By Kim Thoday

Exodus 12:12-22

Philippians 2:1-11

I want to begin with two humorous ideas. Firstly, there is an old saying: ‘Many people wish to serve God, but often only in an advisory capacity.” The second is in the form of a cartoon and I invite you to imagine its outline: simply a large van-like truck with lettering emblazoned along its side, “Danger! Explosives!” Two men are in the cab as the truck rumbles along. The driver is explaining to his off-sider, “I drove a school bus for awhile, but I had to give it up because of my nerves!” My comment: Is it that we live in such an explosive society and world because we have lost the ability to communicate with God and the children of the Earth?

1. The Identity of Sacrifice

This passage from the book of Exodus is part of a rich historic tradition for Jews and Christians alike. It is about the Sacrifice of the Passover Lamb – that the slain lamb and the sprinkled blood would free Israelite households from the angel of death as it sped on its mission throughout Egypt. The children of Israel were spared that great catastrophe because they were obedient to the heavenly vision vouchsafed to Moses. They kept their identity and countless of their nation have continued to do so for four millennia since, despite cruel progroms, deportations and the culmination of anti-Semitism with the Holocaust. In short, they have guarded their identity at great sacrifice. To a considerable degree and in some ways uniquely, the Jewish people have maintained a racial and religious identity together. This has allowed them to have had a profound impact on many cultures, but it has caused them to have been at times exclusive and also to have been singled out for persecution. Yet perhaps more often than not (one would hope) that exclusivity has been necessary for survival. It is interesting to reflect that their identity from the beginning centred upon the idea of sacrifice (the Passover Lamb). And their identity in many ways has continued to be forged by the frequent consequences of sacrifice: persecution and oppression. Even so, in Jewish communities throughout the world, the tradition of Passover is still kept. Their story embodies an identity of Sacrifice!

2. The Essence of the Cross

The Christian tradition follows on from the mother religion, the Jewish religion, just as the New Testament follows on from the Old Testament. Many devout people have read the coming of Jesus from innumerable verses in the Old Testament. And some have suggested that the Cross was in the heart of God long before Calvary. This is logical enough if we hold with much traditional Christian theology. Thus, as the future is known to an all-knowing God, the Christ of Bethlehem was born to die on the Cross of Calvary. So, from this traditional viewpoint, the essence of the Cross is that our Lord was foreordained to die on its outstretched arms.

We are reminded how Jesus said that his Kingdom is not of this world. Indeed, how could it be? For our social and political institutions are always vulnerable to the human ego; to the tendency we have for self-interest. No human institution, no “ism” it would appear, can escape corruption. The human situation is hopeless until through despair we throw ourselves upon God’s outstretched arms.

It is only God (through his sacrifice at Calvary) who can give us the love and truth required to raise us above and beyond the endless human condition of sin and brokenness. God turns the Cross of deathly existence into the gateway of life freed from sin; an everlasting life of Resurrection. So for Christians, as for Jews, sacrifice is central to who we are, to our identity. But in the Christian story, we know and experience that it is not our sacrifice that is the source of salvation, but rather God’s, through Jesus Christ. The Essence of the Cross is that God is able to transform all negative situations, all tragedies, all persecutions, all evil, into sources of life-giving energy and love. This is the heart of Christian faith. And this faith is a faith of humility.

3. The Realism of Humility

T.S. Eliot made the comment that human being cannot stand too much reality. Hence we have so much fantasy paraded in our era and religion itself is often packaged as such. Ironically, Reality TV shows, package fantasy as reality. In many ways George Orwell had it right about the consequences of modernity.

Now it is true, as Christians, we have been saved from our sins, through the Cross and all that it signifies. Yet we are often guilty of not recognizing that being saved from our sins means in fact being saved from ourselves. Why? Perhaps it’s too much reality. You see the Cross means commitment to God and that means commitment to humanity – commitment to our fellow human beings and all God’s creation. Jesus died on the Cross in obedience to God, but he also died because he loves us. The Cross speaks to us of reality. The reality is that Jesus died because of the reality of human inhumanity! The Cross represents the end product of a humanity that refuses to face up to the reality of sin and evil buried within its nature at the deepest levels. Yet Jesus still loves us unconditionally, and in love and obedience, he gave up his life so that we could have eternal life. This is what the Apostle Paul means by Jesus’ humility. In Philippians 2 Paul, uses one of the earliest Christian creeds: ” . though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross .” (verses 6-8 NRSV). Furthermore, Paul introduces the creed with a teaching on discipleship: “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (verse 5). This he says is to be one with the Christ as he is depicted in the creed.

So the Cross speaks also of the need of humility. The reality is that a self-centred person is unable to be humble. A humble person is able to negotiate and overcome the mountain of self. A truly insane person is unable to distinguish self from other. Insanity is when the self has totally absorbed the other. But a truly human person is able to make the other the centre of their being. To be empathetic with others is along the way to becoming like Jesus. Discipleship, the art of following Jesus, is not about the destruction of one’s self. Rather it is about the letting go of self-interest, the death of the deathly part of self, in order to find oneself in the other. It is the ultimate other of God in neighbour that saves us from ourselves.

God, through Jesus Christ, helps us to face reality and this means we dedicate ourselves to the needs of others. We cannot do this on our own. We need each other and we need the grace of God; it is the power of the Other that saves us. Salvation does not come from what we do. Salvation from ourselves, from the sins of this world and from the anxiety of death, comes to us as the unconditional gift from a sacrificial God, through the love of his only Son, Jesus Christ.

Humility takes us beyond serving God in an advisory capacity. For the advisory capacity is really the dangerous explosive stuff of hood winking others and sometimes ourselves into believing we are serving God when we are really serving ourselves. We do much damage to ourselves and others when we act out of self-interest in the name of God. And so also do nations when they deal in this manner with other nations. Rather may we learn to truly communicate with the children of the Earth and with God. May we learn to listen to God through the ‘other.’ For the future of God’s world depends upon whether we do or do not. And in our era of terrorism we teeter yet again on the edge of the abyss.

We live in an explosive world. But there is great hope. For we possess the key to life over death and destruction. And the key is Christ. But for God’s love and grace to be poured out on our lives and the world we must be prepared to be people of sacrifice and humility. Sacrifice must be central to our identity as Christians. Not the old sacrifice, however. Not a sacrifice which excludes and separates. Not the sacrifice that belongs to a more barbaric age. Rather, the sacrifice of humility, the ability to become other-centred, rather than self-centred. May the same mind, the mind of God’s reality, be in us, as it is in Christ Jesus. Praise and Glory be to the God of salvation, forever and ever. Amen.

Kim Thoday

Hewett Community Church of Christ, South Australia

http://www.hewett.org.au