Atonement: At--One--Ment
Sermon
RESTORING THE FUTURE
First Lesson Sermons For Lent/Easter
See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up.
Not long ago, I read about a pastor who was visiting a neighboring church as the guest speaker for their women's group. As he sat through the preliminaries of the meeting, he discovered that the group had an odd little ritual, something they called the "Bible verse roll call." They had all promised each other that they would memorize a verse of scripture each month. As they went through the names in alphabetical order, the respondents would answer by saying aloud the Bible verse that they had memorized. There was no particular rhyme or reason to the verses chosen, so there were bits from both testaments, from the Gospels, from the letters, from the Psalms. At the end of the roll was a woman whose last name began with a Y. She was the only person there who had forgotten to memorize a scripture verse, "So, with a red face and a shaky voice, she stood up and recited that great scriptural ace in the hole: 'Jesus wept.'1 There was good--natured laughter. We often laugh about that verse."2
But the verse isn't funny, is it? Weeping. Nothing very funny about that. No kind of weeping is very funny, unless you just happen to be laughing until you cry. And perhaps not even then. But it's not just the weeping, it's the one who is doing the weeping. Jesus wept. Jesus. Son of God. Chosen one. The beloved in whom God was well--pleased. And in the story where "Jesus wept," he was weeping because someone had died. Where before there had been life and vitality and good company and all the things that friendship provides, now there remained only the ravages left behind after a death.
The opening verse of our passage for today is stunningly out of place alongside the remainder of the poem, almost as out of place as laughter alongside a verse that says, "Jesus wept."
"See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up" is set right alongside these words: "so marred was his appearance ... he had no form or majesty that we should look at him." It is rather like our Palm Sunday parades of joy in the face of that which awaits Jesus here at the end of the week. It is jarring, hard to reconcile the two. Dissonance seems an apt musical sort of description.
I can almost hear the tuneful and hopeful "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna" being sung or played alongside a dirge, or a minor--mode cacophony of train whistles and jackhammers. Or a medleying of that most somber Lenten hymn, "Go To Dark Gethsemane" right alongside our bright and happy "All Glory Laud and Honor" (which one of my friends insists on calling "All Glory, Loud and Honor"). The one tune, rather smug and self--satisfied, ebullient, being knocked off its pins by the insistence of the other's unyielding horror.
Every year at this time, I notice a phenomenon characteristic of the churches in which I have worshiped and served. You could phrase it this way: While everybody wants to come for the pot roast, very few want to be there when they butcher the cow. We live most of our lives very far removed from hosts of sacrifices that take place on a daily basis in order to provide us with what we need to eat and to wear. In order for us to eat the hamburger or wear the leather coat, some creature must lose its life. In order for us to have roads and highways and houses, some creatures must lose their habitat. In order for us to be safe on our streets and in our homes, some police officers and fire fighters must stay up all night. If the power goes out in the middle of the night during a storm, we wouldn't think it was just fine if all the power company people finished their night's sleep before going out to see about fixing the problem. If we think about it, we could make a long list of sacrifices made on our behalf every day. These are all meant to bring us closer to the kind of life we want to have, to some sort of ideal. The fact that such sacrifices escape our awareness most of the time doesn't make it any less true that they are sacrifices made for our sakes.
The suffering which the Servant of God experienced in the passage from Isaiah was clearly such a sacrifice for others. The others say as much, when they declare, "Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases ... he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities" (italics added).
So, we arrive at one of the deepest of questions that our faith sets before us. It is difficult to understand, that suffering and death of one person somehow makes clear the path for another. How can the suffering of one alleviate the need for suffering by another? The very fact that the topic touches on suffering, that alone is enough to keep people out of the church in droves on a day like Good Friday. Who wants to dwell on such things? Yet, while we may wonder at this idea, may even choose to avoid it, we do discover that there is something to it, even in the plainest human experiences. The parent who sacrifices for years so that a child may be the first in their family to graduate from college - this is an experience of the transforming power of one person's actions in the life of another. In the poem in Isaiah, the same sort of human capacity to recognize a selfless gift of one for another is recognized.
The word for the sort of suffering about which we read in Isaiah is atonement. Atonement is one of those theological words that gets a workout on seminary campuses and in religion classes in colleges, but it doesn't often work its way into everyday conversation, does it? We might think our boss or our neighbor or our spouse has a lot to atone for, but we don't often phrase it just that way. Lots of times, in those academic--sounding conversations, it comes with a special modifier: substitutionary atonement.
Atonement is simply a fancy pronunciation for two words and a suffix: "at--one--ment." Atonement is any action by which things or people that were separated become reconciled. One person, having offended his friend by some unfortunate word, finds they are no longer at one, no longer enjoying the benefits of common minds and hearts. Atonement is necessary and may come in the form of an apology, a gift, some gesture that reaches toward the other. And, if it works out right; the two may be friends again; atonement may be accomplished.
Substitutionary atonement simply means that if we find ourselves beyond hope of reconciliation with the one from whom we are estranged, there may be a way that a third party can stand in the breach and help us toward atonement. The substitute may be like a chemical catalyst, so that the two materials which have separated and cannot join under their own power, may, by office of the catalyst, be made one again.
Christian preachers have, for centuries, seen in the suffering servant of Isaiah, a prefiguring of the suffering which Jesus undertook for our sakes. He stood in our place; as Isaiah says, "He was wounded for our transgressions." Jesus placed his very life in the vice grip of death so that we might be made pure enough to approach the throne of God.
As Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he was riding toward his appointment as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of the world. He was on his way to being bruised for our sakes, for being despised and rejected, for undertaking the punishment that rightfully belonged to those who accused him, both then and in all the generations that have lived before or since. That is what he was on his way to become, a substitutionary atonement, standing in as a substitute for us, that we might be "at one" with God again.
I recently read about a farmer who was asked what it was like to grow up on the farm and provide their own food.3 She reported that raising and eating their own vegetables was no problem. But she said providing meat was difficult. She told the story of taking a young calf to the slaughterhouse. The calf became frightened, so her father rode in the back of the trailer with the calf to keep it calm. By the time they arrived, her father was in tears, because the trusting and innocent calf had been licking his arm the whole way.
One dies that others may live. It is a hard thing for us to consider, but no less true because it is hard. We would rather look the other way, think on more pleasant things. But this is the day that comes around to remind us just how costly the atonement for our sins was and is.
After this day, we will remember that these two things go together: "Surely ... he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities." and "See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up."
In the end, he is at one with with God. And because of him, in the end, we are too.
____________
1. John 11:35, though the NRSV spoils all the fun, rendering it, "Jesus began to weep."
2. Theodore Wardlaw, "When Jesus Wept," Journal For Preachers, Lent 2000, p. 36.
3. Barbara Brown Taylor, "In The Name Of Law And Order," Home By Another Way (Cowley Publications, 1999), p. 86.
Not long ago, I read about a pastor who was visiting a neighboring church as the guest speaker for their women's group. As he sat through the preliminaries of the meeting, he discovered that the group had an odd little ritual, something they called the "Bible verse roll call." They had all promised each other that they would memorize a verse of scripture each month. As they went through the names in alphabetical order, the respondents would answer by saying aloud the Bible verse that they had memorized. There was no particular rhyme or reason to the verses chosen, so there were bits from both testaments, from the Gospels, from the letters, from the Psalms. At the end of the roll was a woman whose last name began with a Y. She was the only person there who had forgotten to memorize a scripture verse, "So, with a red face and a shaky voice, she stood up and recited that great scriptural ace in the hole: 'Jesus wept.'1 There was good--natured laughter. We often laugh about that verse."2
But the verse isn't funny, is it? Weeping. Nothing very funny about that. No kind of weeping is very funny, unless you just happen to be laughing until you cry. And perhaps not even then. But it's not just the weeping, it's the one who is doing the weeping. Jesus wept. Jesus. Son of God. Chosen one. The beloved in whom God was well--pleased. And in the story where "Jesus wept," he was weeping because someone had died. Where before there had been life and vitality and good company and all the things that friendship provides, now there remained only the ravages left behind after a death.
The opening verse of our passage for today is stunningly out of place alongside the remainder of the poem, almost as out of place as laughter alongside a verse that says, "Jesus wept."
"See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up" is set right alongside these words: "so marred was his appearance ... he had no form or majesty that we should look at him." It is rather like our Palm Sunday parades of joy in the face of that which awaits Jesus here at the end of the week. It is jarring, hard to reconcile the two. Dissonance seems an apt musical sort of description.
I can almost hear the tuneful and hopeful "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna" being sung or played alongside a dirge, or a minor--mode cacophony of train whistles and jackhammers. Or a medleying of that most somber Lenten hymn, "Go To Dark Gethsemane" right alongside our bright and happy "All Glory Laud and Honor" (which one of my friends insists on calling "All Glory, Loud and Honor"). The one tune, rather smug and self--satisfied, ebullient, being knocked off its pins by the insistence of the other's unyielding horror.
Every year at this time, I notice a phenomenon characteristic of the churches in which I have worshiped and served. You could phrase it this way: While everybody wants to come for the pot roast, very few want to be there when they butcher the cow. We live most of our lives very far removed from hosts of sacrifices that take place on a daily basis in order to provide us with what we need to eat and to wear. In order for us to eat the hamburger or wear the leather coat, some creature must lose its life. In order for us to have roads and highways and houses, some creatures must lose their habitat. In order for us to be safe on our streets and in our homes, some police officers and fire fighters must stay up all night. If the power goes out in the middle of the night during a storm, we wouldn't think it was just fine if all the power company people finished their night's sleep before going out to see about fixing the problem. If we think about it, we could make a long list of sacrifices made on our behalf every day. These are all meant to bring us closer to the kind of life we want to have, to some sort of ideal. The fact that such sacrifices escape our awareness most of the time doesn't make it any less true that they are sacrifices made for our sakes.
The suffering which the Servant of God experienced in the passage from Isaiah was clearly such a sacrifice for others. The others say as much, when they declare, "Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases ... he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities" (italics added).
So, we arrive at one of the deepest of questions that our faith sets before us. It is difficult to understand, that suffering and death of one person somehow makes clear the path for another. How can the suffering of one alleviate the need for suffering by another? The very fact that the topic touches on suffering, that alone is enough to keep people out of the church in droves on a day like Good Friday. Who wants to dwell on such things? Yet, while we may wonder at this idea, may even choose to avoid it, we do discover that there is something to it, even in the plainest human experiences. The parent who sacrifices for years so that a child may be the first in their family to graduate from college - this is an experience of the transforming power of one person's actions in the life of another. In the poem in Isaiah, the same sort of human capacity to recognize a selfless gift of one for another is recognized.
The word for the sort of suffering about which we read in Isaiah is atonement. Atonement is one of those theological words that gets a workout on seminary campuses and in religion classes in colleges, but it doesn't often work its way into everyday conversation, does it? We might think our boss or our neighbor or our spouse has a lot to atone for, but we don't often phrase it just that way. Lots of times, in those academic--sounding conversations, it comes with a special modifier: substitutionary atonement.
Atonement is simply a fancy pronunciation for two words and a suffix: "at--one--ment." Atonement is any action by which things or people that were separated become reconciled. One person, having offended his friend by some unfortunate word, finds they are no longer at one, no longer enjoying the benefits of common minds and hearts. Atonement is necessary and may come in the form of an apology, a gift, some gesture that reaches toward the other. And, if it works out right; the two may be friends again; atonement may be accomplished.
Substitutionary atonement simply means that if we find ourselves beyond hope of reconciliation with the one from whom we are estranged, there may be a way that a third party can stand in the breach and help us toward atonement. The substitute may be like a chemical catalyst, so that the two materials which have separated and cannot join under their own power, may, by office of the catalyst, be made one again.
Christian preachers have, for centuries, seen in the suffering servant of Isaiah, a prefiguring of the suffering which Jesus undertook for our sakes. He stood in our place; as Isaiah says, "He was wounded for our transgressions." Jesus placed his very life in the vice grip of death so that we might be made pure enough to approach the throne of God.
As Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he was riding toward his appointment as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of the world. He was on his way to being bruised for our sakes, for being despised and rejected, for undertaking the punishment that rightfully belonged to those who accused him, both then and in all the generations that have lived before or since. That is what he was on his way to become, a substitutionary atonement, standing in as a substitute for us, that we might be "at one" with God again.
I recently read about a farmer who was asked what it was like to grow up on the farm and provide their own food.3 She reported that raising and eating their own vegetables was no problem. But she said providing meat was difficult. She told the story of taking a young calf to the slaughterhouse. The calf became frightened, so her father rode in the back of the trailer with the calf to keep it calm. By the time they arrived, her father was in tears, because the trusting and innocent calf had been licking his arm the whole way.
One dies that others may live. It is a hard thing for us to consider, but no less true because it is hard. We would rather look the other way, think on more pleasant things. But this is the day that comes around to remind us just how costly the atonement for our sins was and is.
After this day, we will remember that these two things go together: "Surely ... he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities." and "See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up."
In the end, he is at one with with God. And because of him, in the end, we are too.
____________
1. John 11:35, though the NRSV spoils all the fun, rendering it, "Jesus began to weep."
2. Theodore Wardlaw, "When Jesus Wept," Journal For Preachers, Lent 2000, p. 36.
3. Barbara Brown Taylor, "In The Name Of Law And Order," Home By Another Way (Cowley Publications, 1999), p. 86.
