Last week we started with…
If you ask different people, “Why did Jesus die on the cross?”
You will probably get lots of answers from “I don’t know” to “the forgiveness of our sins” to “Jesus victory over death, hell, and the grave”
The simple answer is Jesus chose to die because God loves us! After all, you are the one He loves the most!
This is simple and complex all at the same time….let’s look at something 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. 2 It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. 3 I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said
“Christ died for our sins” what does that really mean? In the Greek the word “for” has multiple meanings….”for the benefit of,” “in place of/instead of,” “because of,” “as a representative of,” or “for the reason of.”
We learned that death entered humanity because Adam and Eve broke trust with God. In His severe mercy, God protected us from living forever in corruption. However, wanting to stay connected with humanity, God created other ways for mankind to connect through animal sacrifice.
Through the offering of animals, they watch as mankind gives the blood of blameless animals to God and God accepts them….God was showing us how real death happens as a result of our choices….they saw the very tangible consequences but also saw how a loving God wanted to persevere human life through death. A blameless representative goes through the flames of the altar on behalf of another, surrendering and preserving life. Creating a type of death that overcomes death.
Later in the story when Israel has a homeland that establish a temple where two cherubs from Eden are embroidered on a veil and an altar ‘representing the flaming sword are still guarding the entrance to the presence of God.
First in the garden, then the tabernacle, and in the temple no one can pass through the cherubim’s blockade to enter into God’s presence because like the first humans we have all been corrupted by death by choosing to trust in our own wisdom rather than God’s. (Photo POF 2-1)The Cherubim are a reminder to us that we are all outside of God’s presence his perfect garden and are stuck in the dust of the earth. BUT the symbol of the blood sacrifice of the animals providing entrance into His presence show us that God’s love for us will not be stopped. It is His desire to connect with us and to restore eternal life to humans.
He loves us too much to abandon us. Hundreds of years of ritual sacrifice pass by, while the rituals and sacrifices give guidance and lend some understanding to the people, it falls far short of resolving the problem. God wants to regain intimacy with mankind and heal the corruption and death that man caused by his lack of trust in God. People experiencing the fruit of this corruption begin to long for some hope of a resolve to this pattern of corruption and death.
That is what brings us to the cross….
The opening lines of John’s Gospel gives us insight into a sudden plot twist. The creator of everything, unchangeable, infinite, unfathomable, and undefeated chooses to join us in our corrupted and dying state outside of the perfection of his garden..
John 1:14
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
God, the creator who created everything including the perfect garden becomes human and made his “home among us” That phrase means he “tabernacled with us” joining us outside of His place bringing his physical presence into our corruption.
BY choosing to leave His perfection to join us in our corruption, he is choosing death. Jesus died because we die! The Genesis story we talked about last week showed us that the only way to reenter the place of perfection, true intimacy with God, would be through death. Remember the cherubim with the flaming sword. The deadly reentry into the garden is all about our surrendering our own definitions of what is good and evil that leads us to death. Remember the tree where adam and eve ate the fruit. God prophesied through the pattern and rituals of the tabernacle and temple that through the blood of these animals he will preserve life through death.
God did that for us, he stood in our place!
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV)
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus was made sin for us even though he knew no sin. Jesus took on all the weight of our separation, he took on the corruption and death shared by all of humanity even though he never knew or chose sin!
We gain the meaning of the cross here! This is God laying down his own human life with love for us, on our behalf and for our good!
In Christ, God meets us outside of the garden and through death passes the lethal cherubim sword boundary that guards our way back in! How do we know?
In Jerusalem on the day Christ was crucified and the very moment of his death, this happened
Matthew 27:50,51
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split,
The veil with the cherubim embroidered on each side, guarding the holy of holies, was torn in two (POF2-2)opening the way to all who would accept Christ to enter into the presence and intimacy with God again!
Access to God’s presence is restored!
John 10:9,10
Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. 10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
John 17: 20-23
I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.
Jesus opened the way for that communion with the Father, unity again with his presence and intimacy. (photo POF2-3)
When Jesus is raised from the dead as the same human that died He exposes a well hidden secret….we thought death was the ultimate end but Jesus’ resurrection says otherwise. This lifeless end you fear is not real through Christ we now know we have life eternally. The garden has been opened again there is no longer fear in death! Fear of death gets us to hoard our resources, fight with our neighbors, make swords for killing our enemies. We are all living outside of the garden and the fear of death is woven into our DNA. It is inescapable as a part of the human experience….UNLESS a human could show us that death is only temporary and not the ultimate experience.
If we choose to follow him to believe in Him then slowly his love touches every part of us and grows deeper in us and drives out all fear! Because our intimacy with Him has grown.
His real love for us, the intimacy with Him causes us to desire to love instead of hate, to forgive always, to bring hope and to bless others rather than curse others.
We still see death as tragic as our hearts hurt for our loss and their gain because it is not an end, we have hope, we choose to start living a life-giving, garden style of life.
This is why Jesus died for us. He had to die because we die and he had to die so we might live. It is God’s way of never giving up on his desire to have that intimacy humanity had rejected.
Paul put it this way…
Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God reveals his love for us and to us by the reminder of Christ death on the cross. God entered the world of death and dust so that we could continue to live through death and return to the intimacy and life God had planned for us….as Paul said, “Christ died according to the scripture” but he died because He loves us! We celebrate this knowledge, this intimacy every 8 weeks or so as we celebrate communion as we do today