Introduction
Today's reading is the most famous passage in the book of Isaiah. It is traditionally read as part of the Good Friday service and Christians have always seen it as a powerful prophecy by Isaiah of Jesus - God's suffering servant.
A Christian, or someone with even the most elementary knowledge of Jesus' life will be struck by the words and apply them to the crucifixion of Jesus.
The passage is central to our understanding of what it is to be a Christian. The passage is about the suffering servant who dies in order that we might be forgiven and made at one with God.
Forgiveness
As humans we are very familiar with the phenomenon of broken relationships and the consequences of the things we do. In any human relationship, or friendship, we find that we upset our friends and hurt them. We also realise that the things we do upset and hurt them. We may not intend to hurt them, but, from time to time we realise that we have upset others.
In our most personal relationships we realise this happens more often that we would like. We realise that our actions can wound another badly. As Christians, though, we know that we have to forgive those who hurt us and seek to live in peace with them. Of course this is hard.
I suspect we have all been in situations where another person has said they forgive us but we still have nagging doubts about this. We walk on eggshells around them, fearful that anything we say or do will bring out old resentments and more pain. We wait for a flashback of the offence to come flooding back and a whole tirade of emotion to come. They may say they have forgiven us but we may have problems believing this. To forgive means to be at peace - and, humanly speaking, it takes some time for us to accept that we really are at peace with another.
With God, however, the situation is different. St Paul writes that it is not like this with God: "Therefore, now that we have been justified through faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us access to that grace in which we now live." (Romans 5:1-2)
When God forgives, we are made at peace with God. We may struggle to accept this - but this is where faith comes in. We have to trust that once God forgives us, the matter is over.
But how can this be? How can God disregard the consequences of our sin, seemingly so casually. I may forgive those who hurt me, but I can't overlook the consequences of what has happened and I expect people to atone for their wrongdoings.
We may wish to forgive people who commit crimes, but we still expect the courts to punish them for what they have done. I may hurt and cause someone pain, saying sorry is a start - but I also need to try and make up to that person for the thing that I have done. So it must be with God. If God is holy and just, then God cannot just overlook the things we have done, God cannot just forget about them.
The Suffering Servant
The solution to this riddle is contained within the passage we heard read to us this evening, and in the wonderful English word "atonement" which, literally, means at-one-ment. Jesus, as the suffering servant of God holds the answer to this riddle of how God can forgive us and, consequently, overlook the things we have done.
Now this is both simple and complex. Many Christians try to explain Jesus' death in a way which explains how we can be forgiven, but no one explanation squarely hits the nail on the head. In its best sense the atonement, the becoming one with God, is a mystery - something to be thought about, puzzled over, wrestled with and pondered. Throughout its history the Church has offered four complementary explanations of what Jesus' death on the cross did for us.
Obedience making up for Disobedience.
A central myth of our faith is that of the Garden of Eden. When God created the world, it was created perfect and was described as a well ordered beautiful garden. God created humans to inhabit this garden - humans we know as Adam and Eve. However, the Hebrew word "Adam" means "human".
Adam and Eve are characters, then, in the story designed to represent all of humanity. Humanity was, therefore, given this perfect garden to inhabit and we were told to be stewards and gardeners of creation. We were given one command - not to eat of the fruit of one tree. Again this is a symbol. By eating of the tree, the story shows that humanity was disobedient to God and sin entered the world.
The consequence of sin is death. Disobedience led to mortality. In the story, humanity was cast out from this paradise of Eden and now has to work hard to make a living from the ground and will suffer the pain and sting of death.
St Paul, of course, was raised as a Jew who would have known this creation story all his life. Paul saw in Jesus a new Adam, a new human. The old human disobeyed God but Jesus, the new Adam, obeyed God. By disobeying God a human brought sin and death into the world. By obeying God another human brought us back to God.
Of course it is a bit more complicated than this because of our believe in the Trinity. Jesus was, of course, human and he obeyed God. But he was also part of this thing we call God. So in human form God corrects the original fault of Adam.
This is one way of explaining how the peace between God and humanity is brought about - God intervenes to correct the ancient fault of Adam - the fault of disobedience by showing that humans can be obedient.
Jesus the Victor
Another way of looking at how we find peace with God is by seeing Jesus' death as part of a struggle between good and evil that has been going on in the universe since the devil and all his angels rebelled against God.
Because of sin, humanity had also rebelled against God. This meant that we were held captive in our sins by the devil. By choosing to sin, we choose to sell our souls to the devil who claimed them for his own. Of course we don't realise that we do this, we think that sin will be fun or full-filling. It is like biting into sugar coated poison. At first it tastes wonderful - but the sugar quickly turns to something rather more nasty.
Humanity, because of sin, was enslaved to Satan. In the person of Jesus, God took on Satan. The whole of Jesus' ministry is about a battle between himself and Satan - demons knew who Jesus was and ran from him screaming. Satan, himself, appears to tempt Jesus with physical comfort, worldly power, and spiritual torment. Satan entered the heart of Judas to betray Jesus to the authorities who had him killed. As Jesus hung on the cross Satan and his angels, perceiving something of who Jesus was, must have felt they had won. However, when Jesus died the full reality of who he was must have dawned on Satan and when he rose again from the dead Satan realised that humanity was no longer held captive by him.
Sin leads to death, but through the Cross Jesus has died for us. By raising Jesus from the dead, God turned the tables on Satan and now we can also live and be raised by God after we die.
C S Lewis writes of this cheating of death in his Narnia books. Aslan, the Lion, is the Jesus figure who offers himself as a victim when the wicked witch wishes to kill one of the children who had turned traitor. The witch cites an old law which gives her the right to the life of anyone who is a traitor. Aslan, the witch's mortal enemy, offers himself as a victim in place of the child; the witch, hardly believing her luck, agrees. Aslan is tied to an altar of sacrifice and killed. The witch and her entourage are overjoyed and feel they will now run Narnia. However, unbeknown to the witch, Aslan is restored to live, stronger and more vibrant than before. He says there is an older law, one the witch had forgotten, which meant that if an innocent person offered himself in the place of a guilty one then the power of the witch would be broken forever.
CS Lewis, through fiction, was trying to explain what Jesus accomplished for us when he died in our place. He broke the power of the devil - this is not to say that the devil is not dangerous anymore, just that his power has been broken by Jesus - and died in our place. This means the devil has no automatic power over us anymore. This is why in the baptism service we ask people to reject the Devil and all his works and all his empty promises. We renew these vows each year at Easter when we recall all that Jesus has done for us.
Jesus redeemed us - as one redeems a mortgage, or loan, by paying the price due. Idea seen in CS Lewis and Aslan books.
Judgement
Those of a more legal mind wonder exactly how Jesus won this victory over the devil. They use the law courts to explain the divine exchange which happened on the cross.
God, as a God of justice, cannot just over look the consequences of sin - just as a judge or magistrate cannot overlook the consequences of crime. To do so would be unfair. God would not be just if God overlooked the sins and crimes committed by humanity - indeed one of the objections to believe in God is that God does seem to do this - "why does God allow evil?" or "why does God allow evil people to flourish" are two powerful objections to belief. The truth is that God, in great justice, will deal with all of us, the evil and the good.
There will
come a time when we all must stand before God, as judge, and give an answer for
ourselves. Because all of us have fallen short of what God requires, because all
of us have sinned, we will be weighed in the scales of divine justice and found
wanting. And, as we have heard, the penalty for sin is death.
However, God is good and God is loving. God, in the words of the prayer book, does not desire the death of a sinner. Therefore, God's own self intervened on the side of Justice. Jesus paid the price for our crimes. The suffering servant of Isaiah died in order to fulfil the just demands of the Law.
Some people don't like the idea of a God who is placated by blood or death. But this rather misses the point. God has to be true to the justice with which he has instilled in the universe. God would be unjust to ignore the demands of justice. However, God does not demand anything God is not prepared to give. God fulfils the demand of justice by offering himself to himself. Jesus, as God the Son, offers himself to God the Maker on behalf of a sinful and fallen humanity.
It is as if we were in court awaiting sentence after a guilty verdict, when someone else comes and takes our sentence for us. Justice demands punishment for sin and crime; the God of justice takes that punishment on himself - as the reading says "by his sufferings shall my servant justify many."
Sacrifice
The final idea about the atonement, or being at peace with God I want to talk about this afternoon, comes from the Jewish religion at the time of Jesus. There are two notions of sacrifice that were around in Judaism at this time which can inform our ideas of what God has done for us in Jesus.
The first is the idea of the sacrifice of an animal. Since the time of Moses the Jews were commanded to sacrifice an animal to God - this meant, in an agricultural society, giving some of one's wealth to God. The blood of the animal was spilt and a gift to God had been given.
On the cross Jesus blood was spilt as he gave himself to God as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
The other idea we remember each week when we sing the words of the Lamb of God before receiving communion. Every year, on the day of Atonement, the High Priest selected a pure, unblemished lamb. He laid his hands on this lamb, symbolically transferring all the sins of the people of Israel onto this lamb which was then driven out into the wilderness.
Christians believe that Jesus took upon himself our sins, was driven out of the city to the rubbish dumb and there left to die on the cross.
Eucharist
Each of these ideas: obedience to death, Jesus as victor over Satan, taking the punishment due to us for our sin and sacrifice are present whenever we speak about being "saved" "forgiven" or "atoned". They are part of our story as a forgiven people whom Jesus calls to follow him. They are the parts of our story which are remembered particularly at Easter, but also each week when we gather here around the table of the Lord.
In the Eucharistic prayer each week we remember Jesus who was obedient to God - in contrast to the way Adam never was. We remember that on the cross Jesus won a victory over sin and death, that he paid the price for our sin and we recall that he is our sacrifice - the Lamb of God that takes away our sin.
But the Eucharist does more than this. It is not simply an act of remembrance. It is not simply a ritual which helps us remember the story of our salvation. It is a powerful set of words and symbols which takes us to the cross itself.
When Jesus said "do this in memory of me" the word he used, which we translate as "memory" means much more than this. It is a word which means "make real". As we remember Jesus and all that he did for us on the cross, we make those things real for us now. As we break bread and share wine, we are taken to the cross where Jesus' body was broken and his blood poured out for us. As we eat and drink bread and wine, which have been exchanged for Jesus' body and blood, we become conscious of the divine exchange which has gone on - Jesus life, for our lives. Death exchanged for life.
My Life Is Different Because of this passage....
As we receive Jesus into our bodies, we receive him into our hearts and minds. We are reminded that we are forgiven all the things we have done wrong and we are strengthened to tell others that they don't need to remain captive to Satan and sin. We may still be disobedient, but through the obedience of Jesus we can have life. We may still face sin which drags us down like an addiction, but we know through trusting Jesus we are set free from those addictions because he has broken the power of Satan. We may feel ourselves weighed in the scales of justice, but we know that Jesus has tipped the balance in our favour by taking the punishment that was due for us. On him our sins were laid, just as the sins of Israel were laid upon the scapegoat years ago.
Every time we share in the Eucharist together we make present now what Jesus did and does for us. Every time we share in the Eucharist we participate in that sacrifice long ago which made peace between God and humanity. We can share in this peace by thanking Jesus for the sacrifice he made, by asking God to forgive us, and by asking Jesus to become our teacher, our master and our Lord as we promise to be his disciples.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church
of Manchester. Click here for further information.