Advent: Jesus, The Suffering Savior
Sermon
Sermons on the Second Readings
Series II, Cycle C
Object:
This is our final Sunday in Advent. When we next gather, we will be filled with the sights, sounds, and scriptures of Christmas Eve. That will be a celebrative occasion because we will center in on the joyous news of the birth of a Savior delivering us from our sins, from the fate of human existence, and from the grief and hopelessness of death.
No wonder people who are not baptized or active members of any church will join us on Christmas Eve. No wonder, either, that those who have no faith in God or in some ultimate meaning of things will show up, too. While Christmas Eve for serious Christians proclaims the love of God that in George Matheson's hymn, "will not let us go," those for whom the church claims no central place will yet rejoice in good news. Those who see no need for regular involvement in the life and work of the church, or who feel somewhat alienated from the church, will find themselves caught up in the optimism of Christ's birth. Even those of fierce doubt who come to our Christmas Eve service will be warmed by the Christmas message, even though they finally judge it to be illusionary. So, there are great moments just ahead of us.
But this morning we still have serious worship work to do before we can fully open ourselves to "the great glad tidings" of Christmas Eve. A friend tells of Dr. Jack Evans, the director of the famous all-brass Ohio State University Marching Band, self-proclaimed as TBDBITL, "the best damned band in the land!" Obviously the band has a humility problem.
The band members lived for Saturday afternoons. They would burst down the ramp at the curved end of that horseshoe-shaped stadium onto the stadium floor, the drum major thrusting his baton toward the opposite end zone with the band playing "The Buckeye Battle Cry," in front of 75,000 screaming fans. No drug could deliver the high that such moments created. But Jack Evans, in his stern and compelling way, always had words for the band about this frenzy in the weekday rehearsals. He told the band that unless they did the work of memorizing the music, something the band prided itself on in contrast to other bands, and learned the various formations for the band show, the band's Saturday afternoon performance would be embarrassing. Both the band members and the director would be unhappy. Great moments come only after hard work, some pain, and sacrifice.
Advent is something like this. Before we can fully come into the saving joy of Christmas, we must give ourselves over to hard work, pain, and sacrifice. Today's text reminds us of this so we will not glide into Christmas Eve without the strengthening struggles that develop into a faith which endures and fulfills. The Hebrews author says, "And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ for all." The gospel has a tough, realistic nature about it, separating it from all the spurious gospels that tell us "we can have it all," without any serious suffering. The Christmas Eve Jesus saves us because he lived out his life in strenuous effort, pain, and sacrifice.
This has two consequences for us. The first is that any saving religious tradition saves because its founding figure's life, with little self-concern, was turned over for the desperate needs of others, thinking little of their own concerns. Certainly, this is true of the three major figures in the religions coming from the story of Abraham and Sarah.
Judaism's Moses led a life of suffering for the people of Israel. While the biblical reflections on Moses' deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt tell of this becoming the transmitter of the law of faithful life, they also tell of his occasional complaint about his role. Yet his arguments with God and of the personal hardships of his leadership make him all the more attractive. Because he ultimately accepted the suffering God's call put upon him, he became a saving figure. Without this he has no power to evoke faith in us.
The second major figure grounded in the narratives of Abraham and Sarah is Mohammed, the founder of Islam. In the Koran, the Islamic scriptures, Mohammed is a person of great pain and suffering. He suffered because the cultic religions of his early life were insufficient for his restless godly spirit. When God, Allah, confronted him and called him to proclaim a tough and serious faith, he suffered at the hands of those who preferred the soft, old ways. Mohammed gave the world one of its most profound religious traditions because it came out of a troubled spirit, and much turmoil generated by his hearing the will of God. Again, without this, he would have no power to evoke faith in us.
Jesus is our third religious figure for whom suffering has become saving for us. Our text makes this clear: "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Christianity hardly allows us to miss this. The gospel centers on the cross of Jesus as the place where his meaning all comes together. Because Jesus suffered there, and all throughout his lifetime, he has become the saving significance and power for us. Without his suffering, as the cross insists, he has no ability to evoke faith in us.
However, beyond the traditions developing out of the Abraham and Sarah story, non-biblical traditions make the same point. Certainly this is the case in the person of Gatauma Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. In his early adult life, he broke from the sheltered existence of his privileged place in the palace. For the first time he saw raw, human suffering. The resulting outcome was his giving his life to minister to human suffering. His suffering over the misery of the people of his time became a new religious tradition that cut the nerve of misery. Yet when he was about to select this option of freedom from suffering for himself, he refused this exemption for himself and chose to become a sufferer on behalf of the sufferers. His example has inspired a religious tradition of widespread caring for others and it is called Buddhism.
The suffering of others for us, unmerited and given without condition, becomes a saving moment coming from so many of our religious founders. Their suffering on our behalf becomes an authentication of their message. A glad, happy, carefree religious figure would have no power to get at the depth of our own pains -- those pains that come simply with being alive as well as those self-created pains. Isn't this the reason the Apostle Paul said he would come among the Corinthians; only with a message of Christ crucified?
A second response to this tough-minded Advent lection is its call to emulate our Savior and live out lives of suffering and caring for others. How this note falls on deaf ears in our time, even in the church. In so many ways, we fall for a gospel of success wrapped in a feel-good package. Seldom in the church are we reminded that Luther said we have only a gospel of the cross -- Jesus' cross and the call for us to join Jesus there. The great American theologian of America, Reinhold Niebuhr, said so many times that the perfection of human and cosmic existence lies beyond history not within it. We have no earthly gospel of glory, only a gospel of suffering love.
But in our choosing the life of suffering love, inspired by Jesus and others, our lives become saving places for the suffering of those near and far. The play, Sunrise at Campobello, is the story of the young Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This wealthy, ambitious politician became stricken with polio so that he could never walk again. This seemed to end any political career. He had the means to live out a life as an invalid on the family estate at Hyde Park. Instead, he chose politics with a new sense of the troubles and sufferings of others. Becoming president at the depths of the Great Depression in 1932, he pushed, shoved, and inspired the federal government to deal with the suffering of those terrible years. We need not endorse all his political achievements or defeats on behalf of the sick, unemployed, and desperate. Yet, we can hardly miss that this pampered, privileged man turned his own suffering into ways that alleviated the suffering of others in those days.
Advent calls us to this sturdy message, not some soft and undemanding cooing over the baby Jesus arriving on Christmas Eve. How many people has the church lost because we cover over this "cross gospel" with a veneer of successful, painless living that is disconnected with the troubles and miseries of humanity? A chirpy, all is well message may suit the majority of people in the church. But the sum total of human suffering is hardly reduced by this gospel. Wouldn't it be good news to some of the hard-headed, no nonsense people in or out of our pews to say that with the African-American spiritual, "I see trouble in the air." Some refreshing honesty in the church might connect with the unbelievers in and out of the church, calling them to an honest blik on human existence and calling them to join ranks with any who dare to suffer with and for others.
In the popular "Jesus died for my sins" gospel, it seldom moves beyond dwelling on that note of the unmerited love of God in Christ. What Advent's hard realism announces is that the only response to the saving love of the suffering Christ, is to commit ourselves to a similar sort of life. In the opening chapter of the book of Acts, Jesus ascends into heaven and while this is happening, two men in white robes confront the disciples who are looking heavenward, awed by the moment. These two mysterious figures then say, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" In other words, "Quit standing around and doing a lot of religious talk -- like speaking over and over again about the awesomeness of God. Get your eyes fixed on the raw needs of your sisters and brothers everywhere, in Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth, and get on with it." Advent struggles to save us from a mushy and irrelevant Christmas, offering instead a suffering life that will save the lives of others and in the process, save us, too.
No wonder people who are not baptized or active members of any church will join us on Christmas Eve. No wonder, either, that those who have no faith in God or in some ultimate meaning of things will show up, too. While Christmas Eve for serious Christians proclaims the love of God that in George Matheson's hymn, "will not let us go," those for whom the church claims no central place will yet rejoice in good news. Those who see no need for regular involvement in the life and work of the church, or who feel somewhat alienated from the church, will find themselves caught up in the optimism of Christ's birth. Even those of fierce doubt who come to our Christmas Eve service will be warmed by the Christmas message, even though they finally judge it to be illusionary. So, there are great moments just ahead of us.
But this morning we still have serious worship work to do before we can fully open ourselves to "the great glad tidings" of Christmas Eve. A friend tells of Dr. Jack Evans, the director of the famous all-brass Ohio State University Marching Band, self-proclaimed as TBDBITL, "the best damned band in the land!" Obviously the band has a humility problem.
The band members lived for Saturday afternoons. They would burst down the ramp at the curved end of that horseshoe-shaped stadium onto the stadium floor, the drum major thrusting his baton toward the opposite end zone with the band playing "The Buckeye Battle Cry," in front of 75,000 screaming fans. No drug could deliver the high that such moments created. But Jack Evans, in his stern and compelling way, always had words for the band about this frenzy in the weekday rehearsals. He told the band that unless they did the work of memorizing the music, something the band prided itself on in contrast to other bands, and learned the various formations for the band show, the band's Saturday afternoon performance would be embarrassing. Both the band members and the director would be unhappy. Great moments come only after hard work, some pain, and sacrifice.
Advent is something like this. Before we can fully come into the saving joy of Christmas, we must give ourselves over to hard work, pain, and sacrifice. Today's text reminds us of this so we will not glide into Christmas Eve without the strengthening struggles that develop into a faith which endures and fulfills. The Hebrews author says, "And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ for all." The gospel has a tough, realistic nature about it, separating it from all the spurious gospels that tell us "we can have it all," without any serious suffering. The Christmas Eve Jesus saves us because he lived out his life in strenuous effort, pain, and sacrifice.
This has two consequences for us. The first is that any saving religious tradition saves because its founding figure's life, with little self-concern, was turned over for the desperate needs of others, thinking little of their own concerns. Certainly, this is true of the three major figures in the religions coming from the story of Abraham and Sarah.
Judaism's Moses led a life of suffering for the people of Israel. While the biblical reflections on Moses' deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt tell of this becoming the transmitter of the law of faithful life, they also tell of his occasional complaint about his role. Yet his arguments with God and of the personal hardships of his leadership make him all the more attractive. Because he ultimately accepted the suffering God's call put upon him, he became a saving figure. Without this he has no power to evoke faith in us.
The second major figure grounded in the narratives of Abraham and Sarah is Mohammed, the founder of Islam. In the Koran, the Islamic scriptures, Mohammed is a person of great pain and suffering. He suffered because the cultic religions of his early life were insufficient for his restless godly spirit. When God, Allah, confronted him and called him to proclaim a tough and serious faith, he suffered at the hands of those who preferred the soft, old ways. Mohammed gave the world one of its most profound religious traditions because it came out of a troubled spirit, and much turmoil generated by his hearing the will of God. Again, without this, he would have no power to evoke faith in us.
Jesus is our third religious figure for whom suffering has become saving for us. Our text makes this clear: "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Christianity hardly allows us to miss this. The gospel centers on the cross of Jesus as the place where his meaning all comes together. Because Jesus suffered there, and all throughout his lifetime, he has become the saving significance and power for us. Without his suffering, as the cross insists, he has no ability to evoke faith in us.
However, beyond the traditions developing out of the Abraham and Sarah story, non-biblical traditions make the same point. Certainly this is the case in the person of Gatauma Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. In his early adult life, he broke from the sheltered existence of his privileged place in the palace. For the first time he saw raw, human suffering. The resulting outcome was his giving his life to minister to human suffering. His suffering over the misery of the people of his time became a new religious tradition that cut the nerve of misery. Yet when he was about to select this option of freedom from suffering for himself, he refused this exemption for himself and chose to become a sufferer on behalf of the sufferers. His example has inspired a religious tradition of widespread caring for others and it is called Buddhism.
The suffering of others for us, unmerited and given without condition, becomes a saving moment coming from so many of our religious founders. Their suffering on our behalf becomes an authentication of their message. A glad, happy, carefree religious figure would have no power to get at the depth of our own pains -- those pains that come simply with being alive as well as those self-created pains. Isn't this the reason the Apostle Paul said he would come among the Corinthians; only with a message of Christ crucified?
A second response to this tough-minded Advent lection is its call to emulate our Savior and live out lives of suffering and caring for others. How this note falls on deaf ears in our time, even in the church. In so many ways, we fall for a gospel of success wrapped in a feel-good package. Seldom in the church are we reminded that Luther said we have only a gospel of the cross -- Jesus' cross and the call for us to join Jesus there. The great American theologian of America, Reinhold Niebuhr, said so many times that the perfection of human and cosmic existence lies beyond history not within it. We have no earthly gospel of glory, only a gospel of suffering love.
But in our choosing the life of suffering love, inspired by Jesus and others, our lives become saving places for the suffering of those near and far. The play, Sunrise at Campobello, is the story of the young Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This wealthy, ambitious politician became stricken with polio so that he could never walk again. This seemed to end any political career. He had the means to live out a life as an invalid on the family estate at Hyde Park. Instead, he chose politics with a new sense of the troubles and sufferings of others. Becoming president at the depths of the Great Depression in 1932, he pushed, shoved, and inspired the federal government to deal with the suffering of those terrible years. We need not endorse all his political achievements or defeats on behalf of the sick, unemployed, and desperate. Yet, we can hardly miss that this pampered, privileged man turned his own suffering into ways that alleviated the suffering of others in those days.
Advent calls us to this sturdy message, not some soft and undemanding cooing over the baby Jesus arriving on Christmas Eve. How many people has the church lost because we cover over this "cross gospel" with a veneer of successful, painless living that is disconnected with the troubles and miseries of humanity? A chirpy, all is well message may suit the majority of people in the church. But the sum total of human suffering is hardly reduced by this gospel. Wouldn't it be good news to some of the hard-headed, no nonsense people in or out of our pews to say that with the African-American spiritual, "I see trouble in the air." Some refreshing honesty in the church might connect with the unbelievers in and out of the church, calling them to an honest blik on human existence and calling them to join ranks with any who dare to suffer with and for others.
In the popular "Jesus died for my sins" gospel, it seldom moves beyond dwelling on that note of the unmerited love of God in Christ. What Advent's hard realism announces is that the only response to the saving love of the suffering Christ, is to commit ourselves to a similar sort of life. In the opening chapter of the book of Acts, Jesus ascends into heaven and while this is happening, two men in white robes confront the disciples who are looking heavenward, awed by the moment. These two mysterious figures then say, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" In other words, "Quit standing around and doing a lot of religious talk -- like speaking over and over again about the awesomeness of God. Get your eyes fixed on the raw needs of your sisters and brothers everywhere, in Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth, and get on with it." Advent struggles to save us from a mushy and irrelevant Christmas, offering instead a suffering life that will save the lives of others and in the process, save us, too.
