The
Heart of the Matter*
This past week near the end of Sunday worship, I had one of
those moments so aptly captured by the advertisers for a certain vegetable
juice. I had a moment of clarity, and
the feeling that I should have seen this all along. I was overcome by the realization that for
all the years I’ve attended, all the sermons I’ve heard have centered on just two
pronouncements: Christ crucified and life
transformed.
Pastors, as you know, come and go. Their preaching can be exciting,
intellectual, full of anecdote and illustration, or maybe there are times when
it’s not so exciting or stimulating at all.
Sometimes that’s the preacher (and given my limited experience
preaching, that can certainly be the case) or sometimes it is me: bored,
preoccupied, mind drifting or whatever.
Yet through it all, I (and ‘we’ at Stony Creek) have been graced to hear
week after week, well-crafted or not so well-crafted, messages that center on Christ
crucified and life transformed.
When you get right down to it, that is the Gospel, the Good
News; Christ has died and life will never be the same. You see, in each of the four gospels the
crucial moment in the story is the moment Jesus goes quite voluntarily to offer
himself for crucifixion on the Roman cross.
God’s good work of six days has been attacked by sin. Sin is so powerful that the very creation is
distorted by it. St. Paul says the
creation “groans” under the burden of sin (Romans 8:22). Sin inspires us, the crown of the good
creation, to neglect love and think of ourselves first. In so doing we are capable of monstrous
cruelty to one another and do ourselves tremendous damage in the bargain. Sin’s greatest weapon is death. God’s greatest good is life. God Himself, in Jesus the Jew, attacks sin by
attacking sin’s greatest strength: its power to destroy life, its power to
kill. All that we fear, all the reasons
we cling to ourselves instead of God and each other, all of it is born in the
power of sin. So Jesus walks meekly into
sin’s hands and takes the worst it has to offer. That moment changes everything. The Gospel writer John says that when Jesus
is “lifted up” on that cross, we see most clearly God’s face. God lifts the veil between us. There is nothing hidden anymore. God loves us, becomes us, and comes to us to
live what we fear most: death. And God
lives through it. The stone is rolled
away. Life is victorious over death.
That story is the uniquely Christian story. But it doesn’t end there. Coming out of Jesus’ struggle with death is
the possibility that we too may live in the power of death defeated. Our lives, our families, our world, and the
good earth itself are being transformed into new life--- abundant life. For Christians, the story comes to a climax
in Christ crucified, but it continues on in a new community of love,
established around a table laden with bread and wine. At that table, together, we feast and grow
strong to carry the news of Christ’s victory over death, to live the reality of
a world without fear, and to be transformed into folk who love and serve each
other and our neighbors.
So I had this moment on Sunday. I was startled to recognize something that
has been present all the time. Each
week, whether I am ready to listen or ready to move on with my day. Each week, whether the message is well
crafted and well delivered or if maybe the pastor isn’t in top form. Each week,
week on week, Christ crucified and life transformed has been, and with God’s
grace, will continue to be, proclaimed from the pulpit at Stony Creek. Is the service and the preaching always everything I could ever hope
for? No, but sitting among a
congregation I love and who love me in turn, each week, week after week, it is certainly
enough, just enough, because it gets to the heart of the matter: Christ has
died and nothing will ever be the same.
*The painting is, The Crucifixion, by El Greco (around 1596 or so). It hangs in the Prado in Madrid, Spain.
