49. Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

0:00At Become New, get 10 minutes of spiritual formation every weekday with John Orberg. There is now no condemnation. For those who are in Christ Jesus, Jesus came, the Bible says not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved and right at the heart of his saving the world, his death on a cross, and then his resurrection, today I want to think about his death. And I want to do that by considering a question that a real bright young person asked me some time ago, I don't understand why Christians believe Jesus had to die in a cross for God to forgive our sins. Why is that? I get the idea we've all done things that are wrong that we need to be forgiven for. Why couldn't God have just forgiven us?

1:00Even assuming that we're real guilty, why does having an innocent man die make it okay for guilty people to live? I've heard analogies, it's kind of like we owe to fine and he pays that because we couldn't pay it, but I don't find that real helpful because somebody being executed on a cross is not the same thing as paying a fine. Sometimes it gets explained kind of like God wanted to forgive us, but almost as if there was a law that said he couldn't without punishment so Jesus had to get punished in our place and that made forgiveness okay. But that would mean there's a law higher than God that doesn't make sense. So today I want to try to tell the story of the cross and give my best shot at helping you understand, there've been lots of thoughts and books written about this. I want to give my best shot to it today as we reflect on the nature and reason and meaning of the cross and in particular the story of the cross because it's not a formula.

2:06Fluttering Econo has asked one time the writer if she could put the meaning of her story in a nut shell and she said if I could put it in a nut shell I wouldn't need the story. Now this is the story about how the story of the Bible leads to the story of the cross and why it is that the story of the cross haunts the world for the last 2000 years and what I want to do is look at two truths that everybody in the ancient world believed in and then look at two modifications that God made to them as recorded in Scripture. And you can see if you believe those two original truths, if you believe the two modifications God made and then that will lead to an invitation for you and me to consider on this good Friday. It will take a bit longer than usual and I've written some things down to try to get them right. I want to begin by going way way back. If you know much about the Bible you may have noticed that back in the Old Testament especially if you're around the temple it was a bad time to be an animal.

3:11Animals get slaughtered on a regular basis, their blood gets sprinkled on furniture, fat gets burned on the altar, stuff that people for the ethical treatment of animals would never stand for was supposed to make human beings okay with God. Now here's kind of a weird thing you might not have noticed before. If you read the Old Testament then you will observe people are offering sacrifices from the very beginning, way before Moses gave any instructions about sacrifices, Abraham offered them way before them, Noah way offered them way before them, Cain and Abel offered them way before there was any law to instruct them. In other words, the idea of offering sacrifices did not get invented in the Bible. I used to not understand that. Offering sacrifices was pretty much a universal practice in the ancient world. There was something that all cultures even before Israel did and the question is why. Well, of course because people in the ancient world were dumber than us, right?

4:17We know how smart we are compared to them. So here are the two ideas that are associated with that ancient practice of sacrifice. One idea is this, we need help. People in the ancient world had the strange sense that human beings were not in control of the universe. They did not know that meat was just something you could pick up a trade or Joe's or Ralph's or whatever story grocery store you have around where you are wrapped up in Salafan. To people in the ancient world life and death and birth showed existence is mysterious and scary and painful that were mostly buffered from out to illustrate this. Sometimes you use the birth of our first childness and I went to Le Mans, they didn't let you use the word pain. We're buffered. So they said you might experience some discomfort. Nances in labor were their first child for more than 12 hours. The baby is positioned the wrong way at one point the doctor reaches in after 11 hours of labor and physically wrenches the baby around.

5:17Nance lets out a scream like I've never heard. I'm not supposed to talk about pain. So I said, dear, you experiencing some discomfort, not my best moment. In the ancient world they lived and died without hospitals and anesthesia in blood and pain and fear and hope that they knew they could not control. And they were struck by the strange mystery life comes out of death. An animal dies or a plant gets harvested so that I can be fed. And they all thought there was something sacred about this, something deep and holy. So in the ancient world generally meals involve the idea of a sacrifice to the gods. Generally meals were not secular events and this involves idea number one. We're not self-sufficient. We're not a control of the universe. We are somehow dependent. You can think whether or not you believe this. And it leads to the next belief that was generally held in the ancient world.

6:21There is another realm beyond this world. There is a transcendent realm. A Yale professor named William Gilder is noted that in the ancient world, including Old Testament days, people thought of sacrifice differently than we do. We think if you sacrifice something, it's gone. You've lost it. In the ancient world, sacrifice was not about losing something, Gilder wrote. It was about transferring something. It was about moving something from the human, ordinary, common, earthly realm to the divine realm. Sacrifice to make sacred. We'll talk about sacrilege. Sacrifice was to make sacred. This is why you see a phrase about sacrifices, dozens of times in the Old Testament. In the book of Numbers, it talks about giving an aroma pleasing to the Lord, offer a burnt offering or in Leviticus. It was a burnt offering, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord.

7:27That aroma, do you like the smell of steak on a grill? Or if you're a vegan, a veggie burger with quinoa, I love quinoa and avocado? The idea was that aroma, that scent, would rise to heaven. What was being sacrificed now belongs to God. But people on earth would still eat it. Sacrifice is what might be called the great transfer. Sacrifice was the means by which what was merely earthly would come to be present and useful to God. Or the gods. Scott named John Walton writes in the ancient world, the idea was that between people and the gods, there was what he calls the great quid pro quo. You scratch my back, I'll scratch your back. In the ancient world, they thought about the gods this way. People were created in the ancient New Eastern myths because the gods needed stuff. There were lots of gods and they were not omnipidant, they certainly were not all good.

8:29So people were to provide housing for the gods. That's what temples were for. Different temples for different gods. People were to provide food for the gods. That's what sacrifices were for. And this would make the gods happy in an exchange. The gods would give people wealth and health and fertility and make people happy. This literally had to serve as what we today would think of as butchers. In the ancient Near East, if you were poor, a temple was probably the only place you would ever get meat, temples in a sense, although they were, there was something transcendent about them, but they were restaurants. We still kind of have remnants of this in our day. Have you ever seen a restaurant in our day with giant golden arches in front of them, where you can get meat, where they serve happy meals? So these were the two ancient ideas that undergird the practice of sacrifice. We need help. We're not self-sufficient. And there is a transcendent realm. There is a transfer that's needed.

9:31Now what happens in the Bible is it's not that Israel invented the idea of sacrifice. God's taking an idea that's already universal in the ancient world for a bunch of reasons, but then dramatically modifying it to teach people two key lessons, two new truths. You can see what you think about that. Ancient ones, we all need help. There's a transcendent realm. Now God is going to teach, number one, there is one all loving, supremely good God. Not a bunch of needy gods out there. He taught them that there are not many tribal gods. There is one great God. This by the way is why Israel you might have noted this, had only one temple. They were unique in the ancient world in this way. Only one God there for only one temple. He taught that human beings were not created because God needed someone to feed. No more quid pro quo. Human beings were created because God wanted somebody to love. He doesn't need anything.

10:32So Psalm 50 for example, took time for the Israelites to come to learn this. God says, I have no need for a bowl from your stall or goods from your pens. Every animal in the forest is mine. If I were hungry, I would need to tell you, for the world is mine and all that's in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink that blood of goats? See, this is an idea that took time to take root in the human mind and the human race that was revealed through Israel. Therefore Israel was to stop eventually offering sacrifices to idols. I'm sorry, they really stopped immediately offering sacrifices to idols. Eventually they would stop offering sacrifices at all. I will note here, offering sacrifices to idols is not in practice that ended in the ancient world. The man gambles away. All of his income and his savings for the thrill of a win that will never come. A workaholic sacrifices her family and her health to an idol called success.

11:36An athlete injects himself with substances that will destroy his body. A teenager sacrifices herself on an altar of alcohol or opioids. A man sacrifices his marriage and his self-respect for one more illicit sexual thrill that he doesn't want, that he can't stop. The question is not, will we sacrifice? It's the nature of human life. The question is, what are whom will we sacrifice to? So, this first modification is teaching that only one object will not betray us in the end. Only one is worth our devoting sacrificing our life to an ends God. And then there's a second modification, which is just as there is one great God, there is also one great, intractable, insoluble for us human problem.

12:38God used the practice of sacrifice to teach Israel that there is something wrong with the world, but it's not what ancient folks thought they ought to offer sacrifices for. It's not out there, it's not that famine or that drought or wanting that wealth. See, idolatry is a lot more attractive in some ways than the faith of Israel because it said the problem is out there. So, I offer sacrifices to get those gods up there to give me that out there, which I want. And then I'll be okay. The God of Israel says, the most fundamental thing that's wrong is me. It's in me. The Psalmist, Psalm 51, you do not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it. You do not take pleasure in bird offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh, God, you will not despise. We're all resistant to this idea that the real problem is sin.

13:39The real problem is in me. I went to Dennis while I go and the person cleaning my teeth kept shaking his head and clucking his tongue. Do you drink a lot of coffee? I held the one finger because you can't talk in that moment. Do you smoke a lot? No. Do you? Do you ever floss? I floss every day. I bet I floss a lot more than you. He was teeth shaming me. All we like teeth have gone astray. About a hundred years ago, the London Times is supposed to have sent a letter to a number of famous authors asking them, what is wrong with the world? And Christian writer and what GK Chesterton sent this reply, dear sirs, I am yours. GK Chesterton, I'm the problem. There's one great problem in its envy. So now sin is not breaking arbitrary rules that are probably too strict and severe and Victorian and prudish and moralistic.

14:42It is sacrificing my life to that which is not God and cannot save and damages me and damages others and I need to be forgiven and I need to be healed and I can't do this myself. I don't have the strength. I can't. I can't. So now the story goes on and the fullness of time got himself comes to earth in the form of Jesus. Jesus went on to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near repent and believe the good news. Over those ancient truths we need help. There is a transcendent realm and now in Jesus, aha, that transcendent realm has come. The kingdom, the reality, life in God's presence and power and favor and getting help from them is now available. The great transfer has begun. We can now live on earth in the divine realm. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it isn't happened.

15:46But the problem is that there are other wills on earth. Your will be done on earth, but there are other wills that resist God's will, Caesars will. That's a problem. Herod's will. That's a problem. Pilate's will. That's a problem. Who else has a will that can be stubborn and rebellious and self-centered and blind? That would be me and you. Now, every human kingdom, we watch this in our day. Every nation seeks to put down rebellion by force. It will inflict suffering and death on the rebels. But in Jesus, and this is what caught everybody off guard by surprise, in Jesus, a new kind of power has been released. Now, this is going to bring us to the cross, not the power of force, the power of self-sacrificing love. Turn the other cheek. Go the second mile, forgive 70 times seven. In other words, Jesus was going to take on the power of evil and hate and sin and hell.

16:52Defeat the powers by showing that the power of self-sacrificing love is far stronger than them. He's going to defeat them, not by using their weapons of coercion and power and strength and overwhelming and decimating. By self-sacrificing love, this put him on a collusion course. All of his life as he knew it would with every human heart. He did it all through his life to the powers that opposed him, Caesar, Pilate, Herod, Crouch, religious leaders. And this battle see climaxes is somehow encapsulated on a cross. Here's how Paul puts it. God forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, kneeling it to the cross. And having defeated the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing

17:53over them by the cross. They thought they were kneeling him to the cross, and they were, but in doing that, ironically, the powers and the authorities. Who is that? Herod, Caesar, soldiers, the crowds, Satan, every will opposed to the will of God, every kingdom opposed to the kingdom of God. They thought they stripped Jesus, defeated Jesus, made a public spectacle of Jesus, triumphed over him by the cross, Paul says it was exactly the opposite. In the cross, on the cross, it was Jesus defeating them. But it's how he defeated them that changes the world. Jesus was defeating the capacity of evil and hatred and sin to inflict suffering by his ability to endure suffering with holy and forgiving love. He was making a public spectacle of them showing up evil and sin and hatred for the stupid,

18:54bloody, small-minded, ultimately powerless forces they really are. He was stripping them of their power to entice and seduce and tempt. One of the most famous fights of all time involved two boxers, Muhammad Ali and a younger fighter named George Foreman. Foreman at that time was undefeated for you know, he just destroyed people. Muhammad Ali was getting old. No way could he beat Foreman with a frontal assault. So he came up with the single most famous piece of strategy in the history of fights. He went to the edge of the ropes, that old man, and leaned on the ropes and covered up and let Foreman pound them. Wear himself out till he had nothing left. Ali defeated Foreman because his capacity to absorb suffering was greater than Foreman's capacity to inflict suffering. And he called it his ropedope strategy, ropedope strategy.

20:01Now just as in the incarnation, God's ultimate nature was revealed to us through Jesus. In the crucifixion, God's cosmic battle with sin, evil, darkness, hell, Satan was made visible there on that cross. And it's like Jesus was saying, come on, hey, do you worse? Come on. Come on, fear that all you can do, give me another shot. Another nail. Come on, sin. Do you worse? Come on, dev. I will not stop loving. I will not stop forgiving. My capacity to absorb suffering and keep loving is stronger than your capacity to inflict suffering and keep hate. I will help you hate. I will help forgive your sin. Paul writes, none of the powers of this world have known this wisdom.

21:04If they would have, they never would have crucified the Lord of glory. On the cross, through the shedding of his blood, Jesus was defeating hatred and sin, including ours, due forgiveness and love. The cross sees the ultimate expression and fulfillment of the truth that ran all through the Old Testament. Sin, hatred, ego, self can only be defeated, finally, by self-giving, sacrificial love. In the kingdom, the greatest is the lowliest. That's what we consistently have a hard time understanding. We think coercion, the ability to force, to impose your will, that's strength. That's might. That's what counts. Nope, nope. It's going low. And the cross was as low as you could go. Paul writes, being found in an appearance as a man, Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient

22:07to death, even death on a cross. That's why Jesus had to die on a cross. Not in the sense that God wouldn't have been allowed to forgive us. Otherwise, God didn't forgive anyway that God wants to, as part of being God. Jesus descended as low as anybody could descend in order to defang the cross, in order to expose the cross, hatred, abuse of power, sin, and in doing that, He transformed the cross. And that's what remember, that's why we worship Him on Good Friday. Nobody could have predicted that the cross, a symbol of unbelievably degrading execution would become the most famous and revered symbol in the world. But as followers knew it, Paul said, for my part, I'm going to boast about nothing.

23:08But the cross of our master, Jesus Christ, now the Romans said, why in the world would anybody boast of a cross, you know, boast about an electric chair, you know, boast about a guillotine? Because the cross declared that evil at its worst is no match for God at His best. Because at the cross, He was turning everything upside down, but that really showed everything right side up in the kingdom. Now, we need help, there is a transcendent realm, there is one good God. The real problem is me, my own sin, my own brokenness, these truths are revealed through the cross, now the great invitation. You are invited to become a man of the cross, a woman of the cross. Our response to the cross inside the church is sometimes misunderstood.

24:09Sometimes people think, oh, the good news is Jesus died in the cross, so I don't have to. No, no, no, no. Jesus was crucified so that I could be crucified with Him. Paul says, for I have been crucified with Christ. And again, this is part of the long story, why he had to die in a cross, there is deeply embedded in the universe, what might be called the law of sacrifice. The mother sacrifices her body, her pain, her time so that a child can be born, a seed grows into the ground and dies so that a grain can live and be fruitful. Only people who have a cause that is worthy for which they are willing to die have a reason for which it is worthy to live. That's why the question is not will we offer ourself a sacrifice, it's just, what will

25:11I offer myself as a sacrifice for? Strange thing about George Foreman, when he was winning, he got wealth, fame, pleasure, everything everybody thinks that we want. He says he was mean and he hated everybody. His life was all about him. He had six sons, do you know what he named them? I'm not making this up. George Jr. George the second, George the third, George the fourth, George the fifth. Whatever he lost, after he was defeated, he met God. Get a very powerful experience of the crucified Christ and to become a preacher, a man of great joy, widely described as lovable. This is the law of sacrifice, the power of the cross. That's why Paul says, this is the invitation now for you and me on this day, therefore I urge you brothers and sisters to present your body as a living sacrifice to God. Remember, a sacrifice isn't where something gets lost, the sacrifices where something

26:14gets transferred and the cross is the place of the great transfer. Follow God's example, Paul writes to the Church of Ephesus, therefore his dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, or Paul to the Church of Corinth, for we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ. Tom Wright, great New Testament scholar of our day, writes in one of his books about an archbishop who told the story three teenage boys who decided to have fun by making up outlandish sins to tell that confession. Just trying to humiliate the priest and to the boys ran away, but the priest told the third boy he was going to give him a penance.

27:16Go to the cross, he said, and look the figure of Jesus in the eye and say, I don't give that for what you did for me. And the boy did it once and we did it twice. But for some strange reason, the third time you couldn't get the words out, and he looked at the man on the cross and he got all choked up. And Tom writes that the archbishop said, I know it happened because I was that boy. It is a strange thing. We celebrate Jesus born in a manger. We rejoice in Jesus' risen from the grave, but we meet him at the cross. There is now no condemnation.

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