Why Jesus Died
Palm Sunday
March 24, 2024
The Rev. Tim Nunez
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Back when I was a CPA, my favorite client was a bank. The bank had an officer named Jeanne who worked the front desk and answered the phone. By the time I showed up, she had been there well over 30 years and was clearly the matriarch of the bank. Her nickname was “Mother.” Even the bank president, who had started his career working under her supervision before moving on then coming back, wisely honored and valued her wisdom and influence. She ruled over all she surveyed in the lobby and she held court daily in the break room.
In the break room, her influence was visible. She had post-it notes stuck all over the place. Notes like, “If you make a mess, clean it up!” “If you pour the last cup, please make a new pot.” “Please make sure the refrigerator is closed.” “Anything left in here over a week will be thrown away.” And my personal favorite, “Your mother does not live here. Wash your own dishes.”
There were more, many more, and they all made sense. So much so that you’d think they weren’t necessary, except each of them was written in response to an anonymous violation of common sense and, sadly, I’d still occasionally see an empty coffee pot or dirty dishes left in the sink for someone else to wash.
The post-its didn’t solve the problem.
I suppose today we’d write down all the rules in a policy, get people to sign onto them and put up webcams to catch the violators.
That wouldn’t solve the problem.
We know this because collectively, as a people, we remember a story from thousands of years ago, when the very highest authority, God himself, gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Some of us may be able to recite them from memory. Most of us could get most of them and at least recognize them.
If I say, for example, “Honor thy father and mother,” you will probably recognize that. If I say, “Though shalt not cheat,” you will hopefully wrinkle your nose and say, “That’s not quite right. Cheating is clearly wrong, but it falls under “Though shalt not steal,” or “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” or maybe “Thou shalt not covet.”
Whether or not you can cite them specifically, they are foundational not only to our faith but to a large extent our sense of right and wrong. That often gets very complicated in how you think your way through specific circumstances. But there is a fundamental problem.
These commandments aren’t merely common sense post-it notes. We hold that God himself wrote them with his finger into those stone tablets. They cannot be said any more strongly than that. God, Almighty God, the One True God, who created everything, using his finger, cut them into rock. These aren’t general guidelines.
Yet, how are any of us doing with them? It’s a pass/fail test, and 99% is a failing grade. We should start with the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God…Thou shalt have no other gods but me.” No other gods. That means putting God absolutely first, ahead of self, ahead of family, ahead of work, ahead of hobbies and pastimes.
Number 2 is No idols. I doubt any of us have actual idols, but it ties back to that no other gods, in fact some translators put the “no other gods” with #2. Number 3 is not taking his name in vain, which is primarily about using God’s name to assert our opinions as absolutes.
Number 4 is tough: keep the Sabbath holy. Do you know how many times in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy God says do not murder? Once in Exodus and once in Deuteronomy, where the Ten Commandments are listed in each. He reminds us to keep the Sabbath ten times.
As we look at the next six, remember what Jesus said about violating these in our hearts is just as bad as physically breaking them.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
Thou shalt not do murder.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Though shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
And finally, what may be increasingly difficult in our age of consumerism and social media: Thou shalt not covet.
As we work through those commandments, it feels like we are walking across the thinnest layer of ice and one small misstep and we plunge into an abyss of God’s judgment. But it goes much deeper than a mere misstep. In his book The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis takes it much deeper than that.
"We have never told the whole truth. We may confess ugly facts, - the meanest cowardice or the shabbiest and most prosaic impurity - but the tone is false. The very act of confessing - an infinitesimally hypocritical glance - a dash of humour - all this contrives to disassociate the facts from your very self. No one could guess how familiar and, in a sense, congenial to your soul these things were, how much of a piece with all the rest: down there, in the dreaming inner warmth, they struck no discordant note, were not nearly so odd and detachable from the rest of you, as they seem when they are turned into words." (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Chapter 4, Human Wickedness)
That’s uncomfortable. That’s the problem. It’s not just what we do or even what we think, it’s the way our nature continually accommodates it.
All of my life I’ve thought of that in terms of an impossibly deep chasm that we just can’t cross and Jesus, loving us as he does, died for us to bridge that chasm. That remains helpful, but I thought of it differently as I’ve been contemplating Mark’s account of the Passion.
Remember, we’ve talked about this before, that the Greek word for sin is hamartia, which is an archery term which means literally “miss the mark.” The Hebrew word for sin is chet, which is an archery term which means literally “miss the mark.” That’s not coincidental. It’s not as though the arrow is falling short, though our efforts may fall short. The problem is direction.
We fail to keep our hearts and minds directed toward God. Often that comes out of distraction and too often it comes out of inattention. We impulsively do what the world says we should do, what the circumstances may drive us to do, without even thinking about it, without even trying to aim.
Jesus gave himself to be raised up on the cross so that the whole world might be drawn to him. The horror of the cross, the pain of the cross, the abandonment he experienced physically, emotionally and spiritually is the greatest expression of love the world has ever known. We must not turn our eyes away from such love. He died for our sin to redirect us toward him.
That’s directional. It’s overcoming our sin by suffering the consequences of humanity’s misdirection rooted in our very being. In a sense, Jesus then brings the target so close that turning to him is always right in front of us if and when we repent and focus on him.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1). That doesn’t mean following something you can’t prove. It is a matter of where you aim, what you seize as your target. Remember who he is, how he loves you. Turn to him and be saved.
AMEN