The Conundrum

From the moment sin entered this world, the world God created for us…and the world we were created for…He’s been making a plan to bring us back to Him.

Sin separated us, literally, from His presence as it was in the beginning. There’s a space between us.

The rest of the Bible contains the story of how God has been moving in and through history to help show us the way back. He’s been planning and moving and directing in many different ways…all so that we might look to Him, even in our own darkness.

All out of love for us.

Love doesn’t take all choice away. Love isn’t robotic. Our free will has always been intact. But He’s done so many things to say, “I’m right here.”

David and the Prophets would write passages such as:

Psalm 145:18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.

Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.

He was never far away even though we, as humans, might have neglected or forgotten Him or wondered off on our own.

But that whole time He was working out a plan that would bring justice. Justice that would cover what we did against Him. Justice that would be sufficient to take away the void. Forgiveness that would wipe away our sin.

God first mentions it to the accuser himself...

Genesis 3:15 CSB

15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

God’s plan, already started. God knew the possibilities. The idea of salvation was already in play.

And so through the Old Testament we see accounts of humanity’s battles through darkness, some desperately trying to stay close to God while others just live without Him…even battle against Him.

But even through that we hear of two promises.

One, a promise to wipe away sin…to redeem humanity.

And then another, that He was going to bring all things back …recreate all that sin had affected (Isaiah 66 and Revelation 21:5). So we could once again, be with Him in His perfect creation living with our perfect purpose.

Two promises. One promise has to arrive first. Sin needs to be paid for.

When God began with a nation called by His name, started out of the nations formed after the time of Babel, God promised His servant Abraham that through Him, In Him…through His family ancestry, all nations (people) of the earth would be blessed.

A promise that someone would come through His family, His nation, to save all nations…all people.

Job speaks into the future, Job who is walking through darkness himself…the effects of a world of sin and Satan as well…and says, “25 I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; 27 I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

Isaiah probably has one of the most prominent passages that speak of God’s plan. Isaiah speaks about this redeemer that Job knew about knowing of God’s original promise. Isaiah writes of this one who will come through the family of Abraham.

In Isaiah 53 we read of the suffering servant:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering...

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Led as a lamb to sacrifice....

his life an offering for sin...

All words of Isaiah…speaking towards the one who will fulfill part of God’s promise to humanity. The promise to take away the sin that separates us from Him.

In a following chapters God speaks through Isaiah

My salvation is close at hand…my righteousness will soon be revealed.

I’ve seen mankind’s ways but I will heal them.

If you were an Israelite, maybe living in or around 300 BC or later, you may have learned these passages. If you were a boy, you would have had to have memorized these in temple school.

So you knew what God was planning. Someone was going to be sent to heal, redeem, provide justice, atone for, forgive sin...

Why?

Because sin separates us from God.

We know what happens. A baby is born through a miracle. People begin to talk as this child grows and even then begins to show signs…fulfill prophecies.

Then on the outset of Jesus’ ministry, His baptism, John the Baptist looks at Him and publicly declares, “Look, here He is…the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”

Wow, if you were there, you would have probably, like those before you…would have been waiting to hear words like that. When is God going to redeem? When is Isaiah’s suffering servant going to show up? When is David’s savior going to appear? And then you hear John’s words…the lamb of God.

You know what the lamb of God is for. The sacrificial lamb is given for the forgiveness of sins. And here, a person is called the Lamb.

You might begin to keep close on news about this man. The miracles He’s doing.

What He’s saying.

What He’s claiming about Himself.

And how humble He is…How private He is about certain things.

You also hear the rumors...

You hear from the leaders, pharisees, saducees, scribes and more…that He can’t be who some claim He is. He can’t be the annointed one…the Messiah that was promised through all of those scriptures that you and generations before you…all the way back to Abraham himself…knew and had heard from God.

But what if they’re wrong? What if He is? What would you be looking for?

Signs, authority, claims, verification...

His words sound right in line.

His words against the current generation sound right, even though its hurtful…words against the leadership of Israel…words that do match up with old testament prophesy against the leaders.

And then at one passover, you see Him and His disciples coming into Jerusalem.

He’s on a donkey.

People are crying out Here’s the promised King! Wait…the King and the Lamb? The same one one?

Son of David? The one who’s been suffering under the critique of the religious leaders? Those now want Him dead? Of course that’s the rumors.

And then as the Passover week carries on, you hear that He is again healing…but now in the Temple…God’s house. He is speaking against the leaders more and more…but also talking about something that’s going to happen that will be for all of us.

He seems distraught at times…like He knows what’s happening.

And then you get word that He’s been arrested.

You, and many others, wondered why a king wouldn’t take control…but if He’s also the lamb…what’s that going to look like.

God has promised a redeemer…but the lamb is killed for sin…how can this man be both?

The narrative follows that he was accused by the religious leaders…a couple of times…to be guilty of blasphemy. That would be claiming things of God that are not true. But if they are true...

He’s then take before Pilate. Pilate asks if He’s a king…there can be no king but caesar. Jesus responds by saying that His Kingdom is not of this world.

Pilate dismisses this as high talk…but not treason.

Insists that Jesus give Him some reason to let Him go…but Jesus gives none.

Pilate goes so far as to offer someone…and he thinks he knows how this will go. He offers a trade off…a tradition of sorts at this time of year. Someone to be let free. Jesus or Barabas…a murderer.

Now put yourself back in the shoes of someone there. You look around, you’re standing there. A beat up Jesus and the murderer Barabas…and many around you (who days before were crying out The King is Here)…are now beginning to murmur “Crucify Him.”

You’re perplexed. It looks like Pilate is trying to give some justice to this man Jesus…but if He really is the Lamb…the lamb has to die for the justice of mankind…and these people are helping that happen…and they don’t even know it.

Pilate washes his hands…orders his execution.

He’s beaten even more than before and is ordered to carry the cross He will die on.

If you were there, watching all of this happen in real time....what would you have been thinking…doing…saying?

Hiding? Running with the crowd? Insulting? Trying to convince people to think twice?

It would be like you’re watching the prophecies come true step by step…the religious leaders killing another prophet, the redeemer being beaten....

The lamb has to die…and you know that you should be happy…but this doesn’t yet make sense.

You know, if this is all in line with God’s word, then this is a very good thing… YOu also know that if He is God’s son…God’s servant… then He is also doing the will of God...

The information you’re taking in says…this is for us. But …if He dies… How can the rest take shape?

So we have a conundrum.

= A paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma

A savior ....that dies. I mean it matches with what looks right with what needs to happen for our sin...

But new life…isn’t that in there somewhere too???

A conundrum.

You then remember something you overheard Jesus say just in the last couple of days. There were some people trying to see Jesus…Gentiles…but still they really wanted to talk to him…and His response given to them second hand was this… which didn’t make sense till now…as you stood there looking at Him on the cross.

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, My servant will be as well.

There’s a bit of hope. To live …you need to die.

To have real life, you have to die to yourself.

He said we must follow His example. Not that we’re all put on crosses…but we must, as He said, put away the life that this world gives…die to it…and take up life that He gives...

You and many others around you…all thinking…is it really going to happen as He said…that in three days…is this really happening?

We know....today....that the cross was necessary. The unblemished lamb…Jesus, needed to die to take away out sins.

Paul looking back, 1 Corinthians 15:3

1 Corinthians 15:3 CSB

3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

Today we will remember the cross in a slight different way. On Sunday we will celebrate with communion.

Today we will remember the reason for the cross. The cross was for death for forgiveness. It is an image for us, of Jesus dying for our sins…according to all of the scriptures…God’s story…of redeeming us.

Today as we close you’ll have the chance to write your name, your initials, a sin that you feel entrapped in, something you’re having difficulty with (a dark area of life)…maybe you just want to put the words, My Life.....on that card…as though you’re giving Him yourself…because He gave all for you.

Then when you’re ready…take some time to think about this…when you’re ready…bring your card-folded up and place it here at the foot of the cross.

Non of these will be looked at. They will be taken and disposed of so no one will know anything.