R is for Realize

This baseball maxim is also great theology, at least for us Easter people. We put all our hope for life on what Jesus did through his cross and resurrection. For us everything--really, everything--depended on Jesus playing the game.

How so? Take all those promises of forgiveness of sins and of mercy to Law-breakers, which Jesus heard and learned on Mary's lap, at Joseph's side, and sitting between them in synagogue among his younger half-siblings. The Spirit spoke through the prophets vigorously about comfort, pardon and redemption. But don't these promises need Jesus Christ's death and resurrection in order to come true? In the story of Ketut Lasia (on page four) that former Hindu expresses how, once he understood that Christians had "hope for forgiveness," how dear that became to him. Yes, but is there a foundation to that hope? To make the promised forgiveness a realized forgiveness, that was why Jesus Christ came.

After all, no debt can be forgiven out of thin air. If the debtor does not pay the creditor then the creditor suffers the loss, even if willingly. So a debt can be forgiven only if the creditor is willing to "eat it," to "get burned," to take it "out of his own hide." So also is the forgiveness of our debts to God, the loyalty and service we have not yet paid and still owe him. If we are to be forgiven that debt, then the loss will have to be the creditor's, God's. But how is it possible for God to "take a loss"? Modify "eat it" to "drink the cup" and "out of his own hide" to "through his blood" and we can answer the question. In this Easter's epistle lesson Paul reminds the Corinthians of exactly that as the primal gospel, "of first importance": "Christ died for our sins." The rest of the New Testament follows suit. Even behind its metaphors--the financial "redeem," the ritual "cleanse" and the medical "heal"--are the root terms for eliminating the sin problem: "atone for," "make amends" and "expiate."

So, we might say that the prophets' promises of forgiveness are God's gracious plan for game day. But a plan is not realized and the grace is not won for us unless Jesus Christ plays the game--all the way through destruction into resurrection. Otherwise someone with enough life experience to be suspicious of promises might say, "Sure, God talks a good line about forgiving sinners and having mercy on his enemies. But will God go through with it? On game day, Good Friday, will God 'come to play'? Is he willing to do what it takes to 'get it done'?"

See, Jesus had to play the game. If not, then the prophets' predictions of pardon are not realized, do not come true. It is not what gets said before the game that matters, but what happens on the field. The very word "gospel," notice, is not about a theory or principle or idea or even an article of faith: it is a report of what happened. And what happened is: Jesus did play the game.