Sermons/Discussions

“Why the God-Man?”

Sermon: The Feast of the Presentation

The Rev. Matt Kennedy

The Church of the Good Shepherd

Today we’re celebrating the Feast of the Presentation which, ironically, has been an occasion for great rejoicing in the Church. I say ironically for two reasons: First, The presentation is the day on which Mary and Joseph, in keeping with the law God gave Moses, brought Jesus, who was only eight days old, to the Temple in Jerusalem presenting him to the priests to be circumcised. This may then be a happy day for the church but I’ll bet it was not such a happy day for Jesus. If you don’t know why, ask your parents when you get home. Second the Presentation was in itself an ironic event. The tiny screaming baby being circumcised in the temple that day was also the God being worshiped in the Temple. And the sacrifices being made there of rams sheep and dove were designed and given by God to foreshadow the ultimate sacrifice that this newly circumcised baby boy would make on the cross some thirty years later.

Shot through this whole story is an amazing fact that believers are so familiar with that they often take it for granted--the fact that Jesus was and is a real human being in every way. As today’s lesson from Hebrew’s makes clear, “Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity…[and later]…he had to be made like his brothers in every way”(Heb 2:14, 17) Jesus was like us in every way. That means that in his life and ministry on earth he experienced all of the pains and joys, human limitations and weaknesses, that you and I experience on a daily basis.

Think about his circumcision for example: The baby Jesus, God the Son, was circumcised and, just like it would for any normal baby boy, the circumcision hurt. He was laid down on a table. He probably looked up contentedly at his daddy who was standing next to the priests to hold Jesus still while they did what they had to do, and then his contented state turned suddenly to shock and surprise. Just like any baby he erupted into hysterical fits of piercing screams and, just like any baby, afterwards he dissolved into tears.

I’ll even bet he gave Joseph that look. If you’re a mom or a dad and you’ve taken you’re baby for their first shots you’re familiar with “the look” I’m talking about. I call it "Innocent Baby Trust Betrayed." Even the youngest babies know how precisely to give it. It says, "Mommy, daddy how could you do this to me?" It cuts right to your heart, and if you’re a parent you know just how Mary and Joseph must have felt. Emma and Aedan were both good at the “Innocent Trust Betrayed” (ITB) look, but I’ll bet Jesus was the master.

But this was only the first of many, many pains that Jesus was going to experience. Emotionally and physically Jesus had a rough life ahead of him. He was going to be rejected. He grew up in Nazareth and probably made lots of friends but we know that during his ministry those same friends, his entire home-town in fact rejected him, and not just a shunning kind of rejection, they were ready to throw him off a cliff. (Luke 4:14-30). Not only that, but the people closest to him, his disciples, all of them, deserted him when he needed them most. And one of them, Judas, betrayed him to people who ultimately proved to be his murderers. We all know what it’s like to be betrayed or rejected or shunned by people we love–we know how much it hurts. Well, Jesus has felt that too. If you think you’re unpopular at school or work, that nobody likes you or cares what happens to you, Jesus knows exactly what that feels like. He was “despised and rejected by men” (Isaiah 53:3).

But he didn’t just experience rejection. As Isaiah prophesied, Jesus was going to be a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering (Isaiah 53:3). Jesus experienced the deep sorrow of having people close to him die. Do you ever wonder where Joseph went? After the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke you see a lot of Mary but no more Joseph. That’s probably because Joseph died before Jesus’ started his ministry. Jesus likely knew the deep pain that comes with losing a parent. And he lost a couple of good friends too–his cousin and close friend John the Baptist was murdered by King Herod (Mark 6:14-29) and John tells us that Jesus mourned the death of his good friend Lazarus. In fact the death of Lazarus inspired the shortest verse in the entire New Testament, John 11:35, "Jesus wept." Do you know what it’s like to have someone you love; a friend, a parent, a grandparent die. If you’ve gone through that or you are going through it now, Jesus has been there too. He knows that pit in the stomach, he knows that ache that never really goes away, he’s felt it.

Along with sorrow and rejection, Jesus experienced temptation (Matt 4:1-11), anger (John 2:13-17), fear (Luke 22:41-44) ; yes, the entire range of human thought and feeling. In fact, as the writer of Hebrews tells us in a passage that we haven’t read today, we can hold firmly to Jesus because “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb 4:15)

Its clear, then, that Jesus was thoroughly human, completely like us–experiencing the same struggles and trials and sorrows that we deal with every day. He was made like us for a reason. If someone you care about is deeply troubled, you don’t just call, you visit. And you don’t just visit, you sit with them and let their grief, pain, or sorrow become yours as well. You are not just in sympathy with them, you are in solidarity. In the same way, Jesus, God the Son, was not just sympathetic to our plight, he loves us so much, he loves you so much, he made our plight his own. He took on our nature, our sorrow, our life, and our death. He became like us in every way not just to share our burden, but to shoulder it and by his life make our lives complete. Now as we suffer we have right there in heaven, and right here in our hearts our friend and companion Jesus who suffers with us, who takes up our suffering and gives it meaning and purpose.

And yet Jesus was unlike us too. The passage I just read from Hebrews 4 says that he was like us in every way, “yet without sin.” How is this possible? How can you be fully and truly human and not sin? There are two answers to that question. The first answer is that Jesus was fully human as humans were originally intended to be. The human nature that you and I have and experience bares very little resemblance to the human nature God intended. Our natures have been damaged by sin and by the Fall. We are all as, David says in psalm 51, sinful from the time our mothers conceive us. That doesn’t mean that we are actually sinning in the womb. It does mean that the inclination, the orientation, away from God and toward the self has become part of our nature. We are conceived in a fallen state that we have inherited from our first parents. This fallen nature effects every choice we make from childhood on. As soon as we have the capacity to understand right and wrong, good and evil, we gravitate toward the wrong. If you don’t believe me, spend some time with young Emma and Aedan and you‘ll soon be converted. But Jesus was not born with a fallen human nature, he was born with a perfected one. His humanity is what ours once was. He is, as Paul says in Romans 4, the second Adam. He was able to feel everything that we feel, but rather than being oriented away from God and subject to fallen desires, his nature was fully directed toward the Father.

In fact, the second answer to the question of Jesus’ sinlessness is that not only was Jesus’ humanity perfect, he was more than human, he was God. As is written in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus the man was, and is, Jesus our God, God the Son, the Word from the Father. He is perfect humanity joined perfectly to Divinity. Jesus remained sinless because being perfectly human his will was not twisted toward darkness, and being himself God he had the power not to sin.

The question is, why? Why did God come as Jesus the sinless God-Man? What was the purpose of it all? Well, that’s the best part.

What’s the penalty for sin? Death. Who should pay for the sins of humanity? The only just answer is humanity. And God is perfectly just. Yet God loves his creation and his creatures and does not desire to punish us as we deserve. God’s perfect love and his perfect justice seem at cross purposes. But, if you look to the cross of Christ you’ll find the paradox resolved.

There on the cross, perfect love and perfect justice meet. Jesus, a human being, bore the just penalty for the sins of humanity. Being sinless, he filled the role of the unblemished lamb, the atoning sacrifice for the sins of God’s people in accordance with the requirements of the law of Moses. Jesus, as a human, atoned for the sins of humanity.

But how can one man’s death pay the penalty for the sins of so many? That is where his divinity comes in. Jesus, being God the Son, was able to bare the infinite number, the full weight, of all the sins of the world from the beginning to the end. As St. Anselm pointed out many years ago, “Only man should, but only God could” pay for the sins of humanity.

So the Son of God became man for two reasons. 1. To live with us and share in our life and to be in solidarity with our death. And, 2. To atone for our sins. I think the writer of Hebrews says it best and since we’re running out of time, I’ll close with his words:

“For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews 2:14-18)

Amen