Solid Ground

I know Christmastime is about birth and the beginnings of Christ’s earthly life and all, but today I (Ken) want to reflect on the end of Christ’s earthly life–his death and resurrection.  As I’ve been living in this theme of “hope” over the last couple of weeks a hymn keeps coming to mind, here’s the first verse and chorus:

Verse:

My hope is built on nothing less 

than Jesus' blood and righteousness. 

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, 

but wholly lean on Jesus' name. 

Refrain:

On Christ the solid rock I stand, 

all other ground is sinking sand; 

all other ground is sinking sand. 

Endings tell us a lot about beginnings.  But even before Christ is born an angel tips his hat to the end of Christ’s earthly life (I don’t know if he wore a hat or not, actually, I don’t really know for sure if the angel is “he” or “she” or if that even matters in the angelic realm of creation).

Matthew records the dream Joseph has where the angel of the Lord appeared to him:

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” - Matthew 1.20-21

This proclamation, that the son born to his fiancee would “save his people from their sins,” must have startled and even confused Joseph.  In Joseph’s worldview, the way people were saved from their sins was by observing the Jewish Law and sacrificial system.  Sins were atoned for by the blood of lams and bulls, not by a person.  

I wonder if Joseph contemplated just how Jesus would save his people from their sins.  Do you think Joseph thought about the possibility of Jesus dying a sacrificial and painful death at the hand of the Romans?  Or do you think he thought Jesus would be crowned king of an earthly throne?  Did Joseph think of Isaiah 53?

4 Surely he took up our pain
   and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
   stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
   and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
   each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
   the iniquity of us all.

 7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
   yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
   and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
   so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
   Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
   for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
   and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
   nor was any deceit in his mouth.

 10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
   and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
   and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
   he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
   and he will bear their iniquities. - Isaiah 53.4-11

We have a benefit that Joseph didn’t, we are looking back on history, we have the whole story recorded for us, by four different authors, from four different perspectives.  And what we know of this baby Jesus is that he grows up, and from the edges of society, with a small band of young followers, he emerges through humility onto the scene.  At one point, when John the Baptist encounters him he exclaims of Jesus: “Behold, the Lamb of GOD who takes away the sins of the world.”  I think John the Baptist had Isaiah 53 in mind.

That is ultimately what Christ did, he became the sacrificial Lamb.  He took on our sin, our iniquity, our rightful punishment for us as he went to the cross.  And his righteousness, his holiness, his sonship is placed on us.  By believing in his name and his power to save, we become children of GOD.

But ultimately, our hope is not found in one who remained in the grave.  He is risen!  That is why Christ is a sure hope, he has overcome the world, and to borrow language from the hymn writer, to trust in even the sweetest of frames would be to place our trust in something temporal and unstable.  Christ is the only solid rock upon which we can find our sure footing.

- Ken Lippold