MORE THAN MORALITY
There they were. Stark naked, with the lights on with getting ready to make a decision that would impact the world in a way they never would have imagined. I’m speaking, of course, of the couple we call Adam and Eve.
As the story goes they eat from the tree that God commanded them not to eat from, and in doing so sin entered the world. Many believe that the story is about a wrong choice made by the man and the woman.
Perhaps this is why we have limited our understanding of “sin” to wrong choices. We boil sin down to whether or not an individual makes the right or the wrong choice. Sin is simply a moral wrongdoing committed by a person.
When we do this, we frame the rest of the bible in individual, personal terms. So when we speak of ourselves in light of sin it becomes about getting myself fixed and getting my sin taken care of. Eventually, even the story of Jesus is about mysin.
How many times have you heard that Jesus came to earth, lived as a human, and died on the cross to pay for my sin. As the story goes, he did all of this so that we can have our sins forgiven, and go to heaven when we die.
This is the kind of thing that some influential theologians claim. One such theologian claimed that the central issue to the entire Gospel of Jesus is the question of how I can make sure my sins are forgiven, because that is what bars me from heaven.
Ultimately we reduce the whole of the biblical narrative to a story about how God bailed out individuals because of their moral wrongdoing. Thankfully now, if we know and believe the story we can go to heaven. Does this sound completely underwhelming to anyone else?
If this is the story we have been proclaiming for years, then it’s no wonder people are leaving local churches in record numbers. A story like this is nothing more than a tale about a moral code and our inability to obey it. The good news of Jesus is then reduced to a story about you or me, our sin and our getting ourselves into heaven.
This is not to say that sin is not something we should care much about or not take seriously. In fact, the opposite is true. We should deeply care about it – the trouble is we have not taken it seriously enough. Sin is far more simple wrongdoing. It is an oppressive force.
Sin is the power of the kingdom of darkness that actively works against God’s good creation. It’s not so much a wrong choice that we make as much as it is the power of darkness in which we participate. When the man and the woman chose to eat the fruit in the garden all those years ago they gave their allegiance to the kingdom of darkness.
In doing so, they agreed to participate in it and live according to its rules. Because of this, all of us have been those who have actively worked against God’s good creation. Since that day, humanity and all creation have suffered beneath the crushing indignity of the power of the kingdom of darkness that we call “sin.”
It is this power and this kingdom that is at war with the Kingdom of God. The good news of Jesus is the story of how God won that war. The cross is the place where God drew all the power of sin and death and darkness into one place – namely on himself. Hanging on the cross, Jesus said, “Go ahead, do your worst,” and that’s exactly what they did.
In killing Jesus, they brought all the power of sin and death onto the person of Jesus. The problem is it wasn’t strong enough. In the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, God stared down the powers of sin, death and darkness and said, “Is that all you got?”
The good news is that Jesus has shattered the power of sin and death – that which oppresses humanity and God’s good creation – once for all. We no longer have to live under its tyranny. We are now invited to live free lives and reclaim the beauty of being human.
We are invited to work together with God to reclaim and renew his good creation. With every word and every choice we make we have an opportunity to work for restoration. It’s not about our getting out of here when we die, but about our bringing the reality of heaven here to this earth before (and after) we die.
It’s God’s invitation to us to bring his healing, hope and love into this world. When we consider the massive responsibility that we have been invited into, it’s overwhelming - and this is a good thing.
The Gospel is the story of God reclaiming his rightful place as king. It’s not about us, it’s about Him and His inviting us right into the middle of it, here and now. Which raises the question, “What are we waiting for?”
What we need now, more than ever, is the ability to see the larger story, which means seeing well beyond ourselves, and reducing the gospel story to our moral wrongdoings. It means joining with God, where he is already active in this world. So that one day we will once again see his kingdom come and his will being done on this earth as it is in heaven.