Sacrifice, ensample, sanctification
Sermon for 2nd Sunday after Easter
Our Lord is both a “sacrifice for sin” and an “ensample of godly life.” The BCP collect for the Second Sunday after Easter sums up what Saint Peter writes in his first epistle. Christ in his suffering for us leaves us an example: not an example encouraging us to see suffering for suffering’s sake, but of how to endure it when it inevitably comes.
And come it will, as we all know in our way. But the inevitability of suffering sits uneasily if your theology focuses only on Christ’s suffering as a sacrifice for our sin. Because if that is all there is to Christianity, then surely we should not suffer at all: Christ did all that for us, right? His sacrifice has taken away all our sin and the suffering that goes with it.
There are those who believe and teach just that: if you suffer, it is because your faith isn’t strong enough, and if you are truly faithful, then from the moment you believe, everything will be fine and you will be healthy, happy, and prosperous. It’s the Lord-won’t-you-give-me-a-Mercedes-Benz school of thought.
This kind of thinking hinges on a certain interpretation of the gospel which the undiscerning reader might find in 1 Peter 2, because it says that our Lord “bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.”
People who think along these lines will point out that “righteousness” here means “justification,” and say that justification means God’s declaring someone to be justified, freed of the legal burden of sin and acceptable in his sight. They see justification in primarily forensic terms, as a divine proclamation of good standing, the remission of our death sentence. And if we are justified by faith alone, then as soon as you believe, that’s it: God has made his announcement, and you’re saved and can live happily ever after.
But this approach raises certain questions, not least the question of why we continue even after baptism both to suffer and to sin. More, it raises the question of why the justified should require good shepherds, that is, why the Lord saw fit to establish a church, why indeed the Lord’s death was necessary to achieve something which he might simply have proclaimed: why, in short, the redeemed should need any kind of an “ensample” at all.
The answer, I think, must be this. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross remits sin, which is effected by the ministry of the church in baptism, confession, and Eucharist. This remission of sin makes it possible for us to lead lives which the Lord will recognise as righteous at the final judgement; but crucially, these are two separate things. Forgiveness of our sins makes righteous living possible, but it does not make it inevitable. The legalistic view is only part of the truth. Christ’s atonement for our sins is a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, made once upon the Cross; but it is made so that we might enter into a relationship with God which is ongoing, and better characterised as a relationship with a father than with a judge. And as in any relationship, we can make a mess of it, or we can work on it together.
We are talking here about the difference between remission of sin, effected once for all upon the cross, and sanctification: that gradual growth in holiness for which the church was founded and her sacraments instituted. This is why we continue to need the “Shepherd and Bishop of our souls,” the good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. What’s more, we need the shepherds whom He sends to represent Him as pastors of the Church. And while they do exercise a role of judgment, it should be less the judgment of a bewigged Lord Justice, and more that of a loving spiritual father.
That pastoral dimension is what Our Lord is getting at in John 10.11 onwards, where He is talking to the Jewish leaders. It is the end of the feast of Tabernacles, and they have been camping out for eight days in tabernacles: tents made of sticks and leaves, including palm fronds. The feast recalls the time the Israelites were in the desert under Moses’ leadership. Now Moses got them as far as the Jordan, but not to the Promised Land itself. And he certainly didn’t get them to what the eighth day symbolises: that is, the new Jerusalem, the kingdom of peace which exceeds even that of the seventh day of creation. Our Lord is pointing towards that kingdom, that heavenly Kingdom, and saying: your current leaders aren’t going to get you there. They don’t know your names. They aren’t committed to you. And at the first sight of the devil, they will run and flee. They will give you false teaching, not entering through the door of sacred scripture (that narrow door), but saying what the powers that be want them to say; anything to save their skins or preserve their social status in the eyes of the world. Shepherds like these will lead you right into the mouth of the wolf. You need the Good Shepherd.
How do you know this good shepherd? By example. Not by declaration of righteousness, but by righteous action. And we know whether an action is righteous by measuring it against that “ensample of godly life,” Jesus Christ. “Godly,” note, not just “ethical” or “moral.” We need His example not primarily for morality, but for holiness. God does not need to die and rise again merely to make a moral point. Rather, the Resurrection shows us who Jesus is and how we can become like him, the Image of the Invisible God.
This is there in today’s gospel, when the Lord claims to know the Father as well as the Father knows him. For this the Jewish leaders call Him a madman (John 10.20). But it is not long before the Lord will declare it more forcibly: “I and my Father are one” (John 10.30). For this, he is accused of blasphemy: “because you, being a man, make yourself God.” He responds with Scripture: “Is it not written in your Law, I said, ye are gods?”
Let that sink in. Ye are gods! Doesn’t the Christian faith teach that there is only one God? Yes, but there are those godlike entities, angels and demons, whom the nations call “gods” and worship them. They share in something of His godlike nature, even if they abuse it. And the saints of the Church are called to replace those who have fallen in the heavenly council around the one, true God. We were made lower than the angels only to be raised up higher than them. For the oneness with God that Our Lord Jesus Christ enjoys by His nature is what He offers us the chance to become by grace. The aim of Christian life is not just to become “good people.” It is not even to become good shepherds, necessary though they are (and may God send us more and forgive us whose shepherding is weak and halting!). No. The aim is higher It is to become saints, leaders of the angelic hosts. And it is open to and possible for us all.
This is the aim of the Christian life. Remission of sin is only the beginning. We are set free from sin so that we can be free for salvation. United with Christ, we can be so assimilated to the likeness of God the Father that we, too, can be called, by analogy, gods. That is the inestimable benefit (literally beyond our ability to estimate or think) for which the Father sent his Son as “an ensample of godly life,” that by receiving Him in faith, receiving Him in Scripture, receiving Him in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood, receiving Him in the pastoral love that we learn from the Good Shepherd and share with one another, we may live the very life of the triune God.
Coming 3 May: King Oswald’s Heirs
Pre-order on Kindle now or wait for hardback and paperback
Our story starts with the severed arm of a vanquished king. Blessed by a holy man, borne by a raven, its blood fed a tree and fired the faith of a nation. And though the king died, for centuries after, wherever the English tongue was spoken, that fire spread.
The fire may be dim now, reduced to embers, and St Oswald’s name forgotten. But the wind is blowing, and the time for rekindling and remembering the faith of England’s fathers is nigh.
King Oswald’s Heirs is a retelling of the Catechism of the treasured 1662 Book of Common Prayer. More than a primer of dry doctrine, this book dresses the faith of the ancient and undivided Church in the tales of Britain’s saints and martyrs, revealing a spiritual inheritance richer and stranger than we think.
The mission of the Angles is one with the mission of the angels. So come, take your inheritance. For all English-speaking Christians number among King Oswald’s heirs.