Finished
upon the Cross
The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect
redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction
for all the sins of the whole world,
both original and actual;
and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone.
Wherefore the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is
commonly said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to
have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit.
We keep killing Jesus.
In daily mass,
Catholics believe they offer and receive Jesus as the sacrifice for their sins. For them, eucharist (communion) isn’t just a symbolic
or spiritual memorial. It is the actual
act of literally sacrificing Jesus, every day.
But that’s not necessary.
The Bible very explicitly calls Jesus our Great High
Priest “who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up
sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He
did once for all when He offered up Himself.” (Hebrews 7: 27)
Jesus went to the cross just one time. He died just one time “not that He should
offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every
year with blood of another… so Christ was offered once to bear the sins
of many. (Hebrews 9:25, 28)
But we’re not satisfied with that. Catholics , Protestants, Americans of every
religious and unreligious bent: we keep killing Jesus, every day.
Jesus gave up the glory of Heaven and submitted to a
life of service on Earth just to fulfill His Heavenly Father’s plan to bring
salvation to mankind. We, oh learn-ed Christians,
then theologize about how the God of the Old Testamentwas misogynistic, unjust, heartlessly genocidal,
and irrelevant to New Testament followers of Jesus.
That’s Jesus Father.
His Father! We’re killing Him.
Jesus said, “ “Do not think that I
came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to
fulfill. For assuredly, I
say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will
by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. (Matthew 5: 17, 18)
We say that the moral laws of the Old Testament have
no bearing on people who follow Jesus. We’re
killing Him.
Jesus, the bringer of that grace, said, “Whoever
therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so,
shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them,
he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5: 17-19)
We say that grace exempts us from the commandments.
We call ourselves Christian. We wax eloquent about the loving Jesus and
loving like Jesus. But we ignore
everything Jesus actually said about love when His saying inconvenience our preferred
lifestyles.
Jesus said that LOVE means keeping the commandments.
“He who has My commandments and
keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My
Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (John 14: 15, 21)
We say love is ignoring those intolerant and archaic
moral rules.
Jesus said that LOVE means caring about and caring for
the less fortunate.
And the King will answer and say to them, “Assuredly,
I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren,
you did it to Me. … Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to
one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.” (Matthew 25: 490, 45)
Jesus said that His followers would be outside of
the mainstream, not loved by the world, not applauded by the powerful
majorities of the culture. We… we want
to be.
If you were of the world, the world would love its
own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you. (John 15: 19)
We the Church “crucify again for themselves the Son
of God, and put Him to an open shame.” (Hebrews 6: 6)
We’re killing Him---- every day. What the church should do--- not physically, but spiritually--- is go kill
ourselves.
Instead of sacrificing the real Jesus on our
liturgical, political, social, financial, and preferential altars; we should be
making a daily sacrifice of OURSELVES.
When Paul and Peter (2
Corinthians 1:7; 1
Peter 4: 15) talked about partaking in Christ’s suffering, they didn’t mean
consuming His transubstantiated body and blood. They meant engaging in the same
kind of sanctified and sacrificial life that Jesus lived.
One time, just one time, Jesus took up His cross and
gave Himself as a sacrifice for our sins.
If we love Him like we say we love Him, then we need to take up our
crosses and give ourselves as a sacrifice in return.
If you’re conveniently arguing away the commandments
that you can obey but you just don’t want to--- you’re killing Jesus. Go kill your flesh instead.
If you’re standing on the prosperous promises of God
while stepping over the holiness-pursuing conditions of those promises, you’re
killing Him. Go kill your selfish desires instead.
If you’re tithing and shouting, but neither serving
nor sanctifying your life, you’re still killing Jesus. Go kill your superficial religiosity instead.
If you think that your liberal or conservative political
position on homosexuality, or abortion, or Obama, or the Confederate flag, or
homeschools, or Muslims, or whatever is trending this week; if you think that
SINGLE position is the ONLY thing that matters to God so you can violate His
will on everything else---- Dude, go kill your old self.
Everyday you and I have to crucify our selves, to die a little more to what we wanted Jesus to be so we can live a little more the way Jesus wants us to be.
The daily sacrifice of Christ in Catholic mass is unnecessary. The hourly sacrifices of Christ in mass media are
unrighteous. The sacrifices of Christ in the churches whose doctrine declares that we no better is shameful.
I have been crucified with
Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved
me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2: 20)
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community
organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership
development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II
is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield,
Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking
Organization (SAYNO); and director of
rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
#Awordtothewise
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