Atonement Theory 101

"Atonement Theory 101"

1 Peter 3:18-22
March 1, 2009

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order
to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in
which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former
times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building
of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the
body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels,
authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Preachers usually always find themselves in a dilemma when it comes to the art of
preaching, if one wants to call it that, and that dilemma is how to thread the very
delicate line between head and heart, making sure that each one of those facets of
human personality are fed, for at least 20 minutes on a Sunday. I think most
preachers—me included—we go for the heart before we go for the head, because it is
rare to have people glaze out on you when you speak to their hearts, but when it
comes the headier topics, the more difficult theological ideas, most people just check
out for a few minutes while the preacher babbles on. It’s our worse fear, this glazing
over, this checking out, that you, our listeners, are simply bored out of your minds,
when we dig a little deeper into a text, or an idea that needs to be fleshed out.   Well,
today is one of those days, when I’m going to ask you to stick it out for a bit, to resist
the temptation to zone out when it comes to the topic at hand, because its going to
require a little bit of patience, but I’d like to think it’s worth the effort, slogging a bit in
matters of theology, especially when it comes to this important topic, the meaning, the
real meaning of Christ’ death on the cross

It is the question of atonement, really, the meaning of Christ’s death and how it relates
to the matter of sin and reconciliation; it is the question of how we humans are forgiven
by God, and made new by this God, the means, the methods, that bring about divine
forgiveness in our lives. We so often talk about how Christ’s death brought about this
forgiveness that we rarely actually ask the question of “how”—how did the death of this
itinerant preacher some two thousand years ago bring about the forgiveness and
reconciliation of humankind to God? Of course, this isn’t a new question—it is the
oldest Christian question, in the book, so to speak—almost from the moment Christ was
crucified, we Christians have been trying to figure out the meaning of his death and his
resurrection—but his death, most immediately. What did it mean for Christ to die on
the cross and how did it transform the human-divine relationship?

We Christians have been arguing about that question since the moment the disciples
scampered to those locked rooms after the horrific death of that one they had followed
and believed in—this one that they had hoped was the Messiah, God’s special
messenger to the Jewish people and to all of humanity. Was Christ death a substitute
offering to God, like the offerings of old in the Jewish temple—sacrifice the innocent
dove, animal, whatever, as a substitute for the guilty human, a sign, a symbol that all
was forgiven? Did God’s sense of justice, God’ sense of outrage at human sin—the
wars, the inhumanity we have wrecked upon each other, the vileness and meanness
with which we have sometimes conducted the human enterprise—did God demand to
be satisfied, did God’s sense of justice demand something in return, like those families
who have experience the horror a murder in their family, who need this visceral need
for the moral universe to be set right again, an eye for a eye, a tooth for a tooth?

Certainly, that idea about the meaning of Jesus’ death is expressed by many
Christians. This idea is an ancient one, hints of which you can find all over the New
Testament, though never as clearly as one would like, if you were trying to fix exactly
how the cross mattered. You see it in the t-shirts they often sell in Christian
bookstores—“His Pain, Your Gain” with a nail-scarred hand drenched in blood adorning
it. Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of The Christ dwells in that blood and violence, in
its attempt to graphically display how much pain Christ suffered, and how that pain and
suffering redeemed all of humanity. God could not simply forgive humankind—God’s
sense of honor and justice had to be satisfied, a rendering of what is due must be
made, but since we cannot fill the debt because the debt is too large, Christ steps in
and fulfills the need for justice to be done. A debt has been incurred, and someone
needs to pay it but the only one who can pay the debt is God himself, through the
atoning death of Jesus the Christ. In our passage today from First Peter, many have
interpreted the first line of our text that way, when the writer says For Christ also
suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to
God. In effect, God kills Jesus so that God will not have to kill us eternally, so to speak,
for our sins—the suffering has been taken care of it because it has been visited on
Jesus, and we will no longer have to suffer eternally because one man, the Christ,
suffered for us all.

Now, that way of putting it is awfully provocative, but you get a sense of the shadow
side of that idea when you put it that way—the God who demands violence be visited
upon his own child in order to be satisfied with humankind. Sure, it makes some kind of
sense, and it has been the easiest and most popular way of explaining something that
has not always been clear for us Christian, the meaning of Christ’s death. This idea,
the idea of substitutionary atonement, simply drew upon the ancient practices of the
near east, including those of Israel, in which animals were sacrificed as a means of
expediting the sin of the sacrificer. And, for those who have experienced violence
being wrought upon them, you get a sense of the base justice of it all—an eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth. “Good violence is the only thing that can save us from bad
violence” seems to be the logic, as Daniel Bell wrote recently in an issue of The
Christian Century (Feb 10, 2009 p22). But the obvious problem is that it seems to
endorse the idea that violence can be redemptive, that if one visits violence upon
another, then order can be restored to the moral universe, and if that isn’t a recipe for
endless war, endless violence, then what is—does anyone ever feel as if the score has
been settled up just right?   You need only ask the Palestinians and Israelis about that,
or the Catholics and Protestants In Northern Ireland about how fair the ledger has been
settled. To stop violence, we must become violence, the logic goes, and yet, Jesus
himself never chose that path, never called down the forces of heaven to make things
right against his enemies. Indeed, he warned us against violence, even as armed
soldiers were coming to get him: “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”
Certainly we Christians have come to embrace this idea, this idea of substitutionary
atonement, but it comes fraught with baggage that a lot of Christians have questioned
over the centuries, including many recently, including myself. Is it wrong, so to speak?
Well, not necessarily but we need to acknowledge that its just simply one of the many
ways we Christians have struggled with meaning our Savior’s death.

One of the other ways Christ’s death has been understood is actually a bit more
attractive to me, and less laced with the idea of redemptive violence that has often
gotten us into trouble—it is the idea of the Victorious Christ, Christus Victor. Simply put
it is the idea that in Christ’s death, death itself is defeated, sin is defeated, and the
forces of darkness are defeated. This view is held largely by the Eastern Orthodox
Church, those in the East. Unlike the substitutionary theory I laid out early, the
emphasis here is not on the need for the debt repayment, or satisfaction of God’s
sense of justice, though it’s ironic that in the underlying idea undergirding
substitutionary atonement we are asked to do the very thing that God seems unwilling
to do—we are asked to forgive without asking for eye and for eye, or a tooth for a
tooth. Instead, in Christus Victor focus is on how Christ has defeated death and sin
through his own death and through his own resurrection—again, look at our passage
today, the second passage of our text, and you can echoes of Christus Victor He was
put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a
proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited
patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight
persons, were saved through water. Christ is put to death, but is made alive, and in
that victorious state, goes to the place underworld and share the good news that we
are no longer imprisoned by our sin, our shadows, our disobedience to God’s call to
goodness. That image of those locked up in the underworld, those of Noah’s time,
comes from an ancient tradition, something the readers of 1 Peter would have been
familiar with. The idea is that Christ’s death and resurrection are so momentous that it
even effects those who have died centuries earlier and are still locked in prison by
death itself— you see, that image would have really resonated with those early
listeners.   My image of this understanding of Christ’s death is from the old African
American spiritual, Ride On, King Jesus, with Jesus upon a beautiful white stallion,
echoes of the book of Revelation. The lyrics sing out this wondrous moment:

Ride on King Jesus
No man can-a-hinder me
Ride on King Jesus
Ride on

No man can-a-hinder me
No man can-a-hinder me
In that great getting up morning
Fair thee well, fair thee well
In that great getting up morning
Fair thee well, fair thee well

Ride on King Jesus...

I love this idea, this understanding of Jesus’ death, and its meaning, and every time I
hear Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle sing it on one of my favorite albums, I truly get
goose bumps, simply, for me, because the image is so powerful.

And yet, there is another way of understanding of Jesus’ death, one that has moved me
the most, and has become the prism for my personal faith in Christ.   The moral
influence understanding of atonement is rooted in the idea that Christ’s life has as
much to do with our redemption, with our transformation, as Christ’s death. It is the
idea that what God did in Christ Jesus was to choose to be amongst us humans, be
among what God has created, and in doing so, in experiencing Christ’s joys and Christ’
s pain, God has shown us a new way, and God has been shown a new way. It is the
idea that in obeying God all through Jesus’ life, in his continual choices towards
wholeness, towards goodness, towards gentleness and kindness, Christ showed us the
way to be each of those things…and once more, he showed us how to die, with
integrity, truthfully, and honestly. And in that death, I think God got a glimpse of what
we humans fear in that great unknown that will take us all, and it changed God as much
as it changed us. In that suffering Christ experienced, God suffered with him, and now,
more than ever, God understands our suffering, our pain, our loneliness, even
sometimes our bitterness. In living and dying the way Christ did, he revealed who God
was and is and he influenced those around him, and he influenced God, and we are
saved by the life he lived, the death he embraced, and then, the death he conquered.
God suffered beside us, in that Christ, in a completely new way, and, for me, a God
who will suffer beside me, as well as a God who will be with me in my joy, this is a God I
can believe in, and a God that can transform me—indeed, can transform the world.

In my second year of seminary, my friend Meredith Menendian was ordained in the
United Methodist church, and one night, after a party I had thrown, I walked her to her
car, and we began talking about her experience of being ordained, how powerful it was
for her. For me, though, it was both wonderful and difficult to hear at the same time,
because my own ordination was an unlikely possibility in my Presbyterian tradition,
because of my choice to be honest and open about who I was. Near the end of our
conversation, she told me that when she was up there, being ordained amongst the
dozens of others, she thought of me, and it hurt her to know of my situation and that
shouldn’t keep thinking about the unfairness of it all, even in that moment, a moment
that should have only been a beautiful and good moment for her. I was so touched by
those words that I just burst into tears, and we just hugged each other and cried—it is a
moment I will never forget. And the reason I will never forget it is because someone
chose to suffer with me, chose to put herself in my shoes, and imagine what it might
mean not to be able to fulfill a calling to ministry. You see, when she chose to stand
beside me, to suffer with me, she did as Christ did, she choose to immerse herself in
someone else’s pain, and in doing so, she redeemed that difficult situation. No, she
didn’t make it go away, she didn’t make the pain go away, just like’s Christ’s pain doesn’
t make our pain go away, but she understood, she reminded me that I was not alone,
that we are never alone, and in crying with me, and walking with me, and remembering
me, she lifted the burden enough to make it bearable to carry. Think of Simon the
Cyrene carrying Jesus’ cross on his way to Golgotha, even for that little while, but the
little while can make all the difference in the world.

So often nowadays you hear people say that they are not afraid of death, but they
worry about the suffering that might come before their death. It is the suffering—our
suffering, the suffering of others, that we seem to run from nowadays. And yet, the
One we follow has asked us to suffer with each other, to carry each other’s burden, to
care about a world that God cares deeply for.   And, no, I don’t mean seeking suffering
neurotically so, or to seek out suffering in an unhealthy way, but, rather, to embrace it
when it comes to us, to not run away from it, especially when we see our friends
suffering so. We all know people who look for martyrdom, who seek out suffering
because they are seeking out attention, but Christ is not asking us to do that—instead,
he asks us to care as he cared, to care enough to stand with me each in our painful
moments, and in that caring, the world can be made new again, can be redeemed, and
forgiveness and reconciliation can happen, because we can come to understand each
other and have mercy on each other, as God has come to understand and forgive
us.

In Altadena, California, after World War II, the members of a Japanese church began
trying to rebuild their lives after being released from the internment camps that our
government put them in. The problem was that no one would sell them property, or
provide basic services, aside from a few brave white men in that California community
who were outraged by the bigotry still being displayed against these Japanese
Americans, and so they began to help them out, for which they were punished by their
fellow whites at great personal sacrifice, especially financially. Still, these white persons
chose to suffer beside their Japanese friends, and even now, the stories of those
persons are remembered in that church, and it changed the way those Japanese felt
about their fellow Americans, especially after losing literally all that they had while being
held in those illegal and immoral camps. When we chose to suffer with each other, to
carry each other’s burdens, even if for a little while, it changes us, as it surely did
Simon the Cyrene, as he carried the cross for a short distance in order to give Christ a
brief respite. We redeem our lives, and God redeems our lives, and we are made new,
just by the simple choice not to look away.

Dr. Abraham Verghese recently wrote in the New York Magazine of his experience as
part of a medical team that cared for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Over the years,
Verghese had learned to steel himself against the sight of human suffering, so that he
could do his job. Then one night he treated an elderly gentleman whose home had
been destroyed by Katrina. For two days, the man had perched on a narrow ledge
without food or water. When a boat finally picked him up, he was dropped off on a
bridge to be picked up by other refugees. Verghese was deeply moved by the man’s
story and said the only words he could think of: “I’m sorry, so sorry.” The man stood
up, shook his hand, and said, “Thank you, doc, I needed to hear that.” Afterward,
Verghese thought about the way he had always tried to steel himself against human
suffering and realized that this did not help anyone. “The willingness to be wounded
may be all we have to offer.”   (Taylor, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol 2, 2008, 42)

The willingness to be wounded, God’s willingness to be wounded, thousands of years
ago, in the Christ, that is how I primarily understand the meaning of Christ’s death. The
question, though, is whether or not we are willing to do the same, to throw in our lot with
each other, to suffer with each other, to walk beside each other during the difficult
times, especially in a culture that says there is nothing worse than suffering—even
death is preferred to suffering. The thing about it is this: when we suffer beside each
other, with each other, we become like God, in that we do not look away, in that we
embrace those whose pain seems overwhelming, and, in that moment, we redeem the
world, we repair the world, maybe just our small corner of the world, but it's our world,
and in caring for each other, we are simply showing each other that the world is worth
saving, a truth that God already knows.   Amen