Meg Peery McLaughlin
Cross Talk: God Pulls a Fast One
Ransom Theory of Atonement
March 3, 2024
Mark 10: 35-45
Prayer of Illumination
As the beams of the cross join together at the point of intersection,
meet us here, O God, in the reading of your word.
Meet us here at the crossroads and make yourself known to us,
so that we might see you more clearly, as well as the path you would have us follow. Amen.
Scripture
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” 37 And they said to him, “Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” 39 They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you will be baptized, 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to appoint, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; instead, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Sermon
We have lamp posts.
As of Friday,
in the Dunham Hall parking lot.
I love this for so many reasons.
They are solar-powered, a reminder of this congregation’s earth care values,
an incarnation of them.
They are the final finishing touch of the Dunham Hall project,
and will offer both hospitality and safety at that entrance.
And they’re the result of the Give Light Campaign, which we launched just after coming back from Covid, to honor John Wilson and his brilliant work in keeping us worshiping online for so, so long. Thanks be to God.
We have lamp posts.
That they showed up this week also feels like providential timing for this sermon.
Because it is at the base of a lamp post that a little girl named Lucy
realizes she is in a whole other world.
A creature who is half person, half goat name Mr. Tumnus,
tells Lucy at the lamp post that she is Narnia.
On the way home from the Women’s Retreat this past weekend,
in addition to listening to the UPC Podcast of Faith in Plain Sight,
which I highly recommend,
I also listened to a book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
I had the CS Lewis classic on my mind
because Jarrett has just finished reading it to Caroline,
and because it’d been so long since I cracked its spine
and wanted to remember it for this sermon on the cross.
That’s what we are considering this Lent, as you know.
For Christians all over the globe,
the cross is the symbol of our salvation,
our atonement with God.
That big ole churchy word, atonement,
has no roots in Latin or Greek, it was just invented by putting
at- one- ment together.
Somehow what happens on the cross is how we are at one, at peace with God.
Each week as we get closer to Holy Week,
when we tell the story of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection,
we are examining a different theory of atonement.
Perhaps we’ve chosen to do this because
Presbyterians are good at being nerds, but more truthfully, I think its because
when we hear, or even say, “Jesus died on the cross to save us”
we don’t always know what that means.
Church, rest easy.
You’re not some kind of deficient Christian
if you fumble around trying to make sense of the cross,
or if you dislike or doubt what meaning someone else has made.
Our tradition does not have a singular answer for what the cross means,
and neither does the bible itself.
I’m sorry if you’ve been told otherwise.
In our reading today we meet two disciples
who just can’t get on the same page as Jesus.
Jesus says he’s headed to Jerusalem, where the cross inevitably awaits.
They say they want to come alone,
but don’t realize that to share in Jesus ministry
is not a ticket to fame,
but an invitation to serve.
James and John haven’t yet realized that following Jesus is inherently risky,
but that it is ultimately healing.
At the end of his pep talk to the disciples, Jesus says
the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many.
If I understand it, Jesus is saying his death isn’t just what happens when you anger people in power, though that is real for those who follow in his way,
but that Jesus’ death does something.
The early church Fathers latched onto this language
and the ransom theory of atonement
has stuck around in our theological soup ever since.
Does anyone remember that old Mel Gibson movie from the 90s.
Ransom. If your money mind has drifted there, you’re actually not that off.
The thought is that Christ’s death is a ransom payment that frees us, saves us.
The inevitable next question is: to whom was it paid, and for what?
The traditional answer is that the ransom is paid to Satan, the very embodiment of evil, all that is antithetical to God. Our sin enslaves us to Satan, our turning way from God means that we have freely put ourselves in Satan’s power and God wishes to free us from that.
So God has to offer Satan something for which Satan is willing to trade all of us.
God’s idea is then to send Jesus to earth in human form.
Satan is fooled into thinking that Jesus is human, but not God.
Satan sees Jesus performing miracles,
and so thinks of Jesus as more valuable than the rest of humanity combined .
So when Jesus offers himself as ransom on the cross, Satan greedily and happily takes the deal.
C.S. Lewis has this in his mind,
as he tells the story of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Under the Lamp Post, little Lucy’s older brother Edmund meets
the embodiment of evil, who in this story is the White Witch.
She has turned Narnia into a place where it is always winter, but never Christmas,
and Edmund chooses to eat freely of her Turkish Delight,
and when he cannot help himself but to go find more, more, more,
he finds himself kidnapped.
That’s when we start to hear that Aslan is on the move.
Aslan is described as a lion, who is not safe, but good.
When Aslan and the Witch meet,
the Witch calls Edmund a traitor.
Aslan says “His offense was not against you.”
“Have you forgotten the deep magic?” replies the Witch.
“Must I tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us?
You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning.
You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to kill.”
So Aslan suggests himself as ransom and the Witch makes the trade.
And while in this story there is no cross, there is a crucifixion,
and then a resurrection.
To which little Lucy of under the Lamp Post says,
Aren’t you dead then, dear Aslan?
Not now, said Aslan.
You’re not—not-a??.
She couldn’t bring herself to use the word ghost.
Aslan stooped his golden head and licked her forehead.
Do I look it? he said.
But what does it all mean?
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew Deep Magic,
there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.
There is a magic deeper still.
God’s love in Christ on the cross is not the magic of fairy tales,
but it is mysteriously real.
That is our confession. Our leap of faith. The trust of our heart.
And it is the kind of power that flips evil on its head.
It is the kind of surprise that categorically changes the world.
It is the kind of act that is once and for all.
One of the reasons this theory of atonement fell out of favor with the church
was because of the cunning involved.
Some theologians thought such deceit was not fitting of the divine.
But some it is really good news that
God pulls a fast one on the cross.
And that good news is worth our praise.
The next time I go to The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
I want to spend time with a piece of art by a Dutch artist named Robert Campin.
It’s an annunciation triptych .
In the center—The Angel Gabriel is bringing news to young Mary that she will bear God into the world.
On the left is the portrait of the painting’s patron,
which is art’s version of naming rights.
But on the last third, on the right hand side, is a painting of Joseph,
the carpenter in his woodshop.
Makes sense. Joseph just doing his job while his fiancé gets the news that will change the course of all history.
But if you look closely, you can see that Joseph is making a mousetrap.
That trap is a symbol of the cross, if you know what you’re looking for.
St. Augustine said
The cross of our Lord became a trap for the Devil;
the death of the Lord was the food by which he was ensnared.
Or if mice aren’t your thing,
other theologians used the image of the fish hook:
“God veiled himself in our nature. As it is with a greedy fish, Satan swallowed the Godhead like a fish hook along with the flesh, which was the bait.”
And so we say that Jesus died on the cross…but something happened.
Salvation happened.
Humankind was released from any and every power of evil.
Christ’s death declares, once and for all, that we belong to God and no one else.
Even if we sell out, or chicken out.
We will not be defined by any other power,
any other choice, any other pull in any other direction.
The cross makes it clear. The trade was for keeps.
As you disciples come in and out of this building
in the months and years to come
you’ll pass by those lamp posts.
And maybe you’ll just be grateful you can see the curb in the dark,
or their solar function will remind you to bring your compost.
Maybe you’ll glance at them while saying a silent thanks to John Wilson
for all those worship services you watched in your pajamas.
But if you see the lamp post
and think of a not-safe-but-good-lion and a deeper magic still,
perhaps it will remind you of God.
God, who by hook or by crook,
will be at-one with us, will save us.
For nothing will have the power to pull us from God,
so deep is God’s love.