PROPITIATION

and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

(1 John 2: 2 – NAS)


John has just told us that Christ is our Advocate before the Lord, our representative who will argue in the Ultimate Court in our defense when we face God’s justice for our sins. Now he takes that description a step further, and tells us that Christ is also “the propitiation for our sins.”

“Propitiation” is not a word we use much these days. It means to gain or regain the favor of someone, to appease or conciliate. It implies that the person being appeased has some authority over the person offering the propitiation.

Why would propitiation be needed?

It is needed because the holiness of the Lord is such that anything that is stained cannot endure in His presence. And we stumbling humans cannot help but be very stained by our lives; our sins of choice, our sins of error, our sins of omission permeate our being. On our own, we have no hope of being able to approach God because we cannot rid ourselves of these effects, at least not by our own efforts.

But Jesus Christ our Advocate also absorbs the consequence of our sins. However you want to look at it – that Jesus stands between us and a just punishment, or that He takes into Himself our sins so that we would then stand free and clear and pure in the presence of God – Jesus is the one who “makes things right” between us and God the Father.

It is not that the consequence of our sins is brushed aside and forgotten. No, instead, Jesus takes it all upon himself. The consequence is still the consequence and it must play out. But because of His sacrifice upon the cross, Jesus is the one that takes on those consequences.

I think that sometimes we undervalue what it means to have Christ as the propitiation of our sins. And we take it for granted. We walk through our lives as followers of Jesus, and discount the effects of our less-than-perfect actions. After all, our intentions were good, and that should be enough, shouldn’t it? We hardly consider the possibility that something we said or did with good intentions might in fact have had evil consequences.

God does not un-make any of the consequences of any action. He set the Universe to work in a certain way, and one of those ways is that consequences follow actions. He does not change that.

But what He does do is let His Son Jesus take on all those negative consequences. Instead of letting them fall upon us (the fate we deserve), Jesus has taken them on to Himself. And not just the negative consequences before God of the actions of believers, but of the whole world. Jesus stands between everyone and the divine judgment leveled against them, and all anyone has to do is accept Him as Lord in order to gain the benefit of that.

The whole world.

We like to say of extreme consequences that they are “a whole world of pain.” But for Jesus, that is the literal truth. By taking on the role of propitiation for our sins, He has taken on all the pain we would justly receive as a consequence for our actions. No matter what.

It occurs to me that when outraged believers ardently desire heavy punishment to fall on sinners, whether the sinners are repentant or not, the believers are desiring to see others suffer. Humans have a strong impulse for vengeance. We desire to return all ills that we receive. And when we can cloak that desire as the delivery of a just punishment, we feel a sense of satisfaction. So we willingly acquiesce to harsh punishments.

But Jesus is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. Every divine punishment we could wish upon other sinners, Jesus has taken onto Himself. Because God so loved the whole world that He sent His only Son.

And whatever we do to others, we do to Jesus.

I am certainly grateful for Jesus taking on the consequences of my own sins. I am capable of thoughtlessly or carelessly injuring others, capable of any number of “small sins.” And I know I am not shut away from the presence of God as I deserve because Jesus has absorbed the consequences of those actions.

What I had not considered before is that He does that for others as well, even when I feel that they should at least have a sense of the lash or retribution. Someone did an injury to me: I want them to know what they did and be punished for it. But God’s love is such that even there, Jesus stands as the propitiation for sin. That consequence, that punishment that I want to see visited on another is instead visited on Jesus. It humbles me. Shall I then add to the wounds of the whip that tore apart the skin of the Lord? Shall I too drive the nails into His hands and feet? This He did for the sins of the whole world.

Perhaps we should not be so eager to demand retribution. We all of us deserve it. But Jesus is the one who takes the eternal consequences upon Himself.

REFLECTION OR TRANSLUCENCE


This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 
(1 John 1: 5 – NAS)


John gets down to his message swiftly now. He announces the basics of it and the authority of it. This message was heard from Jesus Christ Himself, who is God Made Manifest. And John puts it in terms even little children can grasp: God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all.

A few years ago, the blinds in my apartment were replaced. The old blinds were old when I moved in, and that had been many years previously. They were so ancient I never touched them as they threatened to fall apart. The slats themselves were metal, and so opaque entirely, letting neither vision nor light get by them when they were closed. And they were closed most of the time because I like my privacy, and I am light sensitive (meaning I respond to changes in light even when sleeping, which is annoying if you went to bed at 2:30 and first light starts sneaking in at 5:30).

Then the management chose to do some major maintenance on all the apartments, minor repairs and such, and so I requested new blinds. I asked for vertical blinds for the living room, as they are more like curtains for allowing variances in light. The new blinds were installed, light-weight white plastic. And they seemed to be opaque, blocking vision. And they certainly block my interior lights from spilling out into the night, when they are drawn.

But I discovered an interesting thing about the power of sunlight. Although these blinds are excellent at blocking artificial light (you can only tell if my interior lights are on if there is leakage between the slats), they are translucent to sunlight. The first morning after their installation, I was wakened by a dim light filling the whole apartment.

We all know that sunlight is powerful. But that was the first occasion in a long time that brought it home to me (so to speak). My blinds could block man-made artificial light, but sunlight was not hindered by it at all. It would still make its way into my living space. Oh, some of the effect was hampered, of course. But as soon as there was light outside in my world, as dawn began, there would be light inside my apartment to see by.

We can chalk this effect up to modern technology, of course. Metal blinds or wood blinds would have blocked everything. But once I got used to the translucence, I rather liked it. And it became a daily reminder to me of how pervasive God can be in our lives, if we let Him shine through.

John wants to make the point of the purity and holiness of God. “God is light and there is no darkness in Him.”

There is darkness of all sorts in the world, of course. Visual darkness, that keeps us from seeing things around us. Mental darkness, that keeps us from understanding things. Emotional darkness, that interferes with our relationships. John knew this as well as the next person.

But people had come, as it is human nature to do, to ask the question, “How can there be so much of this darkness, if it does not come from God Himself? Therefore there must be some darkness in God!” Human nature has not changed all that much at all, for people still  ask that question. Living within Creation, we have a hard time grasping that God is much more than the boundaries of Creation.

So John states it plainly, up-front: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

When we talk about being followers of Jesus, we often say things like “I want to reflect the Light of God to others.” And it can be a useful way of talking about it. Reflected light can be a very pleasing thing: we often enjoy mirrored corridors when they are lit up, and the moon when high and full in a clear night sky can be so bright as to cast strong shadows. But since the translucent blinds came into my life, I have begun to wonder about the metaphor of reflection.

Reflective surfaces are hard. The point of them is that they do not let light “get through” to whatever is behind that surface. We are all familiar with the one-way glass that gets used for police interrogation rooms. The way these function is that the treated glass acts as a mirror on one side, in a well-lit room filled with light. On the other side, the observation room is darker. This allows observers to see through the treated glass into the subject’s room. But the darkness on the other side, for the subject, keeps the glass only reflective, for no light from the other side is passing through it.

Which would I rather be like? The translucent blinds, which allow true light – sunlight – to pass through and illuminate things on the other side? Or would I rather be like the one-way glass, that reflects back the brightness on the mirror side, but requires darkness on the other?

John’s words come back to me: there is no darkness in God.

I think we are called to be translucent, not reflective. God’s light should shine from within us, whether softly (as the daylight in my apartment does when the blinds are drawn) or brightly (like when the blinds are wide open to full sunlight). I don’t think we should be lurking inside the shell of our lives in darkness, letting our hard surfaces reflect back on others the bright light of God. For we need the light as much as the next person.

This is what John learned from Jesus Himself. And surely those two are trustworthy witnesses.

WHAT IS HOLY?


Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. 
(Matthew 7: 6 – NAS)


How often do we reference “pearls before swine” these days? Quite a lot, but mostly in a dismissive way. It gets used by someone in sympathy with another who is attempting to reach an audience. When the intended audience doesn’t respond, the speaker dismisses the target audience and “consoles” the friend at the same time by saying, “Pearls before swine,” meaning that the audience isn’t worthy of the attention given them.

We use the phrase as a judgment against those who are ignorant or unperceptive, who fail to recognize value in good work. But that is not what Jesus is focusing on here, and we would be better served to pay attention to Him. 

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine....”

Jesus asks us to look closely at what has been placed in our hands, and to value those things properly.  

Pearls were of great value in Jesus’ time, because they were difficult to come by and their remarkable beauty made them very desirable. Pearls are not crystals like most other gemstones. That distinction, and the process by which they are made, gives pearls a reputation of high worth. These are not mere pebbles that we treat as objects of beauty: they are undeniably  beautiful objects. Pearls do not get mistaken for lesser things (though lesser things can attempt to imitate them). 

Now that we’re clear about pearls, let us remember how Jesus began this verse. “Do not give what is holy to dogs.”  

Holiness goes far beyond monetary value. Holiness is about the striving for perfection. It is about those things that have been dedicated to the very best, even consecrated to the service of God.  

Jesus tells us not to give such things to dogs or swine.  

He is not condemning the dogs or swine for being dogs or swine. Pigs were considered unclean animals in Jesus’ culture. It didn’t have to do with a condition of being covered with dirt, but rather that they had not been sanctified by the Lord. Pigs were frequently kept because they would eat garbage. Many dogs also were not considered to be of much worth. But they are what they are. 

Jesus, however, is not dismissing them as being unworthy. To the people He was speaking to, that much was already understood. Instead, Jesus was reminding us to pay attention to our own conduct. 

Do we scatter our pearls anywhere and everywhere, in hopes that someone out there will value them? Do we give away everything to the first creature that comes up to us and plops itself down ready to take anything we will give to it? If we do indeed do those things, what does that say about how we value what has been given into our hands? 

Of course, Jesus is not just talking about physical objects, whether things we have acquired or things we have made. He is also speaking about the “pearls of wisdom” that the Lord has given us in scripture, and in what Jesus has been teaching. How do we treat these things?  

How often are Bible verses scattered about in discussions, just to “make a point”? How often have believers used scripture to browbeat others? We justify that behavior – when we think about it – by relying on the fact that it is God's Word. “It will not come back void,” we tell ourselves. But have we treated it as holy? Have we treated it as if it had the beauty and pricelessness of a wonderful pearl? 

We do not. 

We often treat God’s Word as if all that wisdom and relationship were simply sticks to beat others with, tools for getting “our way.” 

Let us remember that this verse is in the middle of a long teaching wherein Jesus is trying to make a bunch of blockheads (namely, us) understand the conduct that He desires to find in His followers. This is not about telling us not to waste our efforts on the unworthy (although He does caution us as to how the Unworthy might respond to things). Instead, it is about how we treat what we are given. 

The Word of the Lord is like a strand of perfectly matched pearls. Are you going to throw away that strand on a street corner and hope that whoever finds it will value it? Are you going to pull the strand apart and toss each pearl into a crowd of passers-by, and hope that each one lands in the hands of someone who knows what it is? 

Who in their right mind would do that? 

Yet, that is how we treat the Lord’s words. 

Just how much do we value what the Lord has given to us? Do we toss scripture at outsiders and think that we have done enough in sharing the Good News? Do we expect them to behave like dogs and just lap everything up, taking it all in without understanding? What does it say about US that we treat the Word of the Lord this way? 

Holiness is about the ultimate of perfection. We say that God is holy. But how often do we think of what that means? 

The shining heart of all existence is the presence of God. The fire of the Most Holy is such that imperfection cannot come near to Him (unless Jesus stands protection for that which is imperfect). The nature of this holiness is inherent in all scripture. 

But we don’t treat it that way. We treat scripture as “mere words,” and so we toss them around every which way. Is it any surprise that nonbelievers trample them under their feet and then turn and run at us, ready to tear us to pieces? Have we in anyway way treated the scripture as something precious and valuable? Don’t we come across to others as simply using tools (and particularly unlovely tools, at that!)? 

Scripture and the relationship that we can have with God by understanding scripture... these are the things that are holy. These are the pearls of great price. These are what we should treat as being so precious they are gems in a crown. 

Let us all be careful about what we start casually tossing out to those passing by us, those that are around us. Let us remember what is holy.

FIRST THINGS FIRST


Pray, then, in this way:
"Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name."
(Matthew 6: 9 – NAS)


Jesus had just told His followers not to bombard the Lord with meaningless repetitions, not to make a big display of their acts of prayer. He realized that they needed a model for intimate simplicity, and so He gave us this prayer that we call “the Lord’s Prayer.”

Jesus wants us to remember just who we are having the prayerful communication with.

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 – NAS) This was something the ancient Hebrews were supposed to remind themselves of every day. But human nature being what it is, it’s probable that people fell into not paying attention to what they were saying (if they did recite it) or not saying it at all.

And then there is, of course, the other biggie: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20: 2-3 – NAS)

When He had spoken about the making of oaths and vows, Jesus had addressed the matter of the holiness of the name of God. This was a matter that many Jews took very seriously in that day (as many people do today), to the degree that they would not say aloud “I am that I am” in Hebrew at all. There developed a cloud of alternate names and titles that stood between the believer and the Divine, to such a degree that all sense of true intimacy had been removed.

Jesus changed that. Not only did He remind those who listened to Him that God behaved towards His creatures as a father does to his children, the Lord desired that level of familiarity and intimacy. Jesus did this by telling His followers to address the Sovereign of the Universe by calling Him “Father.” Our Father. Not some remote personage. Not some entity who belonged to someone else. Our Father.

“Who is in heaven.” Because we need to be reminded that this world is not the only thing. God is beyond all this, even though He is simultaneously right in the midst of it.

“Hallowed be Your name.”

We don’t really hallow much these days. Not in the sense of making things truly holy. We have this impulse for reverence, this desire to give that devotion to something. But we tend not to pour it upon God, the one object that ought to receive it. Instead, we “hallow” sports stars (as long as they stay winning) and entertainers (as long as their works stay “good”). We “make holy” victims of accidents and senseless crime. I don’t mean to say that these people are not worthy of our respect. They often are. But we confer upon these fellow humans more devotional energy than we ever direct at the Lord God.

Do we pray as if God were the Divine Answering Machine, taking our messages and delivering the goods to our doorstep like pizza?

I think we do, far too often. And I’m as guilty of that as the next person.

Jesus wants us to remember firstly that God is God. God is Holy. We come before the Lord, the most awesome presence existing. His name is hallowed, and we need to remember that.

But ....

We may also call Him “Father.”

Not just any father. Our Father. My Father.

For those who come from damaged homes, where their relationship with their father is riddled with abuse, neglect, folly, it may be hard for them to connect with this. Such people know intuitively what their relationship with their parents should have been. But because they suffered so badly, the very word “father” may have terrible resonances. They cannot get beyond the contamination their worldly father brought to the title. Perhaps that is why Jesus included the qualifier “who is in heaven.”

The Lord is what any father ought to be: loving, protective, the provider of shelter and food, supportive of his children.

And He is ours.

Jesus tells us to look beyond whatever we have known or experienced in life, to look to the Ultimate and know that the Lord is here for us, always. Both unbearably holy and pure while also being envelopingly intimate.

I was recently thinking about the Lord’s Prayer, partly thinking ahead toward writing this and the following posts and partly because my circumstances have made me focus on my complete dependence upon the Lord. I mulled over how Jesus moved toward teaching this prayer to His followers. I thought about how I’d learned the prayer at a very early age in Sunday School. I remembered how as a child dusting the knick-knacks in the house each Saturday morning, one of the items was a lovely smallish shell with the Lord’s Prayer carved on it: I would pause and read it every time I dusted it. I know the Prayer well.

But, because of my circumstances, it occurred to me to look at the Prayer a new way – or at least, new to me. I was so used to the plurals in the Prayer, our Father, our daily bread, our trespasses (or debts). But what if...? What if, instead, I made it personal?

“My Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”

I was shocked at the change within me when I made it personal. The “community-think” of using the plural terms has the power to still keep the Lord at a distance.

Jesus wants us to pray with deep intimacy. God is holy and God is intimate. In your “prayers in secret” let God come close.