I remember, when I was young, the time my parents first took me into a cathedral. I was amazed by the structure of the building, the vaulted ceilings, and the stained glass windows. There was so much to see and take in.
As we walked around the very large cathedral, I couldn’t help but notice many very beautifully crafted statues. At the base of each statue was a plaque explaining who it represented: “This is Saint ________, the Patron Saint of ________.” Surrounding each statue were candles and an area where people could kneel and pray. After a long walk observing the statues around the perimeter of the cathedral, we finally made our way to the very center. There behind the altar was one of the most spectacular images of Jesus Christ I had ever seen. As I ran up to take a closer look I encountered a railing that prevented me from getting any closer to this image of Christ. From my child-like perspective, I was confused. I could get as close as I wanted to any of the other statues, but the statue of Jesus Christ was behind a barricade.
That experience has stayed with me over the years and I share it now, not to point out a flaw in a specific denomination, but to identify a flaw that is imbedded in our human nature. As I think back on that experience, I find myself asking the question, “How accurately does this depict our lives today?” Far too often we put our hope, our well-being, our rest, our encouragement, our fulfillment, and our joy in things other than Jesus Christ. We put Jesus behind a barricade and only go to him when we are really desperate. In the meantime, we continue to do things our own way and put our hope in a plethora of different things, rather than solely relying on the completed work of Jesus Christ.
Therein lies the fundamental flaw. Everything we rely on apart from Christ is just temporary. However, being rooted solely in Jesus Christ is eternal.
Paul artfully penned in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus Christ is our perfect substitute. He left heaven, came down to earth, and took on human flesh to proclaim God’s saving grace to all. This grace is offered freely to all of us, so that we can confidently know that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sins, rose from the grave to assure us of eternal life, and will go before God on our behalf so that we can enter into heaven. Knowing this, we don’t need to rely on anyone or anything else, because Christ has achieved all we need.
Jesus can accomplish all of this because he alone is 100% God and 100% man. This idea might send some mathematicians into a tizzy, but what we are trying to say is that Jesus is as much God as he is man—not half God and half man, but all God and all man. He is both God and man. Not God dwelling in a man, but God and man in one being, combining in one person both his human and divine natures.
Jesus had to be 100% God and 100% man in order to fulfill what was written in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” He had to be 100% man so that he could identify with us and be put to death on the cross. He had to be 100% God so that he could pay for the sins of the entire world, rise from the grave, return to heaven, and one day come back to judge both the living and the dead. With this perfect combination, Jesus was able to credit his perfection to us: through faith, his perfection is our perfection in God’s eyes and we are welcomed into heaven. That’s because only God is able to bring mankind to God. Human beings are unable to bring themselves to God.
There are many different things in this world that might catch our eye and distract us from all that Christ has already accomplished for us on the cross. The good news is that barricades can’t contain Jesus. As it says in Casting Crowns’ song, Glorious Day, “One day the grave could conceal him no longer, one day the stone rolled away from the door. Then he arose, over death he had conquered. Now he’s ascended, my Lord evermore. Death could not hold him; the grave could not keep him from rising again!”
Barricades like death and the grave couldn’t contain Jesus. In the same way, he continues to break through the barricades we set up in our lives. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are encouraged to rely solely on Jesus Christ above everything else, confidently knowing that he achieved victory over sin, death, and the devil on our behalf.
Rev. Michael Natale serves as pastor at Faith Chapel Lutheran Brethren Church in Cranston, Rhode Island.