‘But why…?’ Salvation – worth thinking about. A sermon for Adel Parish Church, 2nd before Lent, 2024

Colossians 1: 15 – 20         John 1: 1 – 14

‘The Word became flesh and lived among us…full of grace and truth.’

The mind-blowing centre of our faith…the creative, all-powerful Word, with God from the beginning, chose to live a human life.

I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I was a strange and nerdy child. Growing up in my parish church, I absorbed our faith stories…and was quite small when I started wondering…why? Why would God become human?

Since then, I’ve read many possible answers. St Paul in today’s reading said ‘in Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.’

I love that. God created us in his image…wants a relationship with us…perhaps, the Word became flesh to help us know God.

But of course, there’s more. As Paul continues, ‘through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, by making peace through the blood of his cross.’

This I found even more puzzling as a child. Why the cross? Why did Christ, as people seemed to suggest, have to die? Why was his death unique? I picked up phrases like, ‘he died for our sins’…but they never made much sense.

On Good Friday singing, ‘Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all’…I knew something tremendous had been done for me, but I wasn’t sure what.

My logical, scientific brain wanted an explanation of how this salvation happened, though I never asked. It wasn’t until, at university, I met Christians from different backgrounds that I got a clear explanation. It was something like this:

‘God created humans, and gave them a beautiful world. But they messed up…sin broke in. Even the best humans couldn’t help doing wrong. God was angry at human actions. Because God is perfectly righteous and just, the wrongs had to be paid for, punishment was required. But God still loved us, so he sent his Son Jesus to bear the punishment on our behalf. Because he was a perfect human, Jesus’ undeserved death on the cross paid for our sin.’

Well it seems simple – but it bothered me. The God I experienced growing up wasn’t this angry rule bound God, determined to punish. He was a God of overflowing grace, far keener on forgiveness than I was.

And it didn’t seem logical. If God is all powerful, surely he could choose to forgive without punishment. If God is love, surely he would choose to forgive without needing to punish someone. And it only seemed to be about the cross, what about Jesus’ life and teaching…what about the resurrection?

Does it matter how we understand salvation, since it’s beyond human minds? I think it does; because how we attempt to explain it affects how we picture God.

The God of that theory is angry and violent, focused on guilt and the need for punishment. What he wants of us is obedience…saying we believe in Jesus seems more important than trying to follow his teaching.

It’s often said that we become what we worship. If that’s our picture of God, don’t we risk becoming an angry and judgmental church worried mainly about whether people have become Christians?

If that’s our picture of God, how do we help people already weighed down with guilt, who can’t believe anyone could love them? And what incentive does it give us to challenge oppression, change our lives…our world?

Because it’s easy to explain, I think this theory hovers around in society and churches even when it’s not taught. And although there’s probably some truth within it…I think it’s important we know there are other attempts to explain this holy mystery…beyond God looking on a sinful world and sending his son to bear the punishment in our place.

Other theories suggest the violence of the cross comes from humans rather than God. Human societies have long used a system of ‘scapegoating’. When times are difficult and there’s unrest, leaders choose a victim, usually an outsider, to blame for all that’s wrong. Killing or banishing the scapegoat unites society, calming it down…it looks like it’s worked, so clearly the victim must have been the problem.

Scapegoats can be individuals, or a group. The Nazis used the Jewish people; modern governments often use refugees. It might unite a society for a time, but it doesn’t solve problems, and I reckon targeting innocent people reduces our humanity and drives us further from God.

German theologian Karl Rahner suggested God loves us so much he was bound to come as Jesus…not as a response to sin, but to help our relationship with him.

Jesus’ life, teaching, actions, were a model of God’s love…they showed what it means to be fully human in the way God intended. When Jesus was angry it was with those who misrepresented God or oppressed others, not with sinners.

But Jesus’ teaching and his actions asked people to change their lives; those in charge felt threatened. So the powers used him as a scapegoat…uniting traditional enemies against one innocent man who was blamed for unrest and violence.

They no doubt thought they’d succeeded, until God responded with resurrection.

This understanding suggests God rejects our need for vengeance – instead, in Jesus, God chose to enter our justice machine, and so destroy the whole thing, showing it up for what it is. The cross was our attempt to destroy God’s love – the resurrection was God’s response. Jesus saves through his life, death and resurrection.

Edwin Muir, Orkney poet and product of a strict Presbyterian church where guilt and punishment featured large, wrote:

‘The Word made flesh is here made word again… and God three angry letters in a book’

We’ll never understand exactly how God saves, but it’s worth wondering about, and we can take care that the God we represent to others, isn’t, ‘three angry letters in a book.’

‘The Word became flesh and lived among us…full of grace and truth.’ We’re called to a relationship, not of fear, but of grace and truth. A relationship we can offer to a broken world.