2.12.23 - Atonement; or, What God Does (Kenny Camacho)
SCRIPTURE: Romans 5:10 & 6:23, John 1:14, Galatians 3:13, 1 Peter 2:24 & 3:18, & Matthew 26:28
***The audio for this week’s sermon did not record–we’re still working out the kinks with our new equipment on this front!–but the script is shared below. If you are ever looking for written copies of a week’s sermon, you can always find them at Kenny’s blog: revolutionsermons.wordpress.com***
Let’s jump right in. Today, we’re in the middle of a 3-part series about Sin… and that’s frightening for me! It’s not just that “sin” is a scary thing in and of itself (which it is). It’s that “sin” is a word that gets everybody’s ears up in a church when you say it. Even if you’ve never personally sat in a sermon where a pastor used this topic to insult and marginalize and shame people, you’ve heard stories about that happening; that’s one end of the danger. And on the other end, there’s a worry that churches who prioritize open doors, belonging, and invitation–which is to say, churches like ours–sometimes talk so little about sin we run the risk of minimizing how important it is to the Christian story. We fall victim to the criticism that we don’t really care about the state of people’s souls, so long as everybody tries to be nice to each other. In this series, we want to steer clear of both of these dangers. Sin matters… but feeling endlessly wretched about ourselves isn’t going to change things. And openness matters… but if we imply that just doing your best is good enough, we’re undercutting the power of the Gospel of Jesus.
Making all this harder, of course, is that sin is a huge topic that doesn’t break down into 25-minute chunks easily! So, this series truly is a series: none of these 3 sermons works on its own. So, I want to start by framing up both what we’re going to do today, how it fits into what happened last week, and what’s coming next.
This week’s topic is atonement, which is what God does about the sin problem. To set it up, Travis talked to us last week about what sin is and what sin does. He said that sin is the accelerating deterioration of our proper humanity over time. That’s pretty clinical, so I’ll try to clarify: at the root of the Christian worldview is a conviction that something is wrong with us. It’s not that we’re entirely awful (although that’s an issue of disagreement)! It’s that we, in a way that is unlike any other thing on this earth, struggle to be what we can sense we’re supposed to be. We know humans are capable of great love and kindness, and we feel compelled towards that… but we don’t always do it. And we also know there are things that are bad for us to do because they hurt others and even hurt us, sometimes to the point of death… and we intentionally do them anyway. Trees are not like this. Dogs are not like this. Nothing is like this but us: we sense the good but can’t consistently be the good.
Why? The Christian story holds that the reason is we’re on the run. We have a hereditary condition that turns us away from the kinds of communities with others, with the world, with ourselves, and with God we’re designed for, and we have developed an instinct for going it alone. We’re unplugged. This has a natural consequence in the world because being unplugged puts us at odds with it. That consequence is brokenness, leading to death. One of Travis’s main insights last week was that this problem compounds over time, which means the more we run, the harder it is to find our way back. And all people, everywhere, for all time, get lost out there: we fall out of sync with our purpose. We break. I do; you do; everybody does.
But what is unique about the Christian story is that we believe God steps in. He does this in a way that harmonizes with who He is and what He’s like, and He extends a solution to this problem that can restore all people, everywhere, for all time, back to His intent. There are two topics in that last sentence we need to note: what God does and what the results look like. This week, we’re going to talk about what God does. Next week, we’ll talk about the results.
The one word answer for what God does is atonement. Atonement is a funny word because it contains its own literal definition: “atonement” means “at-one-ment.” I’m not being clever or silly: it is the process by which what has been separated from its intent is brought back into harmony with itself and with its Creator. God extends a way for us to be “at one” with Him, with each other, with ourselves, and with the world. What’s disconnected can be restored. That’s good news for us, because it amounts to a kind of rescue.
I want to start with this point–and with the idea of rescue–because, if you hear nothing else this morning, I want you to hear this: you are being rescued. You don’t have to ask for it. You don’t have to accept it. But it’s happening all the same, and you’re invited to take it. In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul puts this as plainly as he can. He writes,
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
ROMANS 6:23
God steps in to freely release us from our bondage to sin. That’s the root of the good news, and I’d wager you’ve heard it before.
Now, there are all sorts of objections here. It may be that you’re not convinced you have a sin problem. If that’s true for you, the first point this morning is that that’s okay; the rescue is waiting for you if you ever change your mind. It won’t expire. It may be that you feel you can find another way out apart from the hand God is extending. If that’s you, that’s okay, too; the rescue is still there if you want it. Or it may be that you don’t trust the Rescuer: God seems frightening or aloof or even crazy… or at least His followers do. If that’s where you’re at, you know what I’m going to say: that’s okay, and God leaves the light on for you if you decide you want to try. I say all this because we’re going to get into some weeds here in a bit about the mechanics of this rescue… but as interesting as those things might be, they are secondary to the existence of the rescue.
This is because it is crucial to the Christian story that God does not need to be solicited or bribed or appeased in order to come to our aid. There are other faiths and other worldviews where that is the case–where a certain offering must be given or certain steps of atonement must be taken by humans. But that is not the Christian story. In this story, the work has already been done, there is no “asking” or “begging” that’s necessary, and it is, as Paul says, a gift freely given. So we begin here: however the atonement works, it has already happened and it is available to you. Always.
But you don’t have to accept it. If Point #1 is that the rescue is freely offered, Point #2 is that God’s nature nonetheless requires it to be a choice. This is an easy place for us to stall out, because it can be really hard to trust or believe it. Travis hinted at this point last week, but I’ll dive all the way in: there is something about who God is and what God intends for this world that uniquely asks human beings, if they are to fully and truly be human beings, to participate with Him in it. There are all sorts of theories about why this is, but I’ll cut to the chase and just say this: nobody knows why. We just know that God isn’t going to force people to be proper people.
If you’ll permit me to offer it, my hunch is that the reason might have to do with our unique place as image-bearers of Him: He says He made us to reflect Him in the world, and f it goes against God’s nature to be forced to do things, perhaps that means it goes against our nature, too. Or perhaps it has to do with love: love that’s not freely given may not be love; you’ve probably heard that before as well. But whatever the case, God has been clear in the Biblical story that accepting rescue matters. This, of course, makes a lot of sense if the Bible story is correct in saying that the root of our sin problem is choosing to go it alone: the goal, after all, isn’t just deliverance from sin, it is being properly human, which means being restored in our relationships.
I said a moment ago it’s easy to stall here. Here’s why: precisely because the rescue has to be freely accepted, and God is patient in waiting on that acceptance, quite a lot of harm can be done by lost and broken people in the meantime. The truth is that we do a lot of damage, and sometimes that damage appears irreparable. There’s a reasonable argument that asks: “if God is interested in the good, why does He tolerate such rampant bad?” The good news is that the Bible is full of persons who ask that same question, and God answers them. But the bad news is that we’re not typically satisfied by His response. In sum, God’s reply is this: we don’t know what He knows… but in the end, justice will be done.
If you’re skeptical of that line, I am, too. For the sake of the drunk driver, I’m grateful for God’s patience and grace. But for the sake of the person they hurt, I wish God would have come down stronger sooner. I don’t know, and the truth is it causes a rift: if I don’t think God quite understands what it’s like to be one of us, I get frustrated and angry with Him. It’s the flip of the original sin problem, right? Sin alienates me from being the kind of human God wants, so I can’t know Him anymore. But sin also alienates God from me! So how can I trust that He actually knows what being broken in a broken world is like?
This question leads us to Point #3 about atonement, which is that God identifies with us. This rescue, which God is freely offering but which must be freely accepted, has been done by a God who came down here. That’s what I mean by “identification”: God has become what we are, so we can become what He is. The mechanism for this is the person of Jesus, and again, this is a distinctive of Christian faith: the God who made us chooses to experience our brokenness alongside us. John’s gospel makes the case directly:
The Word [of God] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
JOHN 1:14
God walks in our weary shoes.
I said before there are a lot of weeds to get lost in when it comes to theories of atonement, and quite a few of them start right here. Most everyone agrees that the sin problem is God’s to solve, that He does so freely, and that it’s our responsibility (to varying degrees) to accept rescue. But why does it work? Some say this moment John talks about–the incarnation–is a big trap to trick the devil. Some say it’s a way of providing us with a clear moral example. Some say it’s an elaborate bait-and-switch with God’s wrath as the “prestige.” My sense is that everybody is partly right, and we need all the vantage points to get very far. There was a draft of this sermon where we got into some serious note-taking here. But now we’re going to go a different way. What happened was that I got caught up thinking about lesson plans. Here’s what I mean:
Imagine (humbly!) that you’re in God’s shoes. What you want is for the people you love to freely choose to be what they’re supposed to be. You want this for their own sake: you know that being proper people leads to full, real, and even eternal life. It is marked by responsible harmony with each other and with the world you’ve made, as well as clarity in their relationship with you and fullness in their relationship with themselves. But they don’t want to. And worse: by choosing to be something else, they set themselves on a trajectory that makes it harder and harder to come back. You can’t force them to return, because a prisoner isn’t a proper human, either. What you need is for them to understand two things: first, they need to understand that what they’re doing is going to hurt them before it hurts them. And second, they need them to believe that you really can help them. What do you do? How do you teach that lesson?
Let’s take it a piece at a time. Are you familiar with food tasters? I won’t overly romanticize this metaphor: a food taster is a relatively unimportant person who eats food before it is served to a relatively important person to make sure it’s safe. There are records of food tasters being employed by kings and emperors at least as far back as ancient Rome… and you might be surprised that it’s still a gig: Barack Obama had one; his name was Andrew. You employ a food taster because you only get one shot at not being fatally poisoned.
Why is the incarnation essential to God’s rescue plan? Because we have to see that we’re on a fatal trajectory before it becomes fatal. And we’re too myopic, our relationships are already too broken, for us to really see ourselves in anybody else. So their bad ends don’t convince us of much: we tend to believe most people get what they deserve, and we’ll be luckier.
But Paul puts things this way:
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us
GALATIANS 3:13
Why does God come down here? So we can see where we’re headed. Because the wages of sin aren’t just our deaths, they are Death! So, in Jesus, we see a person who, one, didn’t deserve what he got, but two, in getting it, exposed all the meanness and terror the world we’re breaking dishes out. Why? Because the hope is that if we see the food taster die… we’ll stop eating the food.
But, of course, that’s only a part of God’s plan. He doesn’t just want us to stop running, He wants us to let Him carry us home. So, how does He do that? If Point #3 is that Jesus’s identification with us shows us where we’re going, Point #4 is about what our identification with him can do: it can offer incorporation.
This is the miracle of the atonement story, and although endless generations of Christian thinkers have tried to work out the particulars, it’s ultimately the mystery of it, too. We’re going to get into the theories and their consequences next week, but for now, we’re just going to close by saying what we believe about incorporation.
The first part goes back to Jesus, the poison eater. By experiencing the consequences of the world’s brokenness, by dying, Jesus shows us where we’re headed. But the Bible says something else happens on the cross, too: Jesus doesn’t just reveal what sin does, he absorbs it. All of it. He takes the curse away, in Paul’s terms. His friend and disciple Peter puts it this way:
[Jesus] bore our sins in his body on the [cross], that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
1 PETER 2:24
The radical belief of the early church is that Jesus’s incorporation with us runs so deep that he takes on our problem. We somehow become one… and in an echo of the long story of the Jewish Law, his death stands in for our own deaths.
You might be wondering where early Christians got such a radical idea. The answer, of course, is that Jesus gave it to them. At his very last meal with his friends, he told them this:
For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
MATTHEW 26:28
Jesus’s offer of rescue, of incorporation, is a sacrifice. At-one-ment kills him. That’s what it means for him to incorporate with us.
But then he doesn’t stay dead. And that’s the second half of the miracle we believe in: because his incorporation has led all the way to one-ness with us, his victory over death is also our victory, too.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
ROMANS 5:10
This doesn’t mean we won’t ever die. But it does mean that death is no more the end of our story than it was the end of his. It means that, if we choose to accept that free rescue, to allow Jesus to be one with us, we can share in the fullness of the inheritance he possesses. We can be fully and truly humans again. We can be restored to wholeness in our relationships. We can be co-workers with Christ in God’s Kingdom. And, most amazingly of all, that work can begin even now. That’s the fullness of incorporation: he became what we are so we can become what he is.
There’s no way to soften how big a belief this is! But with our time running out, this is what I can say: I believe it. And if you press me, here’s why: if there’s a God, this is who He needs to be.
I can sense the good, even if I can’t always do it. And I sense I’m made to love and to be loved. That life is aimed at that kind of wholeness. And the best way of describing real love is seeking the good of another. Not controlling them. Not pampering them. Playing a part in their flourishing. If what I’m sensing comes from anywhere, it must come from the heart of my Creator. And what is the atonement story if not a story of God loving us in just this way? Giving of Himself not to control us, not to pamper us, but to make a way for our wholeness?
We’ll talk about the mechanics and consequences of all of this next week, but I want to leave us here today: a loving God comes to us in our weakness and gives us His strength. Our question is: are we willing to trust Him? To allow his desire to identify with us, to be one with us, to change our stories? It’s not a small question, and there’s not an easy answer! But I’d ask that you turn it over this week. Are you like me? Is this the kind of God God has to be?
If your answer is yes, there is so much hope in this story! We really can be whole again. God has made a way.
REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
Atonement is “the process by which what has been separated from its intent is brought back into harmony with itself and with its Creator.” Work through this definition: does it make sense to you? Does it line up with what you see or need in your own story?
The first of four points this morning is that you are already being rescued. Kenny said that this is a distinctive part of the Christian story, because we don’t have to do anything to get God’s attention or earn His grace. Is this something you believe? What makes it hard to hear or accept?
The second point is that it’s still a choice. Why doesn’t God force people to participate in atonement? What are the consequences of this aspect of God’s character?
The third point is that atonement happens by way of identification. Why is it important for God to fully identify with us? How does He do it? In what ways might it be a comfort? In what ways might it be frightening or upsetting?
The fourth point is that God identifies with us for the purpose of incorporation. What does this mean? Kenny said it goes both ways: why is it important for Jesus to be “incorporated” with us? Why is it important for us to be “incorporated” with him?
Atonement isn’t just hard to wrap our heads around, it’s ultimately impossible for us to fully understand! What are some of your lingering questions?
Where do you find hope in this story? What might it look like for you to believe it?