Christ Died for My Sins. And I'm Okay with That.
Why are we so afraid to admit we are sinners?
“Today’s Mini-sermon,” the meme reads in black ink on a gold background. “Jesus was crucified for standing up to empire, not to atone for the sins of humanity.”
The meme, created by a prominent pastor from my denomination, was everywhere during Holy Week, and more than a few people expressed their approval.
All I could do as I saw it, and the reaction from folk was to breathe a heavy sigh. The meme highlights the clash between forgiveness and justice. For many, Jesus didn’t come to earth and die because we were all sinners, but was a revolutionary who taught people to love, and that was met with disapproval from an oppressive government.
It would be wrong to say there is no truth to the meme. Jesus was put to death by Rome in the most brutal way possible. The crucifixion was used not just to put rabble rousers to death, but also to make them an example. I can remember reading a commentary where a road leading into town would be lined with crosses of the condemned. In some cases, the criminals were left to die slowly, and this included having the birds pick at their flesh.
So, there is some truth in this meme. But it also feels incomplete. It falls short of how people really live. It’s great that Jesus cares about social issues and is willing to face punishment for his stand. But does this Jesus care about when I mess up? Does this Jesus know about the times I didn’t help others? Does this Jesus know about the guilt I carry or the times I feel like no one likes me? Does this Jesus know about the times I don’t feel like I measure up or the times that I failed to speak out?
In the gospels, Jesus seems to be willing to forgive people of their sins, shocking those around him. In Luke 7, Jesus is a guest at the home of a Pharisee. A woman who was known for living a “sinful life” entered the house and wiped the feet of Jesus with her tears. Jesus looks at the woman and tells her she is forgiven, shocking the religious leaders. In Mark 4, Jesus is in a house healing people when a paralyzed man was brought down in front of Jesus by his four friends, who went up to the roof and created a hole to let him down with a rope. Again, Jesus forgives the man, which seemed rather odd since he did that before helping him walk.
If Jesus didn’t die for our sins, then why did he bother to forgive the sins of these two people?
Maybe it’s because Jesus knows that even in our day, we long to be forgiven by each other and by God.
There is a clip on YouTube from the latter seasons of the series ER that talks about the need to be forgiven. I will admit, by the time this clip aired, I had stopped watching the show. But the clip says a lot about how sin affects our lives and how we want someone, anyone, to tell us we can receive forgiveness. The short involves an elderly doctor who is dying and a chaplain. He was a doctor at a prison, administering the drugs used to kill the condemned by lethal injection. The drugs didn’t immediately take, but he was able to get it to work and the prisoner died for his crime.
Except, it was found out that the prisoner who was sentenced to death did not commit the crime. An innocent man was executed. The old doctor feels terrible and wonders if he can be forgiven for his role. The chaplain responds with well-meaning bromides about how our guilt keeps us from forgiving ourselves. The doctor gets increasingly upset. He’s dying and burdened with guilt. He wondered as he dies if God could forgive him or will he be condemned in the next life.
This man wanted and needed forgiveness and hoped the chaplain could help in some way. But she wasn’t able to give him his deep desire.
I’ve heard of a church in New York City that displays a sign that says, “Enjoy your forgiveness.” I’ve heard that some people are offended by the sign because why would someone need to be forgiven?
The meme above wonders the same thing. Why do people need to be forgiven in the face of an oppressive and lawless empire?
Because there are people like the doctor who want to be forgiven. They carry this burden and Jesus tells them he will shoulder their burden.
Because there are people like me who wonder if they are ever “enough” and burdened by sins past and present.
There are a lot of reasons why Jesus died. We still wrestle with this question of Jesus’ death and will do so until Jesus returns. We wonder why Jesus was killed even though he did nothing wrong. We look at how oppressive Rome was and see disturbing parallels to our day and see Jesus standing up to power at the cost of his own life. I don’t see a problem looking at the social aspect of the crucifixion because it is there and you can’t ignore it. Nor should you ignore it.
But there is also this personal realm of cross that matters too. People want and need to be forgiven by God. Jesus dying for our sins, which might seem arcane and backward to some, matters because we all deal with a life that weighs us down. We deal with private thoughts we never share and silent shame. To paraphrase Amy Grant, we want a God who sees how “beautiful the mess we are.” We want a God that offers forgiveness as much as justice.
I can remember sitting in the back seat of a car with my mother driving and me asking if she still loved me after I made a mistake. “Yes, Lee,” she would say, using my middle name. “I still love you.”
It feels bad to admit this, but I still ask that question fifty years later. I don’t ask it aloud, but the question remains. Am I loved? If I make a mistake, will people still love me?
There are so many people who wonder if they are loved, and many wonder if God loves them. And I go back to my favorite verse, Romans 5:8: “But God shows love towards us, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
I need to believe Christ died for my sins. That doesn’t mean I don’t think social issues matter. It doesn’t negate that Christ died at the hands of an oppressive government. But I need to believe Christ died for my sins to remind myself that God loves me anyway, even when I mess up. I suspect that many others want to know God loves us as well.
As we enter Holy Week next year and see more memes like this, let’s not dismiss the forgiveness of sins. There are people who just want to hear “Yes, Lee, I still love you.” It might seem backward in our modern age, but so many people are dying to know and believe they are lovable, especially by the God of the universe.
Secular culture doesn't even have a word for "sin" anymore so there's no way to talk about it in secular terms. You're accountable to whatever narrow or broad social groups you belong to, and they may condemn you for saying the wrong thing or voting for the wrong person.
Some attitudes I think I'm seeing: if you have a stray racist thought then you're a racist (now a noun rather than an adjective.) There's no forgiveness, so the only recourse is denial of one's own vulnerability, which leads to self-righteous judging. Or, if someone enters the country illegally (no matter for what reason), then they forfeit their humanity and deserve to be treated cruelly and unjustly. More locally, anyone who falls into addiction or simply finds themselves living on the streets is dehumanized by labels like "vermin" and "criddler".
If we're not "endowed by our Creator" or "created in the image of God" then what basis is there for believing in the innate worthiness of any human being?
Grace and forgiveness are our path out humanity's instincts for violent tribalism. But these days, all that's left is for us to teach by example or via a kind of gentle, patient nudging which I'm not very good at.
Amen brother.
Although, is it too much to say it’s both? “Jesus died for sinners, or whom I am the worst.” And yet, “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” By living into the ethic of redemption, we realize the forgiveness of our sins was never just about us: it was about turning the whole order upside down, not because we can create heaven on earth by subverting the empire, but because we can enact a picture of heaven on earth by subverting empire.