A PALPABLE, PASSIONATE JESUS
Sermon preached by Dr. Mark Smutny
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.” Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”
- Hebrews 1:1–4; 2:5-12
In the greenway of the Fuller Seminary campus, a graphic, bronze sculpture confronts passersby. The larger than life sculpture depicts Jesus being nailed to the cross. Three strong men hold Jesus down, their arm and back muscles rippled and taut. Raised sledge hammers are poised skyward, ready to strike the next blow sealing Jesus' fate. Agony exudes from Jesus' bloodied face crowned by thorns. No one can pass through the campus of the world-renowned seminary without being confronted by this palpable, passionate depiction of Christ’s suffering and imminent death.
In 2004, Mel Gibson released his controversial movie, The Passion of Christ, and millions flocked to see it. For one hundred minutes of a one hundred twenty minute film, the cameras zero in on the arrest, trial, torture and crucifixion of Jesus. Ten of those agonizing minutes depict the flogging of Jesus with unrelenting brutality. It's one of the most violent movie scenes ever produced. Gibson explained he wanted to convey the full impact of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for our sins. Evangelical Christians across the land, from Billy Graham to James Dobson, from Rick Warren to Chuck Colson, from the National Association of Evangelicals to Campus Crusade for Christ, extolled the film's virtues and its singular focus on Jesus' suffering and atoning sacrifice for our sins.
With unmitigated brutality the film portrayed a palpable, passionate Jesus who died a terrible death for our sins. My wife wouldn't even watch the movie trailer, let alone see the full movie. Especially marketed through churches, The Passion of Christ became one of the most popular films ever made. Something about its flesh and blood reality both repulsed and attracted. Was the violence gratuitous or did it tap a deep hunger to connect with something real, something earthy, something passionate and palpable? Some of you said it profoundly moved you, impressed by the costliness of the cross. Others said you reached for the doggie bag, repulsed by the unwarranted violence and by Gibson’s failure to say much about Jesus’ life and teachings.
What do the sculpture at Fuller and Gibson’s movie have in common? What is the yearning in the human spirit that seeks such a palpable and passionate Jesus?
If we turn to scripture and especially to Hebrews from whence comes our New Testament lesson, we may find some clues. The Epistle to the Hebrews has never been my favorite book of the Bible. Filled with imagery of blood sacrifice, and chapter after chapter of arguments insisting that Jesus’ blood sacrifice was superior to Jewish animal sacrifice, connecting the book’s themes to the issues of our day can prove difficult. However, Hebrews presents a Jesus deeply engaged in human suffering.
In its original hearing, the Epistle to the Hebrews was geared to a generation of Christians decades removed from the original passion and excitement of the beginning days of the Jesus movement. As second generation Christians they had grown self-satisfied, content, and even apathetic. A malaise beset the church.
The writer of Hebrews, seeking to motivate his readers into a more passionate faith, gushes with a letter of vivid, fervent faith, telling of a Jesus who is both exalted in the heavens above and of a Jesus who stoops down low. Hebrews testifies to a Jesus who suffers, bleeds, weeps, and dies for our sake. To such a Jesus, you give your all for he gave his all.
Of course, Hebrews is also the source of the famous imagery of being “washed in the blood of the lamb.” I googled “washed in the blood of the lamb,” to prepare for this sermon and received four million five hundred seventy five thousand hits. Whereas when I googled “the love of God,” I received less than two million hits. Admittedly, this is an unscientific method for polling interest in any topic, but nonetheless, an indicator of how many Christians seem fascinated by a faith that is vivid, palpable and passionate.
When I am asked, usually by a Christian of a more fundamentalist persuasion, “Am I washed in the blood of the lamb? Have I been washed whiter than snow?” it’s not that I don’t understand metaphorical thinking, I simply don’t relate well to the blood imagery.
Now understand me. The Apostles’ Creed affirms, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” and I do. I do believe that Jesus came to save us from our sins. However, I have difficulty with forms of Christianity that focus on Jesus as the atoning sacrifice who washes away the sins of the world to the exclusion of other understandings of Jesus. I’m troubled by forms of Christianity that focus on Jesus on the cross who saves us from our sins but ignore the Jesus who befriends outcasts, welcomes the marginalized and who gathers into his fellowship the broken and the lost. I’ve seen too many times Christians who focus on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus slide by Jesus’ challenging teachings about the rich and the powerful. The Gospels are very clear that Jesus gathers into a new community the dregs of society. He tells stories of picking up lost sheep, wandering prodigals, the lame, tax collectors, women without men and the blind who now see. He confronts power. He says, “How dare you turn my father’s house into a marketplace.” He’s arrested for sedition and blasphemy, which are political crimes. He may not be a king of this world, but he sure has the kings of this world feeling very uneasy about their kingship. Mel Gibson left all that out. That makes me suspicious of those proponents of atonement theology who fail to mention these other dimensions of the Gospel.
Travel to any Latin American country where believers have encountered profound suffering, injustice, brutality, torture and humiliation at the hands of authorities and you will see the atoning sacrifice of Jesus combined with an understanding of the social dimensions of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Travel to villages where attempts to work for peace and justice are met with death threats and intimidation and you will discover the paradox of Christian communities where people gather to sing joyfully in praise to God and at the same time you will see images of a bloodied and brutalized Christ everywhere. There Christian communities hang on to a faith that is grounded in a Christ who suffers as they suffer, a Jesus who is bloodied and broken, as they are bloodied and broken, a Jesus who brings joy and resurrection in the face of unspeakable opposition. Jesus in such contexts is passionate and palpable – not an abstraction – but living, breathing, engaged and fully immersed in the struggle and agony of daily living. Their Jesus is a palpable, passionate Jesus, too.
Which Christ is worthy of a passionate, palpable embrace? Which Christ will you choose? Which Christ will choose you? I can relate to a Christ and to a God that fully immerses God-self into the heartache and hell of human suffering. An exalted God who suffers, weeps, breaks down, bears witness, screams out in protest against holocausts and death camps, against little girls and little boys who are abused, a Jesus who says it’s wrong for people to go to bed hungry at night, a Jesus who says I will overthrow your temple tables of unjust power and privilege. That kind of bloodied Christ I can relate to. I'll wash in the blood of that lamb. If God, the exalted one, the One who is Sovereign over the entire cosmos, stoops down and gets down and dirty in the Intensive Care Unit at Huntington Hospital where one of our parishioners is, breathing each breath like he is underwater, where each breath of hers is a struggle just to stay alive. If Jesus is there, then I can wash in Jesus' blood. I can drink his cup. I can break his body and eat his bread. If God can get down into these places, I can believe in that God. Give me a Jesus I can give my life to: a flesh and blood Jesus. Give me a Jesus that demands my soul, my life, my all. That’s what we all want. That’s what we all get: a palpable, passionate Jesus. Thanks be to God. Amen.