Note: I went with a totally
different introduction. I didn’t use any
of the first 1000 word in this manuscript.
It happens, often. But I liked
them, so I kept them here.
I’m intrigued by bumper stickers. I am always surprised when someone finds the world so simple and tractable that they can articulate their polemical worldview in 3-5 words
But Christians are
particularly into this form of ‘drive by debate.’ We loves us some bumper stickers. But
it always leaves me with 2 questions: 1) do you really want your worldview
evaluated by the quality of your driving
(I know I don’t, I am one of the 8% of Americans who considers myself a
below average driver…yeah, you do the math on that for a minute)…hey I may have
just inadvertently cut you off…but ‘my boss is a Jewish carpenter”…but secondly
2) Doesn’t God deserve more than 5 words.
Reality is too complex and beautiful and nuanced to be reduced to a
pithy one liner. Sound bites always lie
by omission.
When I was in undergrad
there was a promotional graffiti was right next to the Union. Student organizations could sign up to paint
it for a week. So from time to time if
we had a big event coming up the Christian group I was involved in would sign
up for it and get a crew out to paint it.
But one time, we signed up for it without a big event coming up. So about 15 students showed up without a plan…they just wanted to paint something that would be interesting and provocative and would get people thinking about Jesus. Now, I wasn’t there. But apparently the process of 15 people trying to distill Christianity into a single image or sound bite was painful. Of course it was. Reducing the beauty and complexity of the gospel to a single sentence or image is impossible. But apparently, they were there for literally hours sitting in the upstate NY cold…trying to come to a consensus on the single image or phrase that captured the essence of what we were about. Here is what they came up with:
And that is a pretty popular
way of thinking about Christian discipleship in our movement. Last year there was a viral video that took
over facebook for a week that essentially boiled Christianity down to this
idea. And while it was provocative and
did get people talking…and like most clichés …it is a cliché because it
contains real truth…like most clichés it also lies by omission.
We tend to reduce Relationship
= intimacy…but intimacy can’t be maintained out of nothing
Marriages that have no
content get dull…fast. Marriages that
don’t have practices get hard…fast.
Infatuation can maintain intimacy
for a while on the shear force of will and wonder.
But love, love requires
finding the loved one fundamentally interesting. Sustained intimacy requires content. There has to be “true facts[3]” about the loved one that
capture your imagination.[4]
So, while we (as the
teaching team here at CL) work hard to be practical…to focus on the ‘practices’
of maintaining intimacy with God…sometimes we just need to take a step back and
say…”But why? Why is God Awesome?” “You keep using that word.” And that…is
called…theology!
‘God’ is not a self defining word…Because he is infinite and omnipotent does not mean that he is anything we imagine him to be. He is a particular kind of being with specific characteristics and modes of operation that make him beautiful rather than dull and just rather than indifferent. HE is Awesome…in the purest form of the word…but for particular reasons.[5]
“Nothing in the Christian
system is of greater consequence than the doctrine of atonement.” –John Wesley
In undergrad I was a geophysics
major. Now a geology department which
isn’t known for being particularly friendly to spiritual things. But there was really only one professor that
was hostile to Christianity. But when I
heard his objection to Christianity it was surprising:
How can the actions of another person affect my moral destiny? How does morality accrue across accounts? If I am cosmically accountable for my behavior I don’t see how the actions of another person could affect my account. He essentially saw morality as these cosmic bank accounts that we can make deposits or withdrawals from…but there are no inter-account transfers. One’s person’s actions cannot accrue or withdraw from anyone else’s. So the idea that Jesus could somehow affect our moral and eternal destiny seemed odd.
Dan and I work really hard
to make talks practical. But sometimes,
you just gots to do some theology.[6]
WE want you to graduate here
with as many tools to live well as possible…but we also want you to think
carefully.
John Driver: No fewer than
12 motifs
In 1 Peter, we get at least
4 of these…which each kind of a connect with a cultural component of Peter’s
cultural life. [7]
So let’s walk through the
ancient world and 1 Peter and see if we can get a little deeper into what we
mean when we say ‘Jesus died for our sins’…and see if content doesn’t deepen
intimacy. Let’s start with two verses
that make a sandwich out of the passage Dan talked about a couple weeks ago:
1. Substitution (Temple)
1:2 “To those who are elect exiles of the
Dispersion…according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the
sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood”[8][9][10]
Now there are a lot of words
and phrases in that sentence that are confusing…but there is only one that is also
weird: “Sprinkling with blood”… “Sprinkling with blood…” sounds like something
out of a vampire cook book.[11]
1:19 but with the
precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”
The Pentateuch, especially
Leviticus, talks about sprinkling blood on things or people no fewer than[13] 15 times…blood is the most
common substance sprinkled in the Bible[14][15]
-When I was a skeptic and
someone challenged me to read the Bible…I was deeply confused when I hit
Leviticus and ran into all kinds of animal sacrifices and what seemed to be an
obsession with blood
But why is weird? We find ‘the blood of Christ’ to be an
awkward solution…because we don’t understand the problem. It seems like someone offering us a lifeboat
in the desert…or cliff notes of Madame Bovary to help us with our Chem lab…or
(the solution doesn’t match our perception of the problem). But this is where we have to pause and see if
ancient worldviews didn’t understand something about reality that we have lost.
Ancient religion both
Hebrews and the surrounding religions saw offenses against God as kind of a big
deal…in a way that we do not. In some
senses, the sacrifice motif addresses a problem we don’t think we have…it
answers a question we have stopped asking.
But it is a problem and a question that was at the front of the ancient
conscience…
What do I do about my cosmic guilt…how am I going to pay the moral debt I have wracked up?[16][17][18][19]
Illustration: Final episode
of Vikings – Ragnar the great - Season 1 ends with one of the central characters
offering himself as a sacrifice to the gods, with the image of his blood
spilling out on the table in an attempt to purchase some favor and good fortune
for his people who had displeased the gods.
Now, the Hebrew prophets saw this sort of thing as a broken distortion
of a correct impulse. They were
constantly telling the surrounding cultures and
the Hebrews to stop sacrificing people to Gods. [20] But the reality was intrinsic…Ancient
cultures had a sense that the gods had to be satisfied with blood…
Ancient customs which
betrayed a little desperation about our evil against other humans and against
our creator…often ended in blood.
Yahwehism was distinct because the blood wasn’t human blood.
The ancient religious
conscience recognized that guilt and justice required penalty for rebellion
against. That there is a moral, cosmic,
cause and effect. And you could either
face the penalty yourself or exchange a sacrifice. And by calling to mind the sacrifices of
Hebrew and other religions both in the OT and in Roman society (which is what
he’s doing by talking about “sprinkling with blood” and “the blood of a …Peter
says, the death and resurrection of Christ was the thing that all of these
things were pointing to. The human
impulse to seek to feel grave concern about the debt our injustice and
falseness puts us in before God and a kind of desperation make things ok with
God is right.[21]
Modern people tend to ask, ‘How
could a good God punish humans?
The authors of the NT asks a
completely different question If God is really good and just how God can he refrain
from punishing people immediately and fully without becoming morally
compromised. [22][23]
We have a problem and the
problem is us. Both 2:4 and 3:18 suggest
that the work of Christ is in some sense an exchange…our guilt for his
innocence…which is what the OT blood stuff was pointing to all along.[24]
And that is where blood and sacrifice came in because ancient
religion often looked for a substitute to take the brunt of the justice so they
could experience mercy.
This is a question that would not occur to most modern
people…but that doesn’t make it a unimportant question…just one we’ve stopped
asking.
And essentially, both of these dilemmas get down to the same
thing.
We assume God is merciful…but we also want him to be just.
They assume God is just…but also want him to be merciful.
But the interesting thing is that the ancient and modern
questions both end up with essentially the same dilemma…they just get to it
differently:
Justice and mercy are always at odds, yet God embodies both.
The question is…how can that be?
And you have had this
experience. You hear a news story about
something awful…but then you hear about the background of the guilty party and
feel something for them…and you are torn.
You want to extend love to the
perpetrator but also to the wronged. Part
of you wants mercy for the broken perpetrator and part of you wants justice for
the one who was wronged. But it leaves
you will all sorts of cognitive dissonance…because you can’t have both.
Illustration: Let me tell you about my most difficult
experience negotiating the irreconcilable nature of justice and mercy. About 8 years ago my Dad was driving home
from visiting my grandmother. He had
recently retired and a couple times a month he made the 2.5 hour drive to see
her. But on that particular day he was
driving around a bend on one of the windy country roads that are typical in the
finger lakes region of central new York…and a semi was coming in the other
direction…when a car came flying down the road and tried zip around the semi
and the double yellow line…smashing into my dad’s car head on…and in an instant
of reckless judgment…my whole family changed forever…mom was a widow…and our
children would never meet their grandfather…and the world suddenly seemed like
a much starker and scarier place without my dad standing between me and it.
Now the young man who did this already had a record, so
manslaughter was going to put him in jail.
But there was a strange nuance to the legal process that took me totally
by surprise. Part of the legal process
in manslaughter cases I didn’t know about was that during the sentencing process
the family of the victim is invited to make an appeal to the judge on how
strict the sentence should be. I
remember thinking: Are you kidding me?
What would I say? I don’t have
any background in legal theory or justice.
(I haven’t gotten that degree yet.)
How am I qualified to say have an opinion on sentencing? But that was mainly a smoke screen. You know why I didn’t want to do it? You know why I didn’t know what to tell the
judge…really? Because I had these two contradictory impulses inside me: an
impulse for mercy…and an impulse for justice.
I honestly felt a lot of compassion for the young man. He had a kid and probably a rough
background. Jail is not a restorative
character building place. But I felt for
my family too. My mom was devastated. Her life would never be the same. Their first grandchild was born 3 days after
the funeral. Real violence had been done
to my family…and I knew that that mercy towards my mom meant justice for the
one who had done violence to her. The real
reason I didn’t know what to say about sentencing was that I wanted justice…and
I wanted mercy…and couldn’t have both.
In the cross the justice and
mercy of God meet. God’s moral
seriousness is displayed and his desire to spare us what our actions deserve
even to his own pain is demonstrated.[25][26]
2. Christus Victor (Military)
“…through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has
gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and
powers having been subjected to him.” 3:22
We have a problem, and the
problem is us…but not just us.
Your personal forgiveness is
a very small part of the victory Jesus won over evil…
…angels, authorities, and
powers.
It is certainly true to say
that ‘Jesus died for your sins’…but it is such a tiny part of the story…that it
is almost a caricature
Seeing Jesus as your own
personal savior is a pretty small view of both what is wrong with the world and
what the Christian story is all about…your personal sin is not the biggest
problem with the world…but it’s kind of a big deal to you.
I was talking with my friend Peter Nittler, one of the CL
interns and he said “you know, it is kind of like a super hero movie.”
Think about a climactic battle in a super hero movie…say “The
Avengers” (slide) where the avengers are doing cosmic battle for the destiny of
our planet against aliens and these terrifying
giant flying critters that look like anti-gravity cross between a mosasar and a
eurypterid. Lets call them mosyptarids
(Eurypasaours?)
When all of a sudden, one of the avengers notices that there
is a kid in harm’s way. So he takes a
break from pounding on the flying mosyptarids
to scoop up the kid and bring him to safety…and then resumes opening a can
on the cosmic villains. Now getting
rescued is kind of a big deal for the kid, but is a very small part of the
cosmic conflict underway.
The gospel is not about your
sin problem.[27] It is about God rescuing you from your
sin. It is the story of God rescuing his
cosmic creation (including you) from the powers (human and otherwise) that are
destroying it…including you. We are both
the enemy and the object of rescue. And
that is the disorientigly sublime nature of the gospel and the reason that the
victory is so counter intuitive. The
victory is so counterintuitive because the objective is so
counterintuitive. God is waging a cosmic
battle to save his enemy.
Jesus died and rose from the
dead as dramatic, surprising, military victory…a final battle in which he defeated
evil and death and the powers[28] that had subjugated his
creation because humans…God’s chosen care takers of his creation…gave them
access.
Triple jump relay – In high
school I ran track…badly. We had state
champion sprinters…so I made the team as a freshman because they needed warm
bodies to throw at the distance events.
But as bad as I was at track…I was worse at field…in particular my
event…the triple jump. Here’s how bad I
was at the triple jump. I didn’t triple
jump quite as far as the best long jumper on my team. For those of you unfamiliar with track…that
is exactly as pathetic as it sounds. I
could not jump quite as far in 3 jumps as Kuan Gladney could in 1. In my entire 4 year varsity track career I
never scored a point in triple jump. My
coach just thought it would be a good idea for me to have something to keep me busy
between my two races which were the first and the next to last races on the
track.
So for the first event of my
senior season we went to a ‘relay meet’, which is kind of an exhibitional event
where all the races are relays…and since you can’t really do high jump or shot
put in ‘relay’ you put up a 3 person team and the added the scores. Now we had two very good athletes John and
Devon who were triple jumping for the first time that year…but neither of them
had done it before and I was the only other triple jumper. They were good sports about it, but you could
tell that once they realized my score was going to be added to their they knew
that they were just out for a few practice jumps and so I think they kind of
decided they’d just compete against each other.
Anyway, I went out and did my awkward, underwhelming jumps…and then headed out to anchor a ‘distance medly relay’ where I ran a mile at the end of a 2 and a half mile mixed distance relay. In the last 100 m of that race I caught a guy and moved us up from 6th place to 5th place…which, in my underwhelming track career, counted as a pretty big deal. I was pretty psyched about it. And right after I finished I looked up and saw my track coach coming over to me with a huge grin on his face. He shook my hand proudly and congratulated me. At first I was like…”Oh yeah, I’m the man…5th place…out of 8” But then when I thought about it, he was actually a little too excited. I mean, I’d passed one kid and managed not to get passed. I was proud of it, but it was hardly a big deal. Then my coach reached out his hand and was holding something I had literally never seen before…it was a blue ribbon.
Congratulations, he said,
you won the triple jump.
It turns out the other two
jumpers had gotten into some sort of almost super natural zone. It was like none of the other jumpers
mattered. They were in their own
universe…back and forth, pushing each other…each jump better than the next…they
put on a clinic…they had jumped out of their minds…putting up the two top
distances…[29]that when added to my silly
little jump to the two top distances…we won by a quarter of an inch…
…the only time I ever scored
in the triple jump…I won…even though I did not remotely deserve it.[30][31]
That is how this image of
the work of Christ ‘works.’ Life is a
relay meet…and the dark powers that are marauding this world (both spiritual
and institutional) are more than a match for us.
On our own, we lose…but by
aligning with Christ we can join the winning team.
We were made caretakers of
creation…but let the enemy in the gates.
The enemy plundered and trashed the land, enslaved us, and convinced us
that it was all for our good. The gospel
narratives are God’s unexpected and subversive sneak attach to take it all
back. The good news is that he is taking
back creation and will remake it. The
bad news is that, when he comes back to win the sublime victory, we are on the
wrong team.
So how do we respond…we
surrender. We lay down arms.
Illustration: A war where the vanquished
surrendered and were restored to citizenship.
When the North defeated the south in the Civil war…a change of
allegiance meant a full restoration of citizenship
Oh, and you get to choose a
team. Without the cross…you’d be on the
‘black hat’ team by default. The cross
lets us join the winning team.
Cultural artifact…the spell
is broken…the unwitting/unwilling army lays down their arms
Illustration: My middle child's parent teacher conference survey:
But the last one floored me.
She goes to preschool over at University Covenant Church so they asked her what she thought of Jesus
Her answer - Jesus is The Strongest King…
Now that isn’t language I’ve ever used with her. That is her own orriginal 4 year old theology. But I immediately thought.
Boyd: “By calling on disciples to join Christ’s rebellion against and victory over the ever-present powers, the Christus Victor perspective inspires disciples to live countercultural lives that aggressively resist the demonically seductive pull of nationalism, patriotism, culturally endorsed violence, greed, racism, and a host of other structural evils that arpe part of the spiritually polluted air we all breath.”
Last week I went to a student conference for our middle child,
who’s just about one of the most original human beings I have ever met.
Now this kid is 4. And
they had her fill out a survey that we could talk about at the conference.
Now there are a few details in this survey that are entertaining.
What I look like. Dude, my kid can bring it with a pencil. All of my kids are going to have to consider
the sciences because the arts are just not going to be an option. But on the topic of vocational aspirations…
What does my daughter want to be when she grows up: A
beautiful butterfly…That’s encouraging… I hear there’s big job market for that.But the last one floored me.
She goes to preschool over at University Covenant Church so they asked her what she thought of Jesus
Her answer - Jesus is The Strongest King…
Now that isn’t language I’ve ever used with her. That is her own orriginal 4 year old theology. But I immediately thought.
“…angels, authorities, and powers have been subjected to
him.” 3:22
She may want to be a butterfly when she grows up…but that
girl GETS the Christus Victor Model of atonement. She might think that he is the king of the
hexapods…but she knows, when Jesus goes to battle…he wins. I’ll take it.Boyd: “By calling on disciples to join Christ’s rebellion against and victory over the ever-present powers, the Christus Victor perspective inspires disciples to live countercultural lives that aggressively resist the demonically seductive pull of nationalism, patriotism, culturally endorsed violence, greed, racism, and a host of other structural evils that arpe part of the spiritually polluted air we all breath.”
CLers in the march against
rape[32] and walk for life
IJM…fighting evil is a totally legitimate thing for you to get involved in.
3.
Exchange/Ransom
(Business/Commercial)
But ransom language moves from the military realm of Roman life to the market place. Gladiator slave market.[33]
Boyd “Ransom” means paying
the “price of release” and was most commonly used of purchasing slaves from the
slave market. (A Roman slave market would have had slaves from all over the
world…the ransom language suggests that Jesus buys the freedom of a diverse
collection of slaves…not unlike the Michael Johansen image)
Rev 5:9-10 “By his blood the
Lamb has ‘ransomed’ a people’
Now, some translations will
use the word ‘redeemed’ here but the greek word is much more precise…it means paying
the “price of release” and first century literature most commonly used of
purchasing slaves from the slave market.
And that is what Jesus
did. He paid a price to free us from the
things that enslave us. The price for
our freedom…is himself. And he’s good
for it.
Now, ‘ransom’ is kind of a
culturally distant word. We don’t have public slave markets. So when we talk about someone giving their
lives in exchange to free a doomed captive in the last couple years…we might use a different term:
I don’t know…maybe
say…tribute.
“I volunteer as tribute.”
Illustration: This was unquestionably the best scene in the Hunger Games. For those of you unfamiliar with this story…all three of you…the story centers around two sisters – a younger sister Prim and an older sister Katniss. In what the call ‘the reaping’ Prim, the younger sister of the protagonist is selected to be shipped off to a gladiator style-to the death- battle where she will certainly die a horrible and public death. And Katniss, the protagonist, immediately rushes the stage and invokes a rule where anyone in the town can volunteer to take the selected…except it is very dramatic.
She rushes the stage and
yells “I volunteer. I volunteer as
Tribute.”
Now I’d show the clip…but there is a little bit of a technology problem...you see, this scene makes my eyes malfunction. I actually can’t watch it without them leaking…it’s this clear salty fluid…its weird. And this is frankly embarrassing, because men in their mid-30’s… are not exactly the target demographic of this story. So you’ll just have to imagine it with me.
But Katniss offering herself in place of her sister to free her from a dark oppressive slavery and painful public doom…volunteering as tribute…is precisely the kind of image that Peter is trying to leverage in this sound bite:
1:18 “…you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your
forefathers…”
Or
He volunteered as tribute to free you from the
patterns and cultural systems that are holding you captive.
Now the sequel is coming
out…and there is a scene in the trailer to the sequel that bridges us to our
final sound bite.
I feel like it isn’t a
spoiler to tell you that Katniss survives when there is a sequel with her
picture on the poster.
Prim: “You saved my life,
you gave me a chance.”
Katniss: “To live.”Prim: “No, to do something.”
What does Prim do? She joins the liberation movement…she becomes a medic and puts herself repeatedly in harm’s way. She wants to become a medic in the liberation movement, which terrifies her family.
But her logic is
unassailable. Someone volunteered as
tribute to purchase her freedom. She
couldn’t imagine using that freedom just ‘to live.’ She had to ‘do something.’ She had to get involved in the liberation
movement even at great risk.
But that’s the thing about
people who have been dramatically liberated…they realize that their life is too
valuable to waste… become liberators.
And if you get your head
around the ransom picture that Peter and others paint…neither will you.
The price for our freedom…is
himself. It is not unlike…the best scene
in the Hunger Games. I’m not going to
show it because I honestly can’t watch it without tearing up.[35] But you know the scene I’m talking about…”I
volunteer…I volunteer as tribute”
But the freed slaves…they
seek transformation (tie into Dan’s themes) and become part of a liberation
movement. They become a diverse
purposeful people.
Prim: “You saved my life,
you gave me a chance.”
Katniss: “To live.”Prim: “No, to do something.”[36]
What does she do. She joins the liberation movement.
Which leads to the fourth
idea:
4. Example
2:21 “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for
you, leaving you an example,
so that you might follow in his steps.”[37]
So as we have already
seen…to make Christ’s example the only thing the cross was good for…to reduce
him into a sentimental martyr that becomes a kind of good example for a heroic
life…is to gut the gospel. And that is
exactly what happened in Liberal theology in the early 20th century. Jesus is like Gandhi or Mother Teresa…his
heroic sacrifice inspires us to live lives characterized by heroic sacrifice…it
doesn’t even have to be true. And in
this way, they found a way to somehow keep going to church on Sunday…even
though they thought that Jesus, Paul, Peter et al were basically mistaken about
who Jesus was and what he did (for about a generation)… these churches are unsurprisingly
empty now…but that image that Jesus is a good guy…a sapiential prophet…is still
the dominant picture in the public consciousness…
But here is the problem with
the story of American Christianity in the 19th century. The Liberal faction of the church took one
part of the story and made it the whole game…and so more orthodox factions
started to shy away from legitimate implications and application of these
portions of our story…which incidentally is how we got entire generations of
Christians that weren’t interested in serving the poor and fighting injustice.
Just because it is not the whole story…doesn’t mean that it isn’t part of the story.[38][39]
The sacrificial love that Jesus showed us on the cross is a call to a lifestyle. But this fits very well with the other pictures. None of these pictures separate “how you become a Christian” and “How you live as a Christian.”
1. Our moral failure has been
healed by a devastating act of self giving, making us just in God’s sight…a
reality we actively ‘live into’ by putting off the old ways and habits and
putting on the new ways and habits.
2. We have surrendered to the
irresistible advance of justice and beauty into the cosmos…but it is still and
active battle, so we join it on the side of beauty and justice.
3. We are slaves that have been
purchase to freedom…it makes no sense to become anything other than liberators
ourselves
Jesus offers himself in
exchange for us…but we are saved, rescued, and ransomed…for a life of
articulating the gospel, resisting evil, and liberation.
These four metaphors do not
exhaust the biblical imagery of atonement.
We haven’t even talked about a couple of the images central to Paul’s
writings.[40]
_____________________________________
[1] I remember picking up “Knowing God” and expecting it
to be a mystical volume on how to develop relational intimacy with God…and was
really disappointed that it was essentially an abbreviated Systematic
Theology. Because I had bought the weird
cultural narrative that intimacy is based on experience with no component of
content. It didn’t occur to me that part
of ‘knowing God’ relationally would include ‘knowing what he is like’
[2] Mysticism is hard work…it requires diligent inquiries
into the truth and consistent spiritual practices. Mysticism requires theology and disciplines.
[3] I imagine a slide with two
opening images from the “true facts” series…and one that is mocked up “true
facts about Jesus”
[4]
Dorothy Sayers: “The
Doctrine is the drama.”
[5] Repeated declarations that “God is so awesome” can
only carry you so far. At some point,
you wake up and are 30, with a couple kids and a job, and ‘God is so awesome’
just doesn’t cut it anymore. You need
particulars. You need to learn to see
beauty in detail and complexity of his work and character. (PN - which is ironic because by truncating
it and trivializing it, we miss out on real “awesomeness”)
[6] If you grew up catholic or orthodox…you probably got a
little systematic theological training…but if you grew up in an evangelical
church or no church at all…you’ve picked up your theology peicemeil…
[7] My idea here is to do something like John Green’s
thought bubble animation segments of his history videos…he’d make blood
splatter in on the temple and the priest.
Instead of an outline…I’m going to invite them to walk through the
ancient world with me to ‘see’ how Peter describes atonement…walking from
institution to institution and describing how it illustrates atonement. I think the handout will be an annotated map
rather than an outline.
[8] Amanda’s bit about “it must have been messy to be a priest’s
wife”
[9] This reminds me of a recipe of how to get right with
God…put in X, Y, and Z…but whatever you do…don’t forget to sprinkle some
atoning blood. You can see my Italian
Grandma…’and then…just a sprinkle of blood’…* The Blood of atonement is like
yeast…obedience doesn’t work without it…it is the active ingredient though
invisible…but obedience is the bulk of what you see and do.
*footnote to the
footnote: IF SHE WAS A VAMIPRE…blood illustrations get weird fast…but that
isn’t new…the Romans thought that the early church was into cannibalism because
of confusion over blood metaphors.
[10] See Leviticus 17:11
[11] I had a bunch of jokes
regarding Edward Cullen that were 100% unusable
[12] We are actually a blood obsessed culture…because it
can transfer pathogens…in the ancient world…it could transfer life an guilt.
[13] Now, I’m a parent of a 2 year old boy…so I have some
experience with inappropriate sprinkling.
[14] Others include hyssop, dust, salt, and water
[15] Grudem “Sprinkle blood in the OT was a visual reminder
to God and to his people that a life had been given, a sacrifice had been paid”
p56…in only three places was blood ceremonially sprinkled on the people
themselves. (the initiation of the covenant, establishment of the priesthood,
and purification from leprosy
[16] “The Father,
because of his love for human beings, sent his Son (who offered himself
willingly and gladly) to satisfy God’s justice, so that Christ took the place
of sinners.” Thomas Schreiner
[17] My early church experiences revolved around a small,
rural church which was dominated by a giant statue of Christ dead on the cross,
suspended in the front. I didn’t get
it. Why does a weekly celebration of
God’s love revolve around such a grisly and depressing image. I asked someone and was told…Jesus’ death
‘opened the gates of heaven.’ So, I
thought, well, I guess that’s pretty bad ass.
There is a causal connection between his death and me getting to be with
God forever. I can see why that is a big
deal. But as I got older, the details
began to seem fuzzy. Questions like:
How? And Why? And even WHAT?!? Begin to creep up.
[18] The OT is bloody…but not just in the fighty parts…also
in its religion. A debt and an exchange.
A blood debt requiring a violent exchange.
[19] “For many of us the sacrifice of animals remains
abstract. (Not if you grew up on a
farm…but I digress…the Palin turkey clip could be interesting here) But reflect
on the violence of the activity: the blood, the entrails and the goriness of it
all. The death of the animals shows the
penalty for sin is death.”
[20] A decent amount of the OT is not about God’s people
doing too little religion…but too much, and getting involved in human
sacrifices. The Hebrew prophets are
always telling the neighboring peoples…’Hey stop sacrificing people…especially
children…to your gods. And occasionally,
they had to tell the Hebrews the same thing.
But from Mesopotamia to North America to Scandinavia to Peru…ancient
people had a spiritual impulse that we have lost…there is something in the
fabric of reality that takes rebellion seriously. Both explicitly, in the Hebrew Scriptures and
implicitly in the human impulse to placate the forces and cosmic personalities
of the universe with animal and human sacrifices.
[21] Add to the list of Ice and Fire illustrations I can’t
use…the special power of the blood of a king.
[22]
Paraphrased from Thomas Schreiner - 88
[23] Cam and the Lamb sandwich – I
brought a lamb sandwich to work after Easter and my friend Cam said “I just can’t figure out why Easter is this
like, kid holiday (something I hear a lot and it really bugs me) with candy
eggs and chocolate bunnies and lawn games…and then for dinner we have this dead
baby sheep.” It struck him as
incongruous. A flash of brutality in a
sea of pastel fun. Yes. Exactly.
On Easter, we celebrate an atonement that is beautiful but not
pretty. That is cleansing but not clean.
[24] Sin as Lawbreaking is impersonal à um, sin is very personal…it is rebellion…or spiritual
adultery as the OT prophets were want to describe it
[25]
ot sacrifices – uncashed check
[26] I’d like to find a good substitutionary atonement
illustration: Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis in Armageddon might work, Jack at
the end of Lost, I feel like there is something better.
Someone who is saved for
a purpose…Prim in the Catching Fire trailer
[27] (PN: It’s almost like in a Superhero movie in one of
those big battle scenes where civilians are in danger and the hero rescues one
in the midst of the battle… that need to be saved was very real for that
no-name character… but it’s a blip in the movie, it’s 12 seconds of a 2:45
movie… it would be foolish for that character to say that Superman or Batman or
Spiderman exists or existed to save them…
They are savers and restorers by nature and along the way to SAVING THE
DAY, their nature allowed them to save a life…)
[28] You know how we said that Christian community has
‘emerging properties’ where the beauty and utility of the whole is
qualitatively different than the sum of its parts…well the same is true of
human evil. Human evil transcends the
individual badness of humans participating in evil. It has feedbacks and magnifying effects. It is goaded and fed by cosmic evil. And this web of injustice and greed and
destruction, it takes on something of a personality of its own…which both Peter
and Paul refer to as ‘the powers’. So
Jesus came to disarm the powers…he is facing off against cosmic evil…and human
sin…but also structures of injustice…patters of degradation…evil systems that
are bigger than the evil of any one individual.
[29] We were made caretakers…and abdicated, choosing the
rebellion…and when the land is liberated…instead of being treated like rebels,
we can be reinstated as caretakers…but the human story is just a small part
of “Jesus died to save you from your
sins makes the story a little too small.”
What are ‘Rebels’ – the
good guys
[30] I picked the wrong team…I feel like there is a
cultural artifact that delivers this line
[31] (PN: I also think the curious case of Bengie Molina is
interesting… Bengie was the Giants catcher before Buster Posey and he got
traded to the Rangers the year Buster came into the league… Interestingly,
Bengie’s Rangers played Buster’s Giants in the World Series… I’m not going to
tell you who won J But what was interesting is that Bengie still got a
ring… even though he lost, even though he was the enemy, he had inherent value
after the Giants’ victory because he was part of it.. . even though he went to
a different team for a while and lost with that team, he still gets the World
Series win and a share of the spoils…
Not quite perfect maybe because he doesn’t come back to the team, but
interesting…)
[32] I was sitting in Pete’s one day and suddenly about 40
students march by chanting and holding signs.
It immediately caught my attention.
But upon closer inspection, 2 things drew my attention. First, they were all men. And Second, they were holding signs about how
its up to men to stop rape. I was
sitting with a couple friends and we nodded our heads at each other and said
‘that there is all right’. ‘Rape
culture’ is a thing and men bear responsibility in trying to change it. But then I saw a couple dudes from CL in the
mix…and it, frankly, made me really proud of them. I was glad that Jesus was in that mix…
[33] Ransom language is connected
to the Christus Victor language…because in defeating the devil he frees us
[34] Grudem: Lotroo – distinct sense “to purchase someone’s
freedom by praying a ransom’ and was used in secular contexts of purchasing
freedom for a slave or a hostage held by an enemy*.” It is a very specific verb with a narrow
semantic range. “saved” or “redeemed”
doesn’t quite do it. “Ransomed” is more
of the thing
*this ties it to the
military image…slave markets are filled by military campaigns…you probably
could tell how well the Germanic campaigns were doing by the ‘stock’ at the
slave market…but unlike the roman campaigns…God’s victory empties the slave
markets instead of fills them
Grudem points out that
you were ransomed from your slavery to ‘ways’ (“pattern of life”)…to patterns
that you got from your family or cultural…generational, hereditary habits that
hold you bound “an influence made by the accumulation of generations of
tradition in a society that valued such ancestral wisdom.” p88
[35]
Which is emberassing, because men in their mid-30’s…ok…late 30s…are not the
target demographic of this film.
[36] The “Exchange” in the first
hunger games seems like it would work for #1 but the question of ‘who is the
ransom paid to’ is a problem. (I
literally tear up every time I watch the “I volunteer as tribute” scene) In the
first it cuts the wrong way, because God is in the position of the oppressive
regime. This gets at the weirdness of
the debate. Did Jesus take our place to
satisfy the justice of God or to take the brunt of the Devil’s offensive. Well, yes.
But under the Ransom metaphor, the protagonist gives
herself in place of someone she desperately loves…lives…and then they battle
the oppressive forces together (spoiler alert: even to the point of huge cost). The clip is a little weird because Katniss is
reluctant to let Prim face the risks of joining the resistance (where Jesus
calls us to it), but I think the whole thing works under this heading.
[37] “The example theory of atonement rightly sees that
Jesus functions paradigmatically for Christians.” Schreiner p69
[38] Evangelicals do this all the time. Liberals distorted things and focused too
narrowly on one corner of the story. But
in response to this, we reject whatever corner of the story they focused on,
instead of give it its proper weight.
[39] We tend to
shy away from this because it became unduly central to Liberal thought, but in
its place as “a” component of the work of Christ, it is really important.
[40]
Not sure where to put this, but I want to tip my hat to the fact that by
looking at Peter’s categories, we are leaving out some big ideas.
