Not Why but How?

One of the questions I get asked a lot goes something like this:

"Why did God have to pay such a high price for my sin?  I know I am sinful, but does it really require that Jesus die on a cross to forgive?  Why couldn't God just say 'I forgive you' and that be the end of it?" 

It really is a perplexing question if we don't think through our understanding of the nature of God.  We all have a tendency to place human-like qualities onto God to help us embrace our understanding of Him.  But this is not possible when trying to understand a Holy eternal creator God.  God is so much greater than us, so much "other than we are" that to try to describe His qualities is a little like an ant at a picnic trying to ascertain human philosophy.

In our world people forgive all the time.  If someone offends me and comes to me and says "I'm sorry, will you forgive me?"  It is very easy for me to say "Of course- you are forgiven!"

But I am not God.

To just "let sin go" would make Him less than a Holy and Just God. And if we really thought about it and admitted to it, we would all have to say that none of us wants any less than a purely Holy and Righteous God who is not like us.

Last week I reread the book "Why I am Christian" by John R.W. Stott and found this great passage that explains this truth much better than I could:

The cross of Christ is the only basis on which God can forgive sins.  By why, an impatient critic will immediately object, should our forgiveness depend on Christ's death?  Why does God not simply forgive us, without the necessity of the cross?  "God will pardon me" Heinrich Heine protested, "that is His metier (specialty).   After all, the objecter might continue, if we sin against each other, we are required to forgive one another.  So why should God not practice what He preaches?  Why should He not be as generous as He expects us to be?  (The answer) was given by Anselm, the arch bishop of Canterbury at the end of the eleventh century.   He wrote in his magnificent book, Why God Became Man,  "You have not yet considered the majesty of God".  To draw an analogy of our forgiveness of each other and God's forgiveness of us is very superficial.  We are not God but private individuals, while He is the maker of the heavens and the earth, creator of the very laws we break.  Our sins are not merely personal injuries but a willful rebellion against Him.  It is when we begin to see the gravity of sin and the majesty of God that our questions change.  No longer do we ask why God finds it difficult to forgive sins but how He finds it possible.  As one writer has put it, "forgiveness is to man the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems."

Make Easter a Season

We are one of those rare conservative evangelical churches that actually observes the Lent season so every year at this time I give my annual explanation of why.

There is one simple answer:  "We are all about the cross."  It is our magnificent obsession.   We seek to be a cross centered church.

There is nothing more important to us than our daily habit of focusing on the cross and the intricate meaning of the gospel.  We find it a very good discipline to focus our hearts and minds for an entire season on the central issue of our existence- that our sin is so wretched and devastating that our lives are being pulled into a Christless eternity except for the incredible unimaginable grace of a Holy and loving God who was willing to give His life as a sacrifice for our sins.  And the more we focus on that reality the more our lives and hearts are changed.

We believe the Lent season is an excellent way to teach our kids the meaning of the cross and to help bring their lives in alignment with the priorities of scripture.  All of scripture points to the cross, from Genesis to Revelation.  Every story of the Bible is a reflection of THE story- the story of our redemption.

In a similar way, our lives should point to that one overarching truth- that our sin was so bad that God had to die to pay the price but at the same time His love for us was so incredible that He was willing to die.  On the cross we have both bad news and the best news.  The bad news is that our sin has a terrible price.  But the good news is that God's grace is greater than we could ever dream.

At the cross we see an intersection of God's justice and God's mercy.  Jesus satisfied the sense of wrath and justice of a Holy God and at the same time demonstrated the incredible compassion and grace of a loving God.

It is a season to focus, to meditate, to fast and to prioritize our lives around the meaning of the cross.  In our worship songs, prayers, scripture reading and preaching we focus our attention on the meaning of the cross.  We encourage all of our families to go through a daily devotional around the meaning of the cross each day of the forty days of Lent.  In other words, we are not just celebrating Easter over one weekend, we are creating the space to celebrate it for an entire season. We see this as especially important in a culture that is becoming increasingly secular humanist and materialistic.

One of the young couples in our church has written an excellent daily devotional for the Lent season for their kids they are calling "The Easter Tree".  They have graciously given me permission to make it available to all of our families.  

You can download the devotionals each day for the next forty days of lent here on Heathers blog.

I encourage everyone to come to our Ash Wednesday worship tomorrow night and begin preparing your heart to celebrate the meaning of Easter not just for one brief weekend in April but for an entire season.