Thomas A. Langford - "The Cruciality of the Cross" (February 7, 1965)
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| - | And by thy Holy Spirit, | 0:05 |
| enable us to worship Thee | 0:07 | |
| in the beauty. | 0:09 | |
| - | On a small green hill in the city of San Francisco, | 0:56 |
| there was once a cross. | 1:01 | |
| Whether it's still there or not, I'm unsure. | 1:05 | |
| And upon one of the arms of this cross was a plaque, | 1:10 | |
| bearing a quotation | 1:16 | |
| from the Old Testament book of Lamentations, | 1:18 | |
| which read: | 1:23 | |
| Is it nothing to you, | 1:27 | |
| all you | 1:32 | |
| who pass by? | 1:34 | |
| These words, | 1:39 | |
| which were originally written by one | 1:41 | |
| who mourned the destruction of Jerusalem, | 1:46 | |
| as he plaintively inquired of passersby | 1:50 | |
| whether they recognize the significance | 1:56 | |
| of this fallen city. | 1:59 | |
| These words have been transferred to the cross, | 2:03 | |
| so that now as one passed the cross, | 2:10 | |
| he was confronted with the question | 2:17 | |
| of its significance also, | 2:19 | |
| a question which is well for us to ask ourselves, | 2:24 | |
| Even as we sit in this place of worship | 2:29 | |
| before the cross, | 2:34 | |
| is it nothing to you, | 2:38 | |
| all you who pass by? | 2:43 | |
| We talk a great deal about the cross in the worship, | 2:49 | |
| in the ethical service, | 2:54 | |
| and in the theology of our Christian faith. | 2:57 | |
| But just what does the cross mean? | 3:03 | |
| What is its significance? | 3:07 | |
| How does it impinge upon our lives? | 3:10 | |
| I want today to speak about the atonement. | 3:16 | |
| In a profound sense, I'm sure | 3:22 | |
| that you wonder whether or not | 3:24 | |
| this topic can be spoken upon meaningfully. | 3:25 | |
| It seems so couched in ancient theological garments, | 3:29 | |
| so traditionalistic, | 3:35 | |
| and we are ambiguous about tradition, aren't we? | 3:38 | |
| And perhaps, for many, | 3:42 | |
| it seems quite irrelevant. | 3:44 | |
| But what is relevant? | 3:49 | |
| A Durham minister last year | 3:53 | |
| spoke on the topic "The Irrelevance of Being Relevant." | 3:55 | |
| After the service, a Duke student coming out | 4:01 | |
| turned and said to someone, | 4:07 | |
| "Now that was really relevant, wasn't it?" | 4:10 | |
| What is obvious that what is relevant on one level | 4:16 | |
| is not relevant on another. | 4:18 | |
| What is a basic question for decision | 4:22 | |
| at one level of our lives | 4:27 | |
| seems to be irrelevant at another. | 4:30 | |
| And what strange creatures we are. | 4:35 | |
| We so often cover over and confuse | 4:40 | |
| the dimensions of our existence, | 4:43 | |
| and thereby forget those issues and those questions | 4:46 | |
| which are most important for us. | 4:49 | |
| I raise this specter of relevance | 4:55 | |
| because it immediately confronts anyone | 4:59 | |
| who dares speak about the atonement. | 5:01 | |
| Atonement for what? | 5:04 | |
| Atonement by whom? | 5:07 | |
| Atonement for what end? | 5:12 | |
| Perhaps we raise such questions | 5:15 | |
| because, at least on one level of our existence, | 5:17 | |
| we seem to be people of such easy conscience, | 5:21 | |
| serene in our condition, | 5:24 | |
| neither questioning nor exploring meaning | 5:27 | |
| beyond the present moment, | 5:30 | |
| beyond the things most immediately at hand, | 5:32 | |
| content to shrug our shoulders about past actions, | 5:36 | |
| and rather wistfully optimistic | 5:40 | |
| about what we shall be able to do. | 5:42 | |
| Some months ago, I was speaking | 5:48 | |
| to a group of law students on campus. | 5:49 | |
| And I was suggesting that perhaps an analogy | 5:54 | |
| could be made between our lives | 5:56 | |
| and the experience that one has aboard a ship. | 5:59 | |
| We were living comfortably and well, | 6:05 | |
| prospering, | 6:09 | |
| eating good food, | 6:12 | |
| with plenty of task to consume our energies. | 6:14 | |
| But I suggested that occasionally there were people | 6:21 | |
| who wandered out to the bow of the ship, | 6:26 | |
| people who gazed across the expanse of water, | 6:31 | |
| and asked such questions as, | 6:37 | |
| I wonder where we are heading. | 6:40 | |
| What port is our destination? | 6:44 | |
| What does this trip mean? | 6:48 | |
| One of the students who was present | 6:53 | |
| replied with some heat | 6:55 | |
| that this sort of question | 6:59 | |
| simply did not interest him. | 7:00 | |
| He was well satisfied and fully engaged | 7:03 | |
| with the present moment | 7:08 | |
| and with the activity which was given to him. | 7:10 | |
| And as for the type of interrogation I was suggesting | 7:14 | |
| that they might put to themselves, | 7:17 | |
| well, to put it frankly, | 7:21 | |
| he just didn't give a damn. | 7:24 | |
| A lot of people balk at such questions. | 7:29 | |
| It's not that we mind the implication | 7:34 | |
| that we are lost or estranged, | 7:36 | |
| for these two words happen to be | 7:41 | |
| among the okay words | 7:42 | |
| of the present academic generation. | 7:45 | |
| Students who've grown up on Camus | 7:49 | |
| and J.D. Salinger | 7:53 | |
| and T.S. Eliot, | 7:56 | |
| Jean-Paul Sartre, | 8:00 | |
| students who've grown up on | 8:02 | |
| even Tennessee Williams or Joseph Conrad | 8:05 | |
| speak this sort of language. | 8:09 | |
| Very sophisticated people do not mind | 8:13 | |
| being told that they're estranged or lost, | 8:16 | |
| especially if it's done in French or German. | 8:21 | |
| But to be called a sinner | 8:27 | |
| and to be spoken of about atonement, | 8:30 | |
| well, this is simply too bourgeois, | 8:35 | |
| too churchy, | 8:38 | |
| or Mickey Mouse. | 8:41 | |
| To be reminded of inauthentic existence | 8:45 | |
| or the brokenness of human relationships, | 8:47 | |
| of man's isolation, | 8:50 | |
| or every individual's identity crisis, | 8:53 | |
| all of this is all right, | 8:57 | |
| so long as it reminds us of our desperate situation, | 8:58 | |
| our despair, and the travesty of our existence. | 9:03 | |
| And sometimes, in a certain sense, | 9:09 | |
| we rather enjoy our despair. | 9:13 | |
| There is, as Robert Fitch has reminded us, | 9:19 | |
| a kind of ecstasy which can be derived from anguish. | 9:23 | |
| We are proud of having to have faced | 9:27 | |
| the abyss of meaninglessness | 9:28 | |
| and having called life and its significance into question. | 9:32 | |
| A friend of mine who teaches at Yale | 9:39 | |
| told this summer of being rudely awakened one night | 9:42 | |
| by terrible screams outside his window. | 9:48 | |
| He jumped up, ran to the window and looked out, | 9:53 | |
| and standing in the middle of the quad | 9:57 | |
| was a student with his arms flung up to heaven, | 9:59 | |
| shouting at the top of his voice, | 10:02 | |
| "I hate this place! | 10:05 | |
| I hate this place!" | 10:08 | |
| It does also happen at other schools, you know. | 10:12 | |
| (audience laughs) | 10:16 | |
| And I was reminded of a student | 10:20 | |
| who said with defiant pride, | 10:24 | |
| "I'm really suffering. | 10:28 | |
| My life is terrible." | 10:32 | |
| But what was obvious | 10:36 | |
| was that he was proud of the fact | 10:39 | |
| that his life was more difficult | 10:43 | |
| than anyone else's he knew. | 10:44 | |
| Now don't misunderstand me, | 10:49 | |
| I'm not making fun of this condition | 10:50 | |
| where it expresses authentic struggle with life | 10:53 | |
| and with the meaning of life. | 10:57 | |
| And there are some among us today | 11:00 | |
| who knows the genuine | 11:03 | |
| and thoroughgoing sense of lostness. | 11:05 | |
| But the point I wanna make | 11:09 | |
| is that in spite of our acknowledgement | 11:11 | |
| of a strained, and even estranged, life, | 11:13 | |
| there's still a deep sense | 11:19 | |
| in which we do not acknowledge any need for atonement. | 11:23 | |
| Our thoughts may be jumbled, | 11:29 | |
| our lives may be distraught, | 11:31 | |
| our relationships may be shallow. | 11:34 | |
| But we muster our strength to face the onslaught of life. | 11:37 | |
| And rather than ask to be justified, | 11:42 | |
| we demand that the situation | 11:44 | |
| in which we find ourselves justify itself. | 11:46 | |
| And therefore that when the question is put, | 11:51 | |
| does the atonement meet your need, | 11:54 | |
| you probably wonder what's being asked. | 11:59 | |
| What need? | 12:02 | |
| Atonement for what? | 12:04 | |
| Atonement to what? | 12:07 | |
| Perhaps the problem has been | 12:12 | |
| that we've always tried to start with our need. | 12:13 | |
| It may thereby be | 12:17 | |
| that we get off on the wrong road from the beginning. | 12:19 | |
| At least to start with the fact of man's need | 12:24 | |
| has two basic dangers. | 12:26 | |
| First, God so easily becomes | 12:30 | |
| simply a projection of that need. | 12:33 | |
| He satisfies | 12:37 | |
| those needs which we are conscious of. | 12:40 | |
| Feuerbach and Freud have both claimed | 12:44 | |
| that this is all religion is, | 12:46 | |
| a projection of our need upon a screen, | 12:49 | |
| which we then see reflected back as an answer. | 12:52 | |
| And who is to deny that when man begins solely | 12:56 | |
| with the question of his need, | 12:58 | |
| they are not often right. | 13:00 | |
| And secondly, when we begin with our need, | 13:04 | |
| we must recognize that what we think is our need | 13:09 | |
| at one level | 13:11 | |
| may not be our need at another level. | 13:12 | |
| What is relevant at one level | 13:15 | |
| is irrelevant at another. | 13:16 | |
| Let us begin therefore by going the other way around. | 13:22 | |
| Let us start by seeing | 13:26 | |
| what the Christian tradition says about the atonement, | 13:28 | |
| and only after that raise the question | 13:33 | |
| of whether it meets our need. | 13:36 | |
| Perhaps we shall find in the end | 13:40 | |
| that rather than establishing answers | 13:44 | |
| to needs we are now conscious of, | 13:47 | |
| we shall actually find our own needs reinterpreted | 13:50 | |
| in the light of the cross, | 13:55 | |
| and even fulfilled in unexpected ways. | 13:59 | |
| The justification for this approach | 14:04 | |
| is that sometimes we do not recognize sickness | 14:06 | |
| until we know health. | 14:10 | |
| Sometimes we do not know loneliness | 14:13 | |
| until we experience true friendship. | 14:15 | |
| And it's possible that we do not really understand | 14:19 | |
| lostness or guilt | 14:22 | |
| until we come to see redemption and forgiveness. | 14:25 | |
| To put it in traditional language, | 14:31 | |
| we only know the real meaning of sin | 14:34 | |
| and of ourselves as sinners | 14:36 | |
| when we see | 14:39 | |
| the cross. | 14:42 | |
| There's an old hymn which says: | 14:46 | |
| But none of the ransomed ever knew | 14:51 | |
| how deep were the waters crossed, | 14:55 | |
| nor how dark was the night | 14:58 | |
| our Lord passed through, | 15:00 | |
| ere He found the sheep that was lost. | 15:03 | |
| This is, of course, profoundly true. | 15:08 | |
| No one, not even those | 15:11 | |
| who are most sensitive to the meaning of the cross, | 15:13 | |
| understand fully its cost or its import. | 15:16 | |
| But there's another side to this, too, | 15:22 | |
| which should also be said, | 15:24 | |
| and we can put it by simply changing | 15:25 | |
| one or two words of this hymn, | 15:27 | |
| so that now it reads: | 15:30 | |
| None but the ransomed ever knew | 15:33 | |
| how deep were the waters crossed, | 15:38 | |
| nor how dark was the night | 15:42 | |
| our Lord passed through, | 15:43 | |
| ere He found the sheep that was lost. | 15:46 | |
| For while no one of us can hope | 15:51 | |
| to comprehend fully what the crucifixion of Jesus meant, | 15:53 | |
| the only ones who come close | 15:58 | |
| to appreciating its full weight | 15:59 | |
| are those who have knelt before it | 16:02 | |
| and have felt the impact of its power | 16:06 | |
| as it impinged upon their lives. | 16:09 | |
| Only the ransomed know. | 16:12 | |
| And they do not know completely, | 16:16 | |
| but they know. | 16:19 | |
| And by that knowledge, | 16:21 | |
| they live. | 16:24 | |
| Socrates is reported to have said | 16:30 | |
| that philosophy begins with wonder. | 16:32 | |
| Whether or not this is always true of philosophy, | 16:36 | |
| and I'm certain it isn't, | 16:38 | |
| I'm also sure that the sense | 16:42 | |
| of the significance of our relation to God | 16:44 | |
| often does depend precisely upon wonder. | 16:47 | |
| Wonder as we look upon the originator | 16:52 | |
| of our Christian faith, | 16:55 | |
| wonder at the fact of grace, | 16:57 | |
| wonder at the power of love, | 17:02 | |
| wonder | 17:06 | |
| of the Christ. | 17:09 | |
| Let us look at it. | 17:12 | |
| In the New Testament, Jesus spoke, | 17:14 | |
| and the people were amazed. | 17:18 | |
| He acted, | 17:21 | |
| and they were startled. | 17:23 | |
| He died, | 17:25 | |
| and they questioned. | 17:28 | |
| He arose, | 17:31 | |
| and Mark says | 17:33 | |
| they were afraid. | 17:36 | |
| The wonder of it all, | 17:38 | |
| all of the wonder of it. | 17:42 | |
| In this man in whom perfect humanity is revealed, | 17:47 | |
| we see our own imperfection and possibility. | 17:50 | |
| In this man | 17:56 | |
| in whom perfect goodness was manifest, | 17:58 | |
| we recognize our own lack of goodness | 18:03 | |
| and our possibility for goodness. | 18:08 | |
| In this man, | 18:12 | |
| who was perfectly penitent, | 18:14 | |
| we recognize our own pride, | 18:17 | |
| yet the need for penance. | 18:21 | |
| In this man, | 18:25 | |
| in whom the perfect relation of God to man is manifest, | 18:27 | |
| we recognize our own inadequate relation | 18:34 | |
| and the promise of full relationship. | 18:38 | |
| Look again at the cross. | 18:43 | |
| Is it nothing to you, | 18:48 | |
| all you | 18:53 | |
| who pass by? | 18:55 | |
| When we see what life can be, | 18:59 | |
| life with God and with our fellows, | 19:03 | |
| we also recognize what our lives are. | 19:06 | |
| We are filled with wonder, then perplexity, | 19:10 | |
| with awe, then grief, | 19:14 | |
| with amazement, then perhaps with aspiration. | 19:19 | |
| What a strange man this Jesus was. | 19:25 | |
| Perhaps we've heard the story so often | 19:29 | |
| that it no longer surprises us. | 19:31 | |
| But He went to the outcast, | 19:33 | |
| He ate with the unacceptable, | 19:36 | |
| He cared for the dispossessed. | 19:40 | |
| His words of peace and condemnation pierce deeply. | 19:44 | |
| And He went to the cross. | 19:51 | |
| O Son of God incarnate, | 19:54 | |
| O Son of Man divine, | 19:56 | |
| in whom God's glory dwelleth, | 19:59 | |
| in whom man's virtue shine, | 20:01 | |
| God's light to earth Thou bringest | 20:04 | |
| to drive sin's dark night away, | 20:07 | |
| and through Thy life so radiant, | 20:11 | |
| earth's darkness turns to day. | 20:14 | |
| Is it nothing to you, | 20:18 | |
| all you who pass by? | 20:21 | |
| Irenaeus, the second century theologian, | 20:27 | |
| put the meaning of Jesus Christ cryptically | 20:29 | |
| when he wrote: | 20:31 | |
| He became what we are | 20:33 | |
| in order that we might become what He is. | 20:35 | |
| This coming involved suffering, | 20:40 | |
| a suffering love. | 20:43 | |
| Heine, the German poet, | 20:46 | |
| is reported to have one time remarked | 20:47 | |
| with a shrug of the shoulders, | 20:49 | |
| "God will forgive you. | 20:53 | |
| That's His business." | 20:56 | |
| But the one who's seen the cross knows | 21:00 | |
| that forgiveness is not God's business. | 21:02 | |
| It is His grace. | 21:06 | |
| God will forgive you, | 21:08 | |
| but that's His suffering. | 21:12 | |
| The suffering of God is somewhat analogous | 21:16 | |
| to that of a parent-child relation | 21:18 | |
| when the child has been disobedient. | 21:20 | |
| The more radical the disobedience | 21:23 | |
| and the more tragic its consequences, | 21:25 | |
| the more the parent, | 21:27 | |
| as well as the child, suffers. | 21:29 | |
| If the parent is a person of integrity, | 21:32 | |
| he's not able to shrug off the disobedience | 21:34 | |
| and say that it simply doesn't matter. | 21:36 | |
| It does matter. | 21:39 | |
| It matters enough that if there's to be | 21:41 | |
| an honest relationship established, | 21:43 | |
| the parent and the child | 21:47 | |
| must each do something to bring it about. | 21:51 | |
| The parent often demands of the child | 21:57 | |
| some act of restitution, | 21:59 | |
| by which the disobedience is overcome. | 22:02 | |
| But more demanding than the restitution by the child | 22:05 | |
| is the inner struggle of the parent | 22:10 | |
| who must hold to his integrity, | 22:13 | |
| admit the radicalness of the disobedience, | 22:17 | |
| and yet accept the child in love and community. | 22:20 | |
| The parent suffers. | 22:26 | |
| He or she suffers inwardly. | 22:28 | |
| Their integrity and love meet and struggle, | 22:32 | |
| and love can be expressed | 22:39 | |
| only if it acknowledges the reality of the integrity | 22:41 | |
| and acts upon the basis of this integrity | 22:47 | |
| by suffering acceptance. | 22:50 | |
| And the child also suffers, | 22:54 | |
| for disobedience breaks the community which existed | 22:57 | |
| and requires both penance and readiness | 23:00 | |
| to restore that which was lost. | 23:02 | |
| There is a suffering of a separation | 23:06 | |
| and the struggle for renewal on both sides. | 23:09 | |
| The uniqueness of Jesus | 23:15 | |
| is found in the fact that in His cross, | 23:18 | |
| He expresses at once | 23:21 | |
| the suffering and the struggle from both sides. | 23:23 | |
| The event makes a difference to the forgiver | 23:27 | |
| and to the forgiven. | 23:32 | |
| And here in one man, both are present. | 23:34 | |
| There's a saying which must be spoken | 23:41 | |
| softly and with understanding, | 23:43 | |
| God will overlook nothing, | 23:47 | |
| but He will forgive anything. | 23:50 | |
| It is precisely in the this tension | 23:55 | |
| that the cross is rooted. | 23:57 | |
| God notices everything. | 24:00 | |
| He overlooks nothing. | 24:02 | |
| For genuine love is not deceived | 24:06 | |
| either by the other or by itself. | 24:08 | |
| Nevertheless, God will forgive anything. | 24:11 | |
| But remember, | 24:16 | |
| there's no cheap grace. | 24:19 | |
| There's a cross. | 24:22 | |
| He who is so unlike us | 24:24 | |
| has come to our side, | 24:27 | |
| that we may be like Him. | 24:30 | |
| Is it nothing to you, | 24:33 | |
| all you who pass by? | 24:37 | |
| The offering of Jesus | 24:42 | |
| was not a propitiation of an angry God. | 24:43 | |
| Too often we've spoken as though Christ's death | 24:46 | |
| was a way of appeasing a wrathful, | 24:48 | |
| legalistic, unrelenting God, | 24:51 | |
| as if God must be induced to forgive us. | 24:54 | |
| No, it's God who was the initiator. | 24:58 | |
| It's God in Christ who seeks us out | 25:02 | |
| and who takes the struggle of alienation to His own heart. | 25:04 | |
| There was a cross in the heart of God, | 25:09 | |
| F.W. Dillistone reminds us, | 25:10 | |
| long before there was one on Calvary. | 25:13 | |
| But the cross which was present in God's heart | 25:18 | |
| comes to concretion on Golgotha. | 25:22 | |
| At this place in human history, | 25:25 | |
| in our history, | 25:28 | |
| and our renewed relationship to God | 25:31 | |
| also comes to concretion | 25:33 | |
| at this same point. | 25:36 | |
| We look at Calvary, | 25:40 | |
| at the cross | 25:45 | |
| which extends from God heart to ours, | 25:47 | |
| and then ask, | 25:52 | |
| is it nothing to you, | 25:55 | |
| all you | 25:59 | |
| who pass by? | 26:01 | |
| As we see the care of God, | 26:05 | |
| we also see our indifference. | 26:07 | |
| As we see the life of Jesus, | 26:09 | |
| we also see our lives. | 26:11 | |
| As we see Jesus' penance and suffering, | 26:13 | |
| we also see our pride and self-care. | 26:15 | |
| So now we've come full round. | 26:19 | |
| We're back at the question of ourselves, | 26:22 | |
| of our need. | 26:25 | |
| But now our need is seen in a new light, | 26:27 | |
| in the light of God's grace | 26:30 | |
| as this is revealed in Jesus Christ. | 26:32 | |
| The divine charity has stooped to our necessity. | 26:35 | |
| And in so doing, has indicated to us | 26:40 | |
| what our necessity is | 26:42 | |
| by indicating to us | 26:45 | |
| what divine charity is. | 26:47 | |
| And so the wonder, | 26:51 | |
| the self-donation of God | 26:54 | |
| is the most incomprehensible, | 26:57 | |
| and yet the most illuminating fact in history. | 27:00 | |
| All of the marvels are pushed aside by this one. | 27:04 | |
| This is the miracle which stands | 27:08 | |
| at the center of reality, | 27:10 | |
| our personal center. | 27:13 | |
| The center where we lift our eyes | 27:16 | |
| and see the cross | 27:18 | |
| are explained by the cross | 27:20 | |
| and are ourselves | 27:24 | |
| made cruciform. | 27:27 | |
| Charles Wesley said it: | 27:30 | |
| O Love divine, what hast Thou done? | 27:33 | |
| The incarnate God has died for me. | 27:36 | |
| The Father's co-eternal Son | 27:40 | |
| bore all my sins upon the tree. | 27:43 | |
| The Son of God for me hath died, | 27:46 | |
| my Lord, my love, | 27:49 | |
| is crucified. | 27:52 | |
| Behold Him, all ye that pass by, | 27:54 | |
| the bleeding Prince of life and peace. | 27:57 | |
| Come sinners, see your Savior die, | 28:00 | |
| and say, "Was ever grief like His?" | 28:03 | |
| Come, feel with me His blood applied. | 28:06 | |
| My Lord, | 28:11 | |
| my love, | 28:13 | |
| was crucified. | 28:16 | |
| Is it nothing to you, | 28:19 | |
| all you | 28:23 | |
| who pass by? | 28:26 | |
| Stand. | 28:31 | |
| O God, | 28:41 | |
| fill us with the holy disquietude | 28:44 | |
| and the disquieting holiness | 28:49 | |
| which confrontation with Thy cross brings. | 28:53 | |
| In the name of the Father, | 29:00 | |
| and of the Son, | 29:01 | |
| and of the Holy Spirit. | 29:02 | |
| And now may God's grace | 29:04 | |
| preserve, bless, and keep you, | 29:07 | |
| now and forevermore. | 29:11 |
