Good Friday 26- The Center That Holds

The weight of sin that Jesus wore, and all that he took on his shoulders to heal us.

Transcript

Dali And The Cosmic Center

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is a painting by Salvador Dali called Christ of St. John. And he wrote about the conception of this painting. He said, In the first place, in 1950, I had a cosmic dream in which I saw this image in color, and which in my dream represented the nucleus of the atom. This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense. I considered it the very unity of the universe, the Christ. The center of the universe, as a metaphor and as a physical reality, has been part of the quest of humans for the entirety of our existence. What animates the cosmos? What is the secret of life? The ancients used to believe that the earth was the center of the cosmos. For many physicists and scientists in our own day, the center of the universe happened 13.8 billion years ago. That according to the Institute of Physics, the energy making up everything in the cosmos that we see today was squeezed inside an inconceivably small space, far tinier than a grain of sand or even an atom. Then this unimaginably hot and dense cauldron, for whatever reason, ballooned at a terrifying rate. For whatever reason, is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The universe has been expanding over that inconceivably long duration of time from that one singular point. For some of us in here, we don't spend much time thinking about the origins of the universe or the physical structure of the cosmos, but we do think about the figurative center of the cosmos. What is life all about? What makes it meaningful or coherent? How can I be good? What indeed is the center of the universe? Now, obviously, both the physical scientific accounts and the philosophical theological accounts are hotly contested. The atheist claims that there is no consciousness, no mind at the center of the universe, only power, energy. Many people in our own age subscribe to the notion of a karmic and depersonalized universe. They'll make vague statements like love is the center of the universe. But this brand of love usually is bland, has less than solid contours, and certainly not a name. W.B. Yates, in the early decades of the last century, with its swirling chaos and mindless march towards worldwide warfare, concluded hauntingly. Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. The Christian claim which brings us here tonight is that the center of the universe is God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, hanging on a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. Now, this is an incredible and an incredulous claim that was in the Apostle Paul's words foolishness, folly, gibberish to the pagan sensibilities of the first century, and a scandal to the people of Jesus' own heritage. It's the cross of Jesus that brings us together tonight, and I want to take just a moment here to draw us into the wonder, the majesty, and the gravity of what Jesus did for us on the cross. And why, striking though it may be, I believe, and I'm not alone in that belief, that the cross of Christ and the God revealed there is the center of the universe, both physically, figuratively, and historically. John writes, so they took Jesus and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called the place of the skull, which in Hebrew is called Galgatha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Now it's always important to remember that Jesus was a Jewish man. When John talks about the Jews, he's not talking about denigrating a group of people. He's talking about the Jewish leaders who were opposed to Jesus' ministry. The Gospel writers tell us that Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, the place of the skull in the center, in between two brigand rebels. The Romans had a habit of crucifying rebellious people in order to demonstrate Rome's unimpeachable, unstoppable authority. This is why the claim that brings Jesus to the cross from the Roman procedural standpoint is that he claimed to be a king. This is why Pilate keeps asking him, so you are a king. Several hours before his crucifixion, Jesus had prayed viscerally in the garden in other gospel accounts. Matthew and Luke report him as alone, afraid. Father, if it be possible, take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but your will be done. Socrates, another ancient martyr of truth, was sentenced to die by poisoning. We're not told of any anxious anguish or terror on the part of Socrates. He simply drinks the hemlock, accepting his fate. The juxtaposition between these two is stark. Why is Jesus in such horror at what awaits him? Does it tell us something about Jesus' character or his own self-understanding? That he doesn't accept death with serene equanimity, but rather protests. John's gospel presents Jesus as resolute. This is his hour. In John 12, John writes, Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say? Father, save me from this hour? No. It is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. The crowd standing there heard it and said it was thunder. Others said, An angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered, This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to indicate the kind of death that he was to die. Now Jesus here is speaking in days before this crucifixion moment that brings us here together tonight in John 12. And he's foretelling the kind of death that he's going to die. And it will most certainly be an ironic exaltation, accompanied not by acclamations of his greatness as a king, a crown of gilded gold or a robe of finest cloth. Rather, it will be an exaltation hailed by curses, a sharp crown of jagged thorns shoved onto his head, a purple robe of degradation and contempt. But this lifting up, this exaltation will somehow draw all people and the entire cosmos to Jesus himself. Jesus mentions here being lifted up. And certainly the Roman practice of crucifixion involved raising a person above the ground. But everything else about this scene would suggest that Jesus is not being exalted, not being lifted up, but he's being crushed, ground down to dust, that this that we are witnessing in the gospel accounts is a burial. The air pressure at sea level is measured in a unit called atmospheres. For every 33 feet of saltwater depth, the pressure increases by another atmosphere. At the depth of 12,500 feet, where the remains of the Titanic lie submerged in the North Atlantic, the pressure is similar to the weight of disproportionate force if you could somehow take the Statue of Liberty and place it on a penny. The lowest known point on Earth, it's called Challenger Deep. It's measured at 36,000 feet, or Mount Everest, plus 7,000 more feet below the ocean. A human body, without the aid of technology, cannot withstand depths of more than 140, 150 feet. The ocean's inconceivable weight will compress our lungs and instantly vaporize the human frame. Sometimes we focus too greatly on the physical suffering of the cross. We see this in Mel Gibson's The Passion, this prolonged focus on the torture and the anguish of the cross. The gospel writers don't really do this. But they do pay a lot of mind to what Jesus endures on the cross as he bears what Anselm calls the weight of sin at Calvary. From a procedural standpoint, the cross of Jesus is a conspiracy of the Jewish leaders who thought Jesus a blasphemer and false prophet. And a Roman and the Roman imperial government, which erased small-time rebels like Jesus from the earth with great regularity. There's collusion and conspiracy of these great institutional forces. The faith of the Israelites and its law, its rituals, its stories, is among the greatest religious systems in the history of humanity. The Roman government, with its duration, brutality, expansive empire, bureaucratic complexity and legacy, among the greatest political entities the world has ever known. These institutional pressures are converging upon Jesus. Pressures of justice, of theology, the state, the throne, the priesthood. But it's not just systemic institutional pressures. It's personal, individual pressures that are weighing upon Jesus. Jesus commits no wrongs, yet is convicted by the state. He is abandoned by most of his friends during his hour of greatest needs. He bears the weight of people's expectations for hope, for peace, for liberation. And he is nailed to the cross. And this disappointment is reflected in the forlorn words of the Emmaus pilgrims on Easter Sunday. We had hoped that he was the one. But it's not just institutional pressures that are converging upon Jesus. It's not just individual pressure that is converging upon Jesus. Paul, in reflecting on what the cross combats, will write that we are against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6 says, our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Jesus says, it's now time for the ruler of this world to be driven out. Individuals and institutions, though they have human faces and structures, are in the clutches of inhuman forces. They metastasize cruelty and indifference. The New Testament will refer to sin with a capital S as a power, a pharaonic overlord enslaving people. Dorothy Martin says sin is a powerful force that grips us beyond the sovereignty of our wills. It's not just that we commit errors and wrong, we are in the power of a force that is much larger than us. And sin's corroding accomplice, death, as the ultimate insurmountable tragedy and limit. At Calvary, all of the sin, death, shame, guilt, evil, institutional and systemic all coalesce into a singularity and they all converge upon the Savior. I made a slide for you just to illustrate briefly what this looks like. All of this weighing upon Jesus, and as all of it, the weight, this oceanic weight of sin is laid upon the Savior, he cries out, Elohi, Elohi Lama Sabactani. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Father, Son, and Spirit, in one Trinitarian movement of love, embracing forsakenness for the sake of the world. Him who knew no sin, becoming sin for us. These pressures, the institutional, the individual, the inhuman, the insurmountable, what Anselm calls the weight of sin, all converge upon the one lifted up. And these pressures crush him to the ground. So how? How then can he claim to draw all people to himself? How can this be the center of the universe? How can the center hold? The cross of Jesus is the center of the universe, the center that holds, because at the cross Jesus demonstrates that he is the center that is willing to be broken, to give way, to entrust himself. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Jesus is not crushed by these forces, but takes on their titanic weight upon his very shoulders to disarm and redeem them. The powers of evil, sin, shame, and accusation, he silences. The institutions of government, temple, and law court, he relativizes. This ironic exaltation is not simply Jesus being lifted up on a cross to be crushed. It is the extended arms of the saving king enthroned, God coming in his glory, God revealed fully and finally welcoming one and all to come. The center of the universe, Ecclesia, is a hill outside of Jerusalem. A cross between two brigands and the God man who hangs upon it. And thus the center of the universe is unfailing, unending, self-giving love. He is the center that holds, and he holds us. We pray, come, Holy Spirit. God, may we not distance ourselves from the weight that presses upon you at Golgotha. May we hear our voice among the mockers. May we hear our curses among the shouts, Lord. May we see our darkest moments in the darkness that presses in upon you. God, not so that we can conjure up some sense of guilt or regret, God, but so that we can see you fully. Because at the cross you illuminate sin and you invite us to put down all the things that we are holding. The things that have convinced us they're better for us than you are. The ways that are not your own. The petty idolatries. Our deepest shame, our darkest hours, Lord, you have worn them all. Joyfully, willfully to reconcile and redeem. Lord, we confess our brokenness to you. Not because you need to hear us say it, God. Because we need to learn the art of trusting you. You are the center that holds. And we ask humbly, pleadingly, God, that you would be the center of our lives. We pray these things in your name, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We behold the wonder of the word of the cross. Amen.