“Jesus Saves”

2 Corinthians 5: 16-21

April 7, 2019

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

If we put 100 Christians together in a room and asked them what Christianity is all about, we would get more than 100 answers. Christianity is a pretty big place, after all.One answer I am fairly confident we would hear is some version of this one: Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins.

Whew! There is a LOT to unpack in that sentence, isn’t there? Some of the other things we might hear under the surface of that statement are….

• salvation is about going to heaven after we die
• Like a sacrificial lamb, Jesus’s blood covers our sins
• God needed to be paid a ransom for our sins in order to save us from hell

….and probably a lot of other assumptions, too.

This is certainly the way I learned about Christianity as a child. I learned that we humans were sinful and that our sins would make us go to hell after we died….EXCEPT(!) Jesus had come and, through his death, he took on everyone’s sins, and his sacrifice cleared our sins, enabling us to go to heaven, saving us.

I am guessing this is familiar to a lot of you, right? I know, from talking with many of you over the years, that for some of you this understanding of Jesus simply doesn’t work for you anymore….that you find it to be problematic.

What I didn’t know for a long time was that this is NOT the only way to understand the phrase “Jesus saves.” It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that there were other ways to understand salvation, other ways to understand the crucifixion, other ways to understand Resurrection. One of the things I appreciate about being a part of the United Church of Christ is that there is no requirement that we will all believe the same things. “Belonging” in the UCC isn’t about what we believe, it’s about our commitment to be travelers together as we seek to follow Jesus.

When I read this week’s text from 2 Corinthians, where Paul is talking about how we can become “new creations” through Christ, it made me think about the many, many ways I’ve heard other Christians explain the newness they’ve found through Christ. And so I’d like to just lift up some of the diversity of experience within Christianity this morning. My hope is that you might feel encouraged to grapple with what it means to you to call Jesus savior. Maybe that language feels good to you. Maybe it doesn’t. However it feels, know that we don’t all have to feel the same way. We don’t have to believe the same things in order to love each other or support one another. Thanks be to God!

Okay, so obviously books and books and books have been written about this topic over literal centuries. This brief sermon is not going to be at all comprehensive and may feel a little disjointed. Can we still dip a toe into these waters together this morning?

Great.

So….let’s start with the idea of salvation. What do we mean when we speak of salvation? Well, some folks are thinking primarily about what happens after we die. But others think about salvation as something that happens here and now. The quality of our life, before death, can change significantly when we decide form ourselves in the Way of Jesus.

For some Christians, the statement “Jesus saves” is less about what happens after death and it’s also not really about Jesus’s death, either. Some people find salvation through Jesus’s life and ministry, seeing him primarily as a model and teacher. When we try to literally follow in the footsteps of Jesus, living the way he showed and the way he taught, we can find ourselves as new creations. Our daily life on this planet may be transformed. That’s one way of understanding “Jesus saves.”

Others have said, “Yes, that’s important, but what are we supposed to do with the prominence of Jesus’s death and resurrection in our holy texts?” A big part of what makes Jesus unique are these accounts.

Some would says that, just as we learn how to live by watching Jesus live, we also learn how to die by watching Jesus die. One of the key functions of religion is to help us humans grapple with what it means to be mortal….because none of us are getting out of here alive. For some Christians, having a savior show us how to die is a powerful and important thing.

Father Richard Rohr often talks about descending religions vs ascending religions. He says Christianity is a descending religion. God “descends” to earth in the form of an infant human. Jesus “descends” to death. The work of being Christian is about getting comfortable with our mortality, llearning how to descend gracefully. Through this work, we find salvation, and Jesus is a qualified guide. That’s another way to understand “Jesus Saves.”

Now I want to shift gears a tiny bit and talk about the first part of that statement: Jesus. More specifically, I want to talk about the idea of Christ, which is not Jesus’s last name, but a title. It means “anointed one,” Messiah, savior. Although we are accustomed to thinking of Jesus and Christ as synonymous, there are some theologians who have pulled them apart a bit. Some Christians believe that the Christ-force, which is God, has existed for all eternity and has been revealed to us in numerous ways, including Jesus.

I’m going to say that again, because it’s a lot to take in: some Christians believe that the Christ-force, which is God, has existed for all eternity and has been revealed to us in numerous ways, including Jesus.

Some say that this Christ-force (God) is revealed to us in all of creation, through the ancient stories of the First Testament, and is still speaking to us even today. Jesus of Nazareth, who is imbued with the Christ-force, isn’t just a one-off. Instead, he points the way to a more universal truth which is that God is present in every thing and for all times. Because this is so very hard for us humans to believe and remember, some would say Jesus saves because he reminds us of Emmanuel: God with us. Some Christians believe this was a unique aspect of Jesus, while others see the Incarnation as a reminder of God’s presence in all creation.

For many, the idea that God is present with us here on earth….either through a presence that permeates all space and time OR through the unique person of Jesus Christ, feels very much like salvation. This sense that we are never alone, never separate from that ultimate force of Love that is for us….that’s a very comforting thought. It’s a belief that helps us transcend their fears about death because it helps us remember that God is with us even through that transition into whatever comes next. It also encourages and inspires us to try and be our best selves or seek the good in other people because if God is always present, Love is always present.

When I hear Paul’s words to the church at Corinth…. “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away, see, everything has become new!” I think about the ways I have experienced the Christ-force in my own life. I think about the Christ that I see in the birds and squirrels who hop and scurry around the bird feeder in our yard. I am reminded of the Christ that I’ve witnessed in the faces of people I love….and even in the faces of total strangers. I think about the ways that I’ve found new life even in the midst of great pain and suffering. I am reminded of how the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection give me hope that there’s always something more. And I think about Jesus’s death bearing witness to God’s solidarity for and with those who are oppressed….and how that solidarity points towards liberation for all people.

What do you hear when Paul says we are being made new? What comes to your mind when someone says “Jesus saves?” Your answer today may not be what it was five years ago, or what it will be five years from now. Your answer may feel firm and wonderous….or murky and elusive. You may be so put-off by these questions that right now isn’t even the right time for you to engage with them.

And yet….still we are able to choose to travel together in this work of being human….this work of following Jesus together. Thanks be to God for companions on the journey.