I
looked out over the sparkling water. The sun shone brightly, but with the
exception of the daytime moon, I found myself rather unimpressed despite the
knowledge that I should love this beauty. Countless people on my college campus
would probably be commenting on the sunny day, but there is nothing mysterious
about a sunny day. It’s like the volcano out my front window growing up. It was
a snow top mountain, somewhat isolated, and everyone thought it was pretty. So
what? I used to ask. It was big, it had its pretty moments, but it looked nothing
like the ridges. The ridges held mystery for I could not know if what lay
behind them. Sunny days, sunny days ask very few questions. They are the
cliché-beautiful. And I realized, in all my ability to find beauty in the ugly:
a cloudy day, rain, a hall way with very few pictures, I have lost the
specialness of beauty. Yes, there is a bounce in my step as I walk around the
pond, watching ducks dunk their heads into the water. Yes, there are smiles on
the people around me. Yes, the sky is vast—but it’s almost too bright for me to
look up. Now don’t get me wrong, it was incredibly nice to walk outside and not
be so cold my head hurt. It was incredibly nice to feel a warm breeze and have
a bounce in my step. But it was still too easy.
The assignment in class earlier was
simple, in fifteen minutes go out and ask people how they would share the
gospel. I asked two poor people who were recruiting on our camps (It’s not just
any day someone walks up and says, “if you were sharing the gospel what would
you say?”) The Gospel. Words that are about fifteen years cliché for me: “Jesus
died for your sins.” Even when I taught it as a young Sunday school teacher I
realized the five year olds had eyes glazing.
What is wrong with them? It always
sickened me that I could watch movies, read books, and listen to Adventures in
Odyssey countless times over, but the gospel fell dead on my ears. Was not the
gospel the most important thing in my life? But even as my brother commented
that “All I have is Christ” is a good song, and I agreed with him, I still had
a love/hate relationship with it. It was the same words over again. Except,
that Jonathan was right. The words are complete. Almost. Countless times we
don’t start with the right picture.
So where do we start? At the
beginning. In the beginning God. I think it might be good to start there. Do
you know God? How do you see Him? Do you know that He is both wrath and grace?
Justice and mercy? How? Well let me tell you a story...
Once upon a time, God was the
perfect good King. He decided He wanted to make the world. So He made one. He
spoke everything into being. The sun and stars, the earth, water, fishes and
giraffes, elephants and ostriches. Everything.
Similar Cinderella’s godmother only nothing existed before. God said “this is good.” And then He decided
that He wanted someone to care for these animals of His—so He created images of
His. These creatures were different than the others because of the image bearing.
And He gave them a few jobs. Adam named the animals. Adam and Eve were supposed
to take care of the earth, do things (maybe invent some stuff), and have kids.
There was one other thing: they weren’t supposed to eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. But then, someone asked them why they shouldn’t and
eventually they did. Enter problem. They got kicked out of the garden, to
protect them from another tree. When they ate the fruit, they started the
process of death. Sin , anything that isn’t good and obedient to God, was
passed from person to person. No one was born without it.
Over and over again, God reached
out to people in a new way and offered them ways to be close to Him. He gave
them sacrifices, but finally, He took another step. He came Himself. (Enter Trinity Explanation:
God is one divine essence in three persons, in other words, God is one and
three at the same time. And no, I don’t get it. They are distinct, and the same
at the exact same time and it makes no sense in my mind and any more
explanation will lead me to heresy.) So, Jesus, the second person of the
God-head, came to earth and became a man. He was even born. He lived the
perfect life—like perfect, without any sin at all. He loved God first. He was
righteous, and loving, and just.
Then He died. For God to be just,
someone had to pay the death penalty. Sin was still in the middle of us and
God. He had set up a system of killing animals, but it was an over and over
again process for each thing that is lost. So Jesus paid the death penalty and
God infused all his wrath on what we did wrong (all the inability not to sin we
inherited from Satan). End of story right? My sins are paid for. Wrong!
Time passed slowly. Friday night.
Saturday. Imagine the memories running through people’s minds. Imagine the
tears His mom cried. Did the man who authorized His execution approve of his
actiosn still? Sunday morning. A friend
and follower of the God-man went to do traditional burial practices. His tomb
was empty. An angel appeared and told her that Jesus was alive. Alive! Jesus
had died. No recitation, people had made sure of that. And then He was alive.
This has been something I heard so much it sounds cliché. But really, how many
people have died completely and come back to life. And how many of these people
have already been buried. His disciples saw it. He appeared to a lot of people.
Sin is NOW concurred. It was paid for, and it’s control was taken away.
Here’s the really strange thing: when
we come to Him and commit to submitting to God as king like we are supposed to,
repent (change our mind about doing things that are wrong), we also inherit His
righteousness and justice and love. God sees us like that. We become alive at
some point in that process. And then, when Jesus left, He sent the third person
of the God-head, the Holy Spirit, to come into us and seal us. Now we are in
the process of becoming in nature what we are in name. And even while the
process is in progress, what Jesus did, and the acceptance of those who choose
to recognize that God is well, God, and King, both over the world and
individual lives, we get the privilege of being family. And as we are God’s
family, we are also each other’s family and we need to love each other, because
that’s what Jesus does: we are his followers.
There’s an ending too. And ending
that hasn’t happened yet. Jesus is coming back. To reign like He is supposed
to. And the world will be remade. All the people who committed to being
re-imaged will get rewarded, all the people who didn’t and thus still lived
with the guilt of sin on their heads will be punished—forever. How can a loving
God do this, you ask? Simple. He’s just. And not He has justice, He is justice. He can’t not be just and
punish the wrong things we do. The problem is not God, but our fallen view of
sin. Because we do have a messed up view of it: even when we are being re-imaged.
God did love them. He let the Trinity be separated and the Son bore the worst
punishment in History.
So what does this mean? How is this
less cliché to me?
Sometimes
it’s not. But... that might be because it is indeed beautiful. Even with all
its brokenness involved, God’s story is perfect. God is perfect, how can He
made anything less? It is clear, like sunny day. We’re talking awesome King, terrible problem, and a hero who
dies to save those He loves, climaxed with him coming back to life—only unlike
the rest of the stories, it’s not that He didn’t really die.
There is mystery—how can there be
trinity—how can a person both fully choose to follow Christ and God choose and
elect them at the same time—why in the world would God try again when His
perfect humans fell, again and again. What in the world would instill Him with
the notion of re-imaging at such a high cost? People die for this around the
world.
Repeated may not always be cliché. God loves you, can be some very cliché
words. Jesus died for you probably
are too. But His death and resurrection were anything
but. Just like Michigan’s sun, it’s a very abnormal idea. Who do you know who
made the world, died in it, came alive again and is gonna come back and rule
over the entire world? And you, IF you have or do accept Christ, you get to
know this King, personally.
