Matthew 12:17-21, We Need a Victory

"This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

I had this huge epiphany this week; so monumental that I am rethinking parts of my own theology to ensure that I am in alignment with what I now see as part of the saving work of Christ. Let me explain."

We are studying atonement theories and the necessity of the cross and looking this week at the atonement theory of Christus Victor. The primary premise of this theory is that through the cross, Jesus overcame, or was victorious over, sin, death, and evil. There are a number of reasons why this theory does not resonate with me. For starters, when I look at the world, I immediately have to do some crazy mind manipulation to believe that Jesus defeated sin, death, and evil through his death on the cross. It doesn’t take much to realize that sin, death, and evil still exists, all we have to do is look around at the overwhelming evidence: mass shootings, police killings, rape, robbery, domestic violence, hate crimes, and the list goes on.

A key concept of this theory is that God takes the initiative to decisively change the relationship between God and the world through the death of Christ on the cross. It places the focus of the conflict not between God and humanity, but God and the powers of sin, death, and evil. The part of the theory that pits God against sin, death, and evil only brings up more questions for me? Where did sin, death, and evil come from? Can we build a theory of atonement on the story of creation and the fall of man if we understand that story to be a myth?

These questions lead me to another reason I don’t like this theory. Christus Victor still puts God in an awkward position of needing to reconcile God’s own creation to himself. I cannot escape the idea that if God is the creator of all things, then God created the circumstances upon which creation became, entered into, or found sin, death, and evil. This concept will always seem strange to me.

What hit me squarely between the eyes, though, is that Christus Victor reveals to us what it is we most want and need from the one we worship—we need a victory.

So much of our lives are steeped in the ick of the world. We find ourselves trapped by shame, guilt, hatred, fear, greed, and self-centeredness. When we have an experience of the Divine, it gives us a glimpse of what hope looks like, what the world could be if we lived more compassionately toward one another. Sadly, we struggle to find our way in a world that revels in darkness. We need a victory.

When we see Jesus upon the cross, we want to create meaning out of this horrible act of violence. Our brains want to right the wrong, to fix what seems like a huge miscarriage of justice. We create for ourselves the perfect victory solution. We need a victory. We need something greater than ourselves to life us up and out of the ick of the world. We need God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit to show us what real hope looks like and that life is actually worth living. We need a victory. To say that Jesus defeated or overcame sin, death, and evil means that we, too, have a chance to defeat or overcome these things in our own lives, with the help of Christ.

With Jesus on our side, we can defeat our addictions, we can learn to be patient and tolerant of others, we can even learn to be compassionate. We can lay down our anger, set aside our pain, be healed of physical and mental maladies, and find hope. It is the hope that we are looking for. No one, and I mean no one, want to slog through life without hope, even if hope is knowing that on pay day, I get tacos for supper. There has to be a reason for living. Most of us exhaust the worlds reasons—they simply are not good enough or lofty enough to matter—but the hope that Christ brings to us, that matters.

So, while this theory in its academic form does nothing for me, the value it has on our lived experience may be necessary for our salvation. After all, it is hope that ultimately saves us from the drudgery of this world.

Isaiah 1:11-17 - Sacrifices, No; Compassion, Yes! "Ransom Theory of Atonement"

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?” says the Lord; “I have had enough of burnt offering of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me, New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

We are beginning a new series on the various Atonement Theories posited by theologians and scholars throughout the ages. Our first Atonement Theory is called the Ransom Theory, which centers on the death of Jesus as a ransom payment for the sins of man. The ransom paid by Jesus settles the debt we owe God for entering into a life of sin at the time of Adam and Eve.

Throughout the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the two books that outline the law as given to Moses, we see countless passages regarding the sacrifice of animals for every occasion imaginable.

Animal sacrifice was a popular custom in the ancient world. It was used primarily to engage in more ritualistic conversations with the gods. Early on in the theology of the Hebrew people, sin against God was particularly egregious and needed to be dealt with through some form of appeasement; a way to keep God from being wrathful toward the people. According to Levitical Law, sacrifices of animals were to be made to atone for the sins of the people. Sin sacrifices were made daily by the priests to mitigate the sins of the community. There was also the Day of Atonement, a special day set aside for the sins of individuals, where folks would make a sacrifice on behalf of their own sins following a full day of repentance to those they had harmed throughout the previous year.

What we see in scripture, though, is a transformation in the understanding of God and how God interacts with the people and what expects from the people. By the time we get to the Prophet Isaiah, we are seeing a different side of God than what was reported in the early life of the people of Israel. This transformation is key to our understanding of God over time.

When God appears to the first humans in the book of Genesis, we see an interactive God who walks among them, who can see their nakedness, who talks directly to the people about his disappointment in them. Later God becomes more distant. By the time God leads the people out of Egypt, God cannot walk among them or have face to face conversations with Moses, he must hide himself in a mist so that Moses does not die. Later we find God becoming even more distant, so distant that David cries out to the mystery that is God because God feels so far away in times of trouble.

Through these various transitions of how the people see or experience God, God also changes his position on how he wants the people to behave. When Isaiah announces at the beginning of his prophecy to the people that God no longer wants their sacrifices, their hands covered in blood, this is a whole new way God is revealing himself to the people. He tells them in this passage that what he really wants is for them to change their lives, to reorient their lives toward being compassionate people who care about the “other” - cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

God’s idea of how they should live changes what God requires of them as a people. But does it mean that they are no longer responsible for sin? Is God saying to the people in this passage that they no longer owe a debt? Or is God changing the cost of their freedom?

To fully comprehend God’s intention, we’d have to crawl into God’s mind and know what he was thinking at this particular moment in history. It is impossible to know the role that sin played in God’s decision to say, “stop sacrificing animals, stop killing in my name.” It is, though, a rather bold statement because it changes the central focus of their worship entirely.

So, how does this affect our understanding of what happened to Jesus on the cross? We have to ask ourselves, “If God doesn’t want sacrifices from the people, why would he demand a sacrifice on behalf of the people?” How are these two things different? What kind of debt does God feel God is owed?

Ransom theory places the debt God is owed at the center of its framework. It posits that sin, something passed down from generation to generation, must be atoned for; but, instead of sacrificing more animals, God will accept this one and final sacrifice, that of his son, to pay the debt.

I suppose if the conversation begins with sin (all the things that we do that violate our relationship with God) then it is easy to see how someone must pay the price for that violation. Sadly, though, this makes me see God in the same way I would see a mobster. The kind of debt owed to God, and the price that is paid (Jesus’ death) seems a rather high price for someone else to pay for my mistakes. Not only to pay for my mistakes, but to pay a price for being human.

This is the part of the equation that is difficult for me to reconcile. God didn’t make humans perfect, as in, without flaw. This is where we struggle the most with the creation story, and it is the foundation upon which we need to build a different kind of understanding of God. Why would God punish his creation for sin, which is actually a product of the free-will we were given from the beginning of time. Our ability to make choices is the hallmark of being human.

As we wrestle each week with these Theories of Atonement, let us remember that we are first, and foremost, created in the image and likeness of God, and that our understanding of God and creation is limited to our own lived experience and the experiences of others. The evolution of our understanding of the divine tells us there is a better way to engage in the world and with our creator than death; it is called compassion—to feel with the other. The only debt we owe to our creator is to live like it matters.

Mark 16:1-8 The Women at the Tomb

16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

In the Book of Mark, we find a truncated version of the resurrection story; one that ends with the women fleeing the tomb, saying nothing to anyone out of fear. The scene makes perfect sense from the perspective of the women. Everything they saw at the tomb would have registered as NOT NORMAL.

In the Hebrew world, anointing a body for burial was a normal part of the ritual of women. Unfortunately, the timing of Jesus’ death made it impossible for the women to attend to Jesus’ body because of cleanliness laws and the receiving of Passover. Still, once Passover was complete, ensuring that Jesus’ body was properly interred was of paramount importance. What the women find when they reached the tomb defied logic. It didn’t make any sense to them.

It might have been easier to wrestle with an empty tomb if the messenger of God had stayed away. The women could have easily made up a story as to what happened to Jesus. He could have been stolen. He could have been moved for safety reasons. No doubt, they would have immediately told the disciples—Jesus is missing. Eventually they might have put all the pieces together, especially when Jesus shows up. Surprise!

But, no, someone was at the tomb, someone the women did not recognize. He speaks to them and tells them that Jesus isn’t there. That alone would have been a duh moment. The women weren’t blind. But to go on to say that Jesus had risen, that was pushing the envelope. Imagine how you would react to such news.

The question that rises from this tale is, “If the women told no one, how is Mark telling the story?”

I asked that question once in Sunday school and was told not to be a “smart aleck”. It was actually a legitimate question. For those of us who study the Bible and who think about the theological implications of such statements, it makes a world of difference. It is significant in that because of Mark’s truncated ending, later writers felt the need to add two additional endings to the Book of Mark, endings that spin the gospel in a wildly different direction than I imagine Mark intended.

If Mark had added one word, it would have made his story more believable—initially…and they “initially” said nothing to no one, for they were afraid. That makes sense to me. Initially, I wouldn’t have said anything either, for fear of being seen as crazy. But after a minute or two of conversation with the other women, I would be able to convince myself that I needed to tell someone what I had just witnessed. There is no way I could keep this to myself.

In truth, we don’t know why the author of Mark ended his gospel the way he did. But we know that Mark (the individual) knew more than what he wrote, because the entire Coptic Christian tradition is built on Mark’s testimony of the risen Christ (I’ll save this topic for another post). Notice the distinction—the author of Mark may not have been Mark who becomes Saint Mark, or who was a follower of Jesus. The Book of Mark may have been penned by someone using Mark’s name to lend the gospel credibility. What we do know, though, is that whoever wrote the Book of Mark felt the need to end it with the women not testifying to anyone about the risen Christ.

From a different perspective, it feels as though the writer of Mark was okay with the women taking care of the body of Jesus, because that is woman’s work, but he was not okay with the women testifying to the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, because their role in this story needs to be contained and controlled.

The other gospels don’t tell the story much better, especially from the women’s perspective, and is worth noting that only in the Book of Matthew do they play the star role.

In the Book of Matthew, which is the next gospel to be written following Mark, the women encounter an angel at the tomb. We read in Matthew 28:8 their reaction: “So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.” Matthew acknowledges the fear but adds the “great joy” bit and that they run to tell the disciples. This passage gives the women more agency over the story than does Mark. Not only do they feel great joy, as they are running to tell the disciples, they have an encounter with Jesus on the road. It is Jesus that tells them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” And, as far as we know, the women go.

In the Book of Luke, which follows Matthew in its writing, we find the women being greeted by two men who were dazzling white. This encounter frightened them, but they listened to the men and were reminded of Jesus’ words. Luke’s text has multiple women at the tomb, and they all return to tell the disciples about what they saw. Luke is more inclusive of women and takes their story more seriously. However, when the women tell the disciples, they were not believed. So much so that Peter had to run to the tomb and discover for himself that the tomb was empty. So, while Luke is more inclusive of women, Luke is also quick to point out that the patriarchy must remain intact.

The Book of John is the final gospel to be written and it rewrites the whole story. Mary Magdalene in the only woman who goes to the tomb, and as soon as she sees that the stone has been rolled away, she runs to get Simon Peter and the other disciple who loved Jesus (we don’t know who this is). She exclaims to them that someone has taken Jesus’ body and she has no idea where he is. The two disciples raced to the tomb, Peter enters first then the other disciple and they both believed. There is no supernatural encounter with a young man, an angel, or two dazzling men, just an empty tomb that signaled to Peter and the other disciple that Jesus had risen. John has the disciples returning to their home without any further information about the women.

How we read the story of the resurrection matters. The writers of the story of the resurrection shaped the characters to fulfill a particular role. Do you find yourself in the story? Would you run in fear and not tell anyone, or would you have an encounter with Jesus on the road to tell the disciples? Would you allow yourself to be disbelieved, or even written out of the story all together? We must make space for all the stories, all the ways in which Jesus shows up in the lives of those closest to him, including the women.