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and
highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him--his
appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred
beyond human likeness-- 15 so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings
will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they
will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
53:1
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been
revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root
out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised
and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like
one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him
not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet
we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But
he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our
iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by
his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each
of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the
iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not
open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By
oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his
descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the
transgression of my people he was stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave
with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no
violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the LORD's will
to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his
life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. 11 After the
suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will
bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the
great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured
out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he
bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
The way in…
“Bring justice to the nations,” this was
the servant’s mission in the first song.
“Bring salvation to the ends of
the earth,” this was the servant’s mission in the second song. Know ‘the
word that sustains the weary,’ this is the mission of the servant in the
third song. And do you remember the
focus from last week? The servant will ‘spring (startle) many nations and kings
will shut their mouths because of him.”
For kings, being politicians, we know that shutting their mouths is no
small thing. But how? How will the servant do this?
Every
week on Tuesday I start a wrestling match.
My opponent is a passage of scripture.
On Tuesday we meet and start to dance around. I read it.
I make some notes. On Thursday I
type it up and begin to move the words around.
By Friday the passage has usually flipped me on my back a couple of
times and often on Saturday it seems as if it has me pinned. But by Sunday morning, I have always found a
counter-move that puts me in a position to pin the text long enough for it to
give me a message. What I offer you on
Sundays is the result of that week long wrestling match. It’s like Jacob wrestling with the
angel. One of the moves I often use on
these passages is that of repetition. I
look at the passage to see what phrases are repeated. For some reason I failed to use that move
last week, but remembered it this week.
And so what did I find repeated?
“He was pierced for our
transgressions…crushed for our iniquities…”
“The Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all”
“For the transgression of my people
he was stricken…”
“…he was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made
intercession for the transgressors.”
Do
you hear some repetition? What is being repeated? Transgression, iniquity and in the last verse
he gets right to it, sin. Four times this song refers to transgressions,
three times to iniquities and once it sums it up in sin. To get at salvation, to get at justice and
even to get at weariness, the servant now comes to the root infection, the
cancer that is causing the distortion.
In this song the servant is tasked with dealing with SIN. How in the world will he do that?
To
answer that, I need to reflect upon four questions. First, what
is sin? Second, how do we usually deal with sin?
Third, how did the servant deal
with sin? Finally, what does this mean for us and the world? Now that you know the trajectory for today’s
message, I want to pause and see if anyone wants to get off the flight. It may be a rough ride and I will even tell
you that while I hope you leave today with more peace, you may leave disturbed. If you want to get off now, I will harbor no
ill will. Anyone? Okay, buckle up. Here we go.
What is sin? Displaced-Desire
What is sin? amartia
is the Greek word which apparently was originally an archer’s term
meaning ‘to miss the mark.’ But what
does this mean? What is the mark and how
do we miss it? To answer that, let’s go
back to the story of the first sin.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” God went
on to create humans, Adam and Eve; placed them in paradise, the garden of Eden;
gave them freedom, freedom to do and eat anything their hearts desired with one
exception. In the center of the garden
were two trees; one of life and the other of knowledge of good and evil. “You
are free to eat from any trees,” God told Adam, ‘except these, for if you do, you will surely die.” You know the story.
Along comes the
serpent who was very crafty. He
approaches the woman and asks about the trees.
When Eve replies with God’s boundaries the serpent counters God’s claim
and tells her she will not die, rather her eyes will be opened and ‘be like God, knowing good and evil.’ And then what happens? This is the moment, right here where it all
starts. “…the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and
pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took it and ate
it.”
Now, where is the
sin? Some would say it is in the disobedience of eating the fruit. Some would say it is in distrusting God’s word.
Though these aren’t wrong, I think there is a better answer. The seed of the sin sits in displaced-desire.
Until this point all
of the desires of Adam and Eve were the same as that of God. They were, after all, created in God’s
image. They desired what God desired and
they were at perfect peace. The moment
the serpent pointed out the desirability of the fruit, things changed and the
woman was no longer content with the freedom of all the other fruit. What is sin?
Sin is the failure to desire what
God desires. Not convinced? Let me offer some more examples.
In Deuteronomy Moses
tells the people to ‘love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’
(6:5) Love is desiring not only the
other, but also desiring what they desire.
Jesus echoes this command as the most important and adds its horizontal
counterpart to ‘love your neighbor as
yourself.’ (Leviticus 19:18). These commands are even echoed in the 10
commandments. In the first commandment
we are told, “Thou shalt have no other
gods before me.” In other words,
desire nothing more than me. It is a
vertical relationships. By the tenth
commandment it has become horizontal when we hear, “Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s house…wife, servants, etc.” Do not desire that which belongs to your
neighbor. And perhaps the clearest
articulation of this core calling comes in the Lord’s Prayer when Jesus says, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be
Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” It is God’s will, God’s desire that is the
center of the bull’s eye. The more we
share God’s desire, the closer we are to center. The less we share God’s desire, the further
from the mark we are.
Sin is the result of displaced desires. Are
you with me? If so, let’s jump to
the second question, how do we usually deal with sin?
How do
we usually deal with sin? Triangulation
and Vengeance
Let’s return to the
first couple. You know the story. Eve shares with Adam and all of a sudden they
become discontent with their
clothing. Of course this is the birth of
one of the greatest fields of desire; shopping for clothes. Being that there were no malls, they sewed
their own fig leaves and tried to do the best they could. And then who would happen to show up but God
calling. And what did they do? They hid.
When God finds them, Adam explains that they were hiding because they
were ashamed of their nakedness. Here we
have another consequence of displaced desires; shame. When God asks if they’d eaten from the tree
he told them not to we come to the ultimate and most damaging consequence of displaced-desires. What does Adam say? “The
woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate
it.” Adam does what we like to call
‘passing the buck’ or ‘shifting the shame.’
When confronted with sin our tendency is to attempt to shift the blame
onto someone else. If you’ve ever been a
parent or worked with kids you know this to be as true as death and taxes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard,
“Well, Janie did it first.” But what seems like not too big a deal in kids or
this ancient story can quickly become really nasty.
If you flip over one
chapter to the children of Adam and Eve you read the story of Cain and Able.
Again, you know the story. Cain was a
gardener. Able was a shepherd. Seeking to please God they each brought an
offering. For some reason, which is not
entirely clear, Able’s offering of meat was favorable to God while Cain’s
offering of fruits and vegetables was not.
Apparently God was not much of a vegetarian. Who knows?
Regardless, Cain was hurt and angry.
He desired God’s favor which is a good thing, but when he didn’t get it
instead of accepting his own fault, he did what his dad did, he found a
scapegoat. And thus we have the story of
the first murder when Cain lures his brother out into the field and kills him. This brothers and sisters are the ultimate
consequences of displaced desires, of sin; eventually, it comes to
violence.
Triangulation
Are you still with me? Let me attempt to illustrate this with
something called triangulation.
Triangulation is the attempt to draw closer to one person by pushing
another away.
Adam, desiring God’s
approval, seeks to draw himself closer by pushing Eve away. Cain, seeking God’s approval, tries to draw
himself closer by pushing Able away.
Does this make sense? It happens
all the time. The first week I showed up
here at the church one person approached me and said, “Watch out for so and so,
they’ll take over the church if you let them.”
Now what was going on there?
Person A attempted to draw closer to the new pastor by pushing person B
away.
The simplest form of
triangulation is gossip. When we gossip
we push a third person away so that it brings the two of us closer. You can see this in sports. I draw close to people I don’t even know
because we want to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. This also happens in cultures. Do you remember the part in the movie
Braveheart where the Irish man shows up among the Scottish highlanders. They treat him skeptically and want to hurt
him until he says, “Do I get to kill the Anglish.” All of a sudden they are on the same
side. On and on triangulation goes into abuse,
murders, lynchings and even wars.
Ritual
scapegoating
Recognizing this
tendency, religion created a system to keep us from killing each other. How about instead of pushing a person away,
we did this to an animal. Listen to how
the Israelites dealt with this conflict while in the desert.
Then he is to take the two goats and present them
before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 8 He is to
cast lots for the two goats-- one lot for the LORD and the other for the
scapegoat {8 That is, the goat of removal; Hebrew
azazel; also in verses 10 and 26} 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot
falls to the LORD and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the
goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to
be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat. (Leviticus 16:7-10)
The people are given a
system that helps them not kill each other.
Instead of heaping their sins upon one another in vengeance, they ritually
heap it upon the poor goat and literally send it away. This is the sacrificial system that existed
not just in Jewish culture, but at some point in every other human culture as
well. This was the system, but there
were problems with it.
First, there is the
problem of the poor goat. Why does he
get it? Second, it only works for a
little while. The sins are like a pot
that keeps boiling over. Lifting the lid
off lowers the heat, but once the lid is put back on its eventually going to
boil over again. Third, the system often
doesn’t work. Instead of forcing us to
face the depth of our sin, we cast it upon a third party. Eventually, the scapegoat will not feel like
enough and we will need a scape-person again; the Jews, the blacks, the
gypsies, the gays, my neighbor, my spouse, and even myself. “What a wretched man I am,” Paul exclaims,
‘who will rescue me from this body of death?’ (Romans
7:24) How will God rescue us? Enter the third question.
How
does the servant deal with sin?
Listen to some of the
2nd half of the song and you tell me how the servant will deal with
SIN. “He was oppressed and
afflicted…he was led like a lamb to slaughter and as a sheep before her
shearers…” (v.7)
“…he was taken away…cut off from
the land of the living…for the transgression of my people he was stricken…” (v.8) What do you hear? How did the servant confront our SIN? Yes, he becomes the scapegoat, more
appropriately, the lamb.
But how does this deal with sin? How does this alleviate the power and
consequences of sin? There are three
possible answers that I can imagine.
First, it doesn’t do anything. It’s
possible all of this sin and sacrifice stuff is simply products of human
creation that ultimately change nothing.
Second, and most commonly, the
servant, like the lamb takes upon himself the iniquities, the transgressions,
the sins of the people. The servant
becomes like a Super-scapegoat. In this theory, the problem was not with the
system, but with the sacrifice. ‘If we
just had a bigger sacrifice,’ this system says.
So, Jesus becomes the sacrifice big enough to hold all the sins of the
world thus allowing the people to enter back into relationship with God.
In
this scenario, God is like a worker at the Intel plant. No people can enter the plant until all of
their contaminants have been removed.
Thus each person passes through a carbon filter that assumes all of
those contaminants and is thrown away allowing the people to enter the Intel
plant where the perfect and Holy God is.
Whereas all the other filters were too small, in Jesus, the filter is
made large enough to capture all the sins.
Super-scapegoat. This is option
2.
But there is a third option. What if the size of the scapegoat wasn’t the
issue but the system itself? Instead of
God being hidden away in an Intel plant where no impurities can enter, what if
God all along has been trying to say “I am with you.” In the garden, I am with you. In the city, I am with you. In slavery in Egypt, I am with you. In the wilderness, I am with you. In exile, I am with you. All of these sacrifices intended to clean you
for my presence are futile, do you think I can’t enter dirty places? I’m God.
In fact, I’ll show you. I’ll come
and dwell among you. Not as a
super-hero, but as one who gets dirty like you.
I will bring the perceived Intel plant, otherwise known as the kingdom
of heaven, to you. But because you still
have this scapegoating system, I will need to put an end to that. But how?
Perhaps if I, God, were the victim, then you would finally see how
ludicrous is the cycle of violence. Here
is what may cause the kings to shut their mouths.
Forgiveness
In the gospel of Luke we read, “They crucified him with criminals, one on
his right the other on his left.”
At this point, the world has done its worst to Jesus. It appears to have totally rejected him, his
way and even the world he was offering.
If ever there was a person justified in anger and in vengeance then this
was it. Heck, when someone cuts me off
in traffic, I feel justified in a little retribution. But what does Jesus do? “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (23:34) There is only one way to stop the cycle of
violence; forgiveness.
Not five verses later we read, “…for the sun stopped shinning. And the curtain of the temple was torn in
two.” (v.45)
Do you know about the curtain?
This was what separated the presence of God from the people. One could only enter into the holy of holies
if they were without sin, lest they die.
To prepare for entry the priest would offer sacrifices for his sins to
be taken away. It was the core of the
sacrificial system. But what happens to
this system in the cross? The curtain is
torn, the system is destroyed.
Here’s what
Mark Heim writes about the purpose of Jesus death.
Jesus’ willingness to face death,
specifically death on a cross, suddenly looks anything but arbitrary, and much
more like the "wisdom of God" that the New Testament so surprisingly
discovers in the crucifixion. God is willing to die for us, to bear our sin in
this particular way, because we desperately need deliverance from the sin of
scapegoating. God breaks the grip of scapegoating by stepping into the place of
a victim, and by being a victim who cannot be hidden or mythologized. God acts
not to affirm the suffering of the innocent victim as the price of peace, but
to reverse it.
Peace
It is in this sense that we can
return to the song of the suffering servant and read, “the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we
are healed.” The punishment that
brought us peace was scape-goating. But
the peace it brought was always shallow and ultimately false. It was the peace created between two enemies
who find a new common enemy. It lasts
only as long as the common enemy lasts.
When it is gone, they will continue the cycle of violence. No, the peace that Jesus brings is no
pseudo-peace. It is the real thing.
What is it Jesus says in the gospel
of John? “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give it as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not
be afraid.” (14:27) What
is it the risen Lord says almost every time he encounters some one? “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19,20,21;
Luke 24:36) This is
good news.
The way out – what
does this mean for us and the world
I now turn to my final question,
‘what does this mean for us and the world?’
What does this mean? It means that we are free to seek to desire
what God desires not because he will punish us if we don’t, rather because it
is the way of justice, salvation and peace.
What does this mean? It means we are free to put our body in the
turnstile of vengeance and violence by offering to others what Jesus offered on
the cross; forgiveness.
What does this mean? Paul puts it this way in his letter to the
Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (8:31) The
cross eliminates the need to see anyone as against us. The cross moves all of ‘they’ to ‘we’ with
God standing beside and not in some distant, spotless lab.
What does this mean?
