I Thought it Would Be More Complicated...

Passage: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The first six Lord’s Days of the Heidelberg Catechism take pains to detail just how messed up our relationship with God has become. Humanity, we’re told, is immersed in sin. Unable to do anything but rebel against God and God’s good order for creation. Naturally inclined to hate God and fellow human beings. Deserving of the ultimate penalty: banishment from God’s presence. The cruel paradox in it all, according to the Catechism, is that we can’t possibly withstand the ultimate penalty. What’s the solution to our dilemma, if there is one?

Well, when we finally get to the solution in Lord’s Day 6, it’s tempting to say, “Really? That’s it? I thought it would be a bit more complicated.” God’s solution to our dilemma is Jesus Christ. All we need to get out from under the weight of our deserved punishment is Jesus. All we need to get right with God is Jesus. How is that a solution?

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul puts it this way: “The message of the cross is foolishness to the perishing. But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” As a species we idolize self-sufficiency. We’re suspicious of anything we can’t do for ourselves. We assume that a gift comes with strings attached. We will either be indebted, obligated, or ashamed by the charity of someone else. We generally accept it when someone offers to pay off a debt, but we tend to look for a way to repay it or wait for the other shoe to drop. The debt that Jesus pays for us doesn’t fit any familiar category. It’s a debt whose magnitude we can’t fathom. The cost to repay it far beyond any human capacity to reimburse. All we have to do is say “Thank you.” Which is something we rarely do. Why?

Because if you’re a skeptic, you don’t buy the whole indebtedness to God thing in the first place. It’s foolishness. And if you’re a believer, you can’t believe that Jesus has fully covered your debt. It’s too simple. We want there to be a piece of the work left over for us to do. There’s not.
That being said, it’s not easy to accept the gift of Jesus Christ. The reason for this is that saying yes to Jesus is saying yes to reconciliation with God. It’s one step toward a relationship that will take over your life. As one songwriter put it, “It didn’t come cheap, but I got it for free.” Reconnecting us with God cost Jesus everything. The relationship we get for his efforts is one that demands everything.