"Christ Died for the Ungodly"

Exod. 17: 1-7; Ps. 95; Rom. 5: 1-11; John 4: 5-42

Dr. George R. Sinclair
Pastor

February 24, 2008

             “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly . . .”

             Someone has suggested that analyzing Paul is likely to ruin his theological claim. Better simply to have our hearts “strangely warmed.”          

I suppose there’s truth in that.  Too much analysis can ruin a good thing.  Some things should simply be enjoyed.  A few days ago, I enjoyed a sunrise like that.  I didn’t analyze it. It was a beautiful sunrise and gave me a sense of peace, of promise, of eternity.

Frankly, from an analytical point of view, I don’t know very much about the sun.  I know it’s 93 million miles from earth. And I know it rises in the east and that clouds add color to it, which leads to the saying, “Red sky at night sailor delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.”  But beyond that I don’t know much about the sun.

I know it’s made of gas and that it burns like a nuclear furnace. And that one day it will expand and consume the earth and then collapse and be spent.  I can’t say that knowing these things adds to my enjoyment of sunrises.  Maybe it does. Or maybe I’ve just been conditioned to associate sunrises with good things. Having seen the sun rise for 54 years, I’ve got a pretty good idea that it’s going to come up tomorrow.  I’ve had days, though, as I’m sure you have, when I thought tomorrow would never come, but then, the sun always rises. You can depend on it. When the sun comes up, it’s a new day. And new days are a good thing, especially if you’ve had a bad day or night.  It’s not called day break or first light for nothing.

So, I don’t want to over-analyze sunrises.  Most days I’m happy just to enjoy them.  And I can say something like that about the death of Jesus. There’s a part of me that resists analyzing the cross.  I’d just as soon be strangely warmed by the cross, if I understand that Methodist expression. But something in me, perhaps the Calvinist in me, won’t let it go at that.  While I do not wish to de-construct the cross, I am nonetheless constrained to ponder at some level Paul’s startling claim, “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”

Actually, startled, doesn’t begin to describe how I feel when I think about the cross.  Shocked is a better word; puzzled also works as does bewildered and intrigued.  There have been times when the cross has made me strangely warmed, but more often than not I find myself mumbling the words of the hymn we often sing at this time of the year, “Sometimes it makes me tremble, tremble, tremble.”

How do you get at the death of Christ?  How can we talk about Jesus dying for us?  How does his death save us from our sins?  I don’t want to over-analyze Paul, but I do want to get beyond slogans.  And, as much as I’m able, I want to stand under Paul’s breath-taking language if for no other reason than to be further enchanted if not haunted by the mystery of Christ crucified.

NPR’s Garrison Keillor grew up on a farm in Minnesota. He tells about a time when he and some other boys went to a hog lot and began throwing pebbles at two hogs.  Garrison’s father came along and caught the boys and demanded to know what they were doing. “Oh, we’re just throwing these little rocks.”

Garrison says his father took them to task, “Don’t do that. Those hogs are not here for sport.”

About a week later, Garrison stood by as his father and two neighbors killed those same hogs. Garrison wondered what was so wrong about tossing pebbles when his dad killed the hogs.  Garrison says he was grown before he realized what his father meant.  He says he remembers the faces of his father and the neighbors the day they butchered those hogs and hung them to cure.  The men didn’t talk.  They were very serious. “It was very sober business,” Garrison writes.  “Killing the hogs was ritual. We were tossing pebbles . . . ‘This meat will feed us for winter,’ his father said. There is a world of difference.”

Death, even the death of farm animals, teaches us about the profound mystery which presides over human existence, the limit none of us can cross. My grandfather died when I was nine, maybe ten years old. It’s my earliest recollection of death.  I remember the adults talking very quietly and my mother crying. I had never seen my mother cry.  There was discussion about whether or not “the children” would go the funeral.  The children were my baby sisters, four and five years younger than me.  They would not go to the funeral.  My older sister would go.  She was twelve.  I was in the middle, not quite young enough to stay home, not quite old enough to go.  I don’t remember being asked, but I went to the funeral and sat very still.

When we returned to my grandmother’s house I thought I saw my grandfather. I remember being very embarrassed and hoped that my grandmother didn’t hear me.  I was walking through the dining room and when I rounded a corner to the living room I came face to face with a man who looked just like my grandfather.  “Granddaddy,” I blurted out. And immediately I felt very stupid and embarrassed.  The man patted me on the head and said it was ok.

I have been with a number of people at the time of death—my mother for one.  I was with her when she died.  She lingered between life and death for some days.  I watched her take her last breath.  That was hard, but in some ways it was even more difficult when my father died. I was a thousand miles from home and got the news over the phone.  I felt very helpless.  When my mother died it was incredibly sad but there was also relief. She had been sick for a year. My dad died out of the blue.

More than most, ministers see death up close and personal.  It’s never easy and it doesn’t get any easier, especially when you’ve cared for people over a long period of time.  It’s like saying goodbye to family.

“At the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”  That Jesus died is not unusual. All people die. That Jesus was executed makes Jesus’ death more unusual. Most of us died of natural causes. That Jesus died for the ungodly is even more remarkable.  That his death rights what is wrong is almost beyond comprehension.

Why death?  Why must Jesus die to right what is wrong?  Why not a message like in the days of Moses? Why not a decree or summons or book of wisdom?  Thomas Jefferson would have liked that.  He cut out all of the miracles in the Bible—loaves to fish, walking on the water, water to wine—that sort of thing.

I haven’t read Jefferson’s Bible, but I wonder if he cut out the death of Jesus? And I wonder, if cut he Paul, “Surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.”  I don’t think Jefferson would have kept that part.  It seems so, well, so primitive. And perhaps it is.  What does it mean to say that one human being dies for another making right what is wrong?

Two things I’m sure it does not mean.  Jesus did not die to change God’s mind. And Jesus did not die to satisfy some strange quirk of God’s justice as if God was mad and somebody had to be punished.  Jesus died because he lived justly.  And Jesus died not to change God but to change us.  “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”

Paul talks about the death of Jesus proving God’s love.  On the face of it, we might say that love doesn’t require any proof, especially not God’s love.  There’s a sense in which we ought to simply take God at his word. If God says he loves us, then he loves us.  What’s to prove?  But love doesn’t work that way.

Jarrett and Casi are presenting their son for baptism this morning.  I’m sure they love Coleman.  I know they love Coleman. Even though he can’t understand them now, I’m sure they’ve told him so. They’ve taken him up in their arms: “I love you.” I’m sure they’ve said that.  But, they’ve also fed him; they’ve changed his diapers; sat up with him; rocked him to sleep.  They’ve done all sorts of things to show their love.  And when he’s able to say “I love you too” back, it will be great.  But when he is sixteen and it’s 3 a.m. and Casi is waiting at the back door, it will take more than, “Hi, mom. I’m home.”

Love gets tested, doesn’t it? It gets tested which is another way of saying that love gets proven. And sometimes when it’s darkest, we find out how great and true and strong love really is.  God proves his love when things can’t get any worse. God proves his love when he is betrayed. God proves his love when he is rejected. God proves his love when we turn our backs.  God proves his love when we nail him to the tree.  That’s what the cross says. The cross says God does not give up on us even when we give up on God.

Paul thinks that kind of love is rare among humans.  It happens but it’s rare.  And when it happens, at least so far as Paul is concerned, it’s for a “good person.”  Parents do that for their children—they sacrifice.  Husbands and wives do that for each other.  They sacrifice.  We know about sacrifice for good people.  But then, there is sacrifice for the not so good, like that cop out in California, the SWAT team member who was shot and killed.  He not only died for strangers, he died trying to save a guy who had killed three other people. So, sometimes, despite what Paul says, human beings die for people who don’t deserve it.  And that’s what Paul can’t get over. He’s amazed that Jesus dies for sinners. He even calls us enemies of God, ungodly.

I sometimes think that Paul didn’t have a very high opinion of himself or the human race—you know, that business about Jesus dying for the ungodly.  Paul suffers no illusions about the human condition, but his claim is about more than human depravity. Paul was astounded by love that would not let him go. Paul was astounded by the fact that as fast and as far as he ran from God, God kept up with him every step of the way, which is why Paul’s primary word for Christian faith is the word Grace.

Paul never recovers from his astonishment that God actually and truly loves him.  Paul never recovers from his astonishment that God’s love is pure gift. It haunts him. It baffles him.  And it moves him to go through hell and back to tell others: “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus.”  Through Christ “we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand.”  For Paul, it all comes down to Jesus, to his death.  The death of Jesus proves God’s love.

The great mystery which hangs over human existence and the profound limit which none of us can cross, becomes the last full measure of God’s love. Because Jesus died, we can stop worrying about where we stand. Because Christ died, we can live knowing our sins are forgiven.  Because Christ died, all that we’re ashamed of and all that we’ve ever done wrong is made right.  Because Christ died, we don’t have to worry about qualifying or being good enough. Because Christ died we don’t have to wonder if God is real, if God keeps his promises.  The death of Jesus is God’s Yes. And it is pure gift. It is grace. And because it is grace, because it is a gift, we can only receive it by faith.  Faith does not add to the gift. Faith can only answer gladly: Thanks be to God.  Amen.