Galatians 6:1-16, Luke 10.1-20
The Third Sunday after Trinity, 3 July 2022, Eldroth, Clapham
Christ’s disciples walk in a world of acceptance or rejection. Every day they experience being either embraced or expelled. Jesus sent out seventy-two of them to the Gentile towns of Judea as he had previously sent out twelve to the towns of Galilee in Israel, to heal the sick and proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God. He led them to expect welcome in some places, and opposition in others, but promised them peace whatever they found; he told them to accept whatever came their way and to leave him to deal with the consequences; and he condemned all the towns who sent his disciples packing.
And Christ’s disciples today, you and me, baptised into a lifetime’s journey with our Lord, in a world of rejection we have been given acceptance, in a world of expulsion we have been lovingly embraced. In our uncertain times, where previously fixed-points in our world are wobbling, many Christians long to find ways to tell this wonderful Christian story, to share its joy with others.
Today’s gospel passage is a helpful starting point. For Luke chapter 10 offers us a unique expression of the meaning of the cross. There, in verse 18, as nowhere else in scripture, Jesus describes his crucifixion experience. In just one brief, astonishing, line he projects himself forwards in time to tell us what he sees at the moment of his death:
‘I see Satan fall from heaven like lightning,’ he said. [1]
If you want a definitive description of the most powerful moment in history, then this is it. Here is Jesus describing what his eyes see from the cross, at that pivotal moment of his death. ‘I see Satan fall from heaven like lightning.’ It is so intense an image, like a scene from a motion picture, that it is likely to become fixed forever in our own mind’s eye once we’ve visualised it for the first time.
Jesus, crucified by brutal enemies, whilst hanging there utterly engaged in a cosmic battle between the powers, at the very moment of his death ‘sees Satan fall from heaven like lightning’, and in a flash the world is changed substantially, for ever. What changed? How did that work?
Before this moment the world knew only one way of encountering acceptance or rejection, embrace or expulsion. People longed to belong and strove to be chosen, and belonging to a group was everything; whether Roman or Jewish, whether Pharisee or Sadducee, every group’s identity depended on their not being like the group next door, every group’s integrity depended on their not being tainted by the presence of others unlike them. In this world those who upset the balance of things were accused of wrongdoing, and expelled.
Religion was key to this process, the practice of sacrifice was central to humanity’s sense of well-being. And so the high priest Caiaphas said, ‘It is better that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.’ [2] and so the innocent victim Jesus was accused, condemned and crucified.
And in this world, in ancient folklore, Satan is the Accuser. He is the one who brings accusations against people. He is the High Court Judge, if you like, charged to bring a conviction against the bad people of the world. Satan divides the world between the chosen people and those who are accused of evil-doing and therefore rejected. Satan makes those who think they are the chosen to gang up against those who they accuse. This a world of unjust victims, of scapegoating, and as I’m sure you’ll recognise, is not just the ancient world, it is today’s world too. [3]
But the good news of the meaning of the cross speaks to people who walk in a world of acceptance or rejection, whose everyday experiences are of being embraced or expelled. It is that Satan, the Accuser who is at the heart of each rejection and every expulsion, has been overcome by Christ, who embraces us in unconditional love, and enables us to step away from that cycle of violence which is the way of the world.
The moment of Jesus’ death was also the moment of Jesus’ triumph. It was a moment of illumination in which the watching world plainly saw an innocent victim, the unjustly accused, punished, and for the first time the world had its eyes opened to every innocent victim, every unjustly accused person, punished throughout history. In that moment of revelation Satan the Accuser lost his power, his grip on human society slipped, and he fell.
‘I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning,’ Jesus told his followers. And that energy charge which sent Satan crashing from the skies was the Holy Spirit of God. The gospel of John refers to the Holy Spirit as the paraclete - a legal term, meaning the defender of the accused, and it was his vital energy which forced Satan the accuser to go spiralling to the ground, draining the former ruler and judge of the world of his power to convict.
Christ sees Satan fall to earth. This does not mean the end of Satan, sadly, for we know that our world of rejection and expulsion continues. But it does mean that this world has been drained of its power: because that once-and-for-all-time lightning strike illuminates the truth at the heart of the problem of human violence.
Because of what the cross reveals, we no longer need believe the myth that the idea of violence is divine; for on the cross God himself is our victim. We no longer need believe the myth that to put things right in our world we must expel those who are unlike us and eliminate so many innocent people; for on the cross Christ holds out his arms to embrace the world in love. [4]
That lightning flash of the Spirit still electrifies us today. Because of this power of Christ in us, his disciples can show acceptance in a world of rejection. Because of this power of Christ in us, his disciples can embrace with love those whom the world expels.
Notes
A rewrite of Christ’s disciples in a world of acceptance or rejection, preached at Whitegate, 2013.
[1] This sermon owes a great deal to the concluding chapter of Rene Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, p.182-193, and to Paul Nuechterlein’s notes on Luke 10.1-11, 16-20 in his Girardian Lectionary, Proper 9C.
[2] John 11.50.
[3] See my sermon Mark 8 - Satan the Accuser and God the Chooser from 2006, and the source sermon of the same title by Paul Nuechterlein.
[4] Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, p.184 (altered)
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