First Presbyterian Church
Atonement Discord 3
Sermon for February 27, 2005
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Children's time: “God is in charge of giving water”

I read them this story from Exodus 17:1-7.

1 From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

2 The people quarreled with Moses, and said, "Give us water to drink."

Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the L ORD ?"

3 But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt , to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?"

4 So Moses cried out to the LORD , "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me."

5 The LORD said to Moses, "Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink." Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel .

7 He called the place Quarrel (Massah) and Test (Meribah), because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD , saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

Then I told the children:

Raise your hand if you remember ever being very thirsty. Raise your hand if you can tell me one thing about what it feels like to be thirsty. Raise your hand if you can tell me how it feels to drink water after you've been really thirsty.

The Bible has a lot of stories about water in it. You remember I told you that the Bible was written in another language? One of the languages was Greek. In Greek, instead of saying river water or flowing water, or moving water, they would say living water. Jesus sort of made it into a joke in the story Heather and I are reading from the Bible. He called himself the living water. How many of you feel thirsty now that I've talked so much about water? (I pulled out a tray full of cups of water.) What do you think is supposed to happen with these little cups of water? (I gave them to the children.)

What do you think is supposed to happen with all these cups of water? (I pulled out a cart full of cups of water. The children give them to the congregation.)

The Samaritans in northern Palestine and the Jews in Judah to the south had been rivals for about 200 years; The Samaritans worshiped at Mr. Gerizim, and the Jews worshiped at the temple in Jerusalem. Each group knew they were worshiping God the right way, and the others were wrong and unclean. Jesus is on his way back to Galilee, and passes through Samaria. Listen for the word of God as it is found in John 4:5-42

5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"

13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back."

17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband."

Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"

19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."

21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us."

26 Jesus said to her, "I am …, the one who is speaking to you."

27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?"

28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"

30 They left the city and were on their way to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something."

32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about."

33 So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?"

34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.

41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

This ends our reading of God's word. Let us listen to the choir interpret it.

Last week, three-year-old Maggie was in Rogers Hall during the Women's Support Group meeting. She noticed with joy that “there was a rainbow on a chair!” I told her it came from the crystal door, and pointed to the exterior door, where the sun was shining through the cut glass, and making rainbows all over the carpet.

The facets of the cut glass act as prisms and separate the colors of sunlight. Maggie didn't care how they got there -- she just danced on the colors with delight.

Different lenses allow us to see different things. A microscope won't help us if we want to look at the stars. A telescope doesn't help us find which germ causes an illness. Reading glasses don't help us read a sign down the road; most of us have to take the glasses off to read the sign.

And so it is with different theologies of atonement; each helps us see something important about Jesus' death on the cross.

Remember that atonement means to bring together what has been estranged. Atonement is to become at one. We are estranged from God because of our sin. Christians have tried to figure out how in Christ's death on the cross, he atoned for us, and brought us back to God.

Today the atonement theology I'm going to talk about is called the satisfaction theory or substitutionary atonement.

This satisfaction theory uses legal imagery. It was first discussed at length by Anselm, a monk in the eleventh century, who rose to be archbishop of Canterbury. He held that humanity flaunted the will of God by sinning. Since God governs the universe, God could not ignore “humanity's sin without upsetting the moral order of the entire creation. Even though in God's mercy God might wish to overlook humanity's transgression, God could not do so without being immoral, and this would be contrary to God's nature. To maintain the moral order, satisfaction must be given.”

The satisfaction must be fully equal to the offense. Since the sin is humanity's, satisfaction must be given by a human. Yet sinful humanity can't compensate God for sin; even if humanity kept God's will perfectly, it is nothing more than what is already due to God. And so the satisfaction must be made by one who is both God and human. For that reason God became incarnate in Jesus.” (1)

Anselm's theology came from his time; he based it on the “feudal culture in which he lived. In his era, human sin was seen as an insult to God's honor that he cannot simply overlook. Just as an insult by a serf against the honor of his lord demanded satisfaction, God also required compensation for the dishonor created by human sin. The only suitable action to offset the dishonor was the death of a perfectly sinless god-man who represented all of humanity.”

John Calvin was a lawyer; is it any wonder that he, who lived 500 years after Anselm, would find much spiritual help in the satisfaction theory? By Calvin's time, it had become substitutionary atonement.

Calvin wrote:

“Since God by his law prescribes what we ought to do, failure in any one respect subjects us to the dreadful judgment of eternal death…Secondly because it is …beyond our strength and ability to fulfill the demands of the law, if we look to ourselves and consider what is due to our merits, no ground of hope remains, but we lie forsaken of God under eternal death. Thirdly, that there is only one method of deliverance which can rescue us from this miserable calamity – namely that when Christ the Redeemer appears, by whose hand our heavenly Father, out of his infinite goodness and mercy, has been pleased to succour us, if we with true faith embrace this mercy and with firm hope rest in it. (2)

Here are the scripture verses that could be used to support substitutionary atonement:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person-- though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves God's love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:6-11.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. 1 Peter 3:18

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21

For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. Colossians 1:19-20

For many Christians, satisfaction is the only way to understand Christ's atonement. But for some of us, it leaves us with too many questions to be completely adequate.

The problem is how could God demand the death of an innocent person to satisfy his law? Throughout history, regimes bent on genocide or pogroms believe that violence, suffering and punishment of a few innocent people is justified if it benefits many more other people.

Jesus tells us to love our enemies, forgive those who hurt us, and overcome evil with good. How could God demand the torture and death of an innocent man?

For me, substitutionary atonement is not about God demanding justice, it is about Jesus volunteering to give up his life. This lens, or prism tells us more about Jesus' heroic character than about God's angry demands.

As a child, I read the Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. In the first book, the powerful lion Aslan saved a child who had betrayed his brother and sisters and the magical inhabitants of Narnia. He gave himself up to the White Witch. She shaved off his mane and killed him on the ancient stone table.

But the next day, Aslan was alive. The two sisters asked him how it could be, and he said, “the Witch knew the Deep Magic….[But] her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.” (3)

Those were magical words when I read them as an eleven-year-old.

At different times in our lives, different metaphors help us deepen our faith. It's especially important for us to know the ways the Bible speaks about the atonement so we can bring the gospel to others. Each of us will be called upon to witness to our faith by bringing a word of comfort to someone we care for. There is much grief and sadness in the world.

I hope these sermons on atonement will help you feel equipped to share your faith when someone is hurting.

Imagine a woman who is depressed and feeling worthless asking you about Jesus. You could say “your sins were so bad, you deserved to die, but Jesus replaced you on the cross and he died instead.” I doubt that would bring her much comfort.

What if you used the ransom theory I talked about last week. You could say instead “You are worth so much and are so important that Jesus ransomed you from the power of sin, so that you don't have to be a captive anymore. You are worth Jesus' life.”

Jesus spoke of giving living water to the Samaritan woman. He said “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

And so the Samaritan woman spread Christ's living water to the others in her village. They believed in him because of her, and offered Jesus hospitality, and he stayed with them, in their Samaritan village for two days. Then they heard him themselves.

We also are called upon to spread the living water of Jesus Christ. I love the word ‘gushing.' The living water isn't a tidy trickle, but a splashing spurting spray. The atonement isn't a single system that travels the same route over and over. We aren't limited to one way of thinking about the atonement; we have a rainbow to choose from and dance in. Let us celebrate that in our statement of faith.

We said together this statement form the Confession of 1967 9.08-.09:

“In Jesus of Nazareth, true humanity was realized once for all. Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, lived among his own people and shared their needs, temptations, joys, and sorrows. God's reconciling act in Jesus Christ is a mystery which the scriptures describe in various ways. It is called the sacrifice of a lamb, a shepherd's life given for his sheep, atonement by a priest; again it is ransom of a slave, payment of a debt, vicarious satisfaction of a legal penalty, and victory over the power of evil. These are expressions of a truth which remains beyond the reach of all theory in the depths of God's love for humankind. They reveal the gravity, cost, and sure achievement of God's reconciling word.”

(1) Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of Christianity, vol. 1,Beginnings to 1500, p. 501.

(2)Institutes 3.2.1 .

(3) Lewis, C.S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, “Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time,” p. 133.