Sermon from June 11, 2006
I never hear the word post-modern on television. Maybe I'm watching the wrong channels. I do read the word in books and magazines. The people I read think it tells us something important about the world we live in. I agree, and I want to show you why it matters to our Christian faith.

Post-modernists get all worked up about knowledge. More exactly, they get all worked up about certainty. Let me show you what I mean. Alexander Pope, an 18th century, British poet, captured in two lines the confidence that people of his day had in science as a result of the work of Sir Isaac Newton. He wrote:

Nature and Nature's Law lay hid in Night
God said, let Newton be, and all was light.

Usefulness and Certainty
Science was unlocking the secrets of nature. But what captivated educated people was not just knowledge but the certainty and usefulness of knowledge. Inventors showed how useful scientific knowledge could be. Everyone with a laptop computer, heart stent, or cell phone would agree.

But philosophers became passionate about the certainty of scientific knowledge. Some of them, very influential, came to the conclusion that only what was scientifically certain deserved to be called the truth. That philosophy gradually came to dominate universities and even some seminaries throughout Western Civilization.

Well, how do you prove scientifically that Jesus is the Son of God, or that the Bible is the word of God? How do you prove scientifically that God exists? Questions like these have made their way into everyday conversation.

Post-modern thinkers blew the whistle on all this. They say it all comes from the mistake of saying that truth equals scientific certainty. Some of them go so far as to say that there is no such thing as truth. Most of them say that all our knowledge is partial, and we should talk about what we know with greater humility.

This change in attitude is changing our social habits. For example, you don't have to be an expert to sound off – about anything. The endless talk shows and blog sites bear eloquent witness to that.

And now, we come to the reason this matters to our faith. You can believe almost anything and talk about it in the public square and expect people to give you a more or less polite hearing, especially if you give the other person a polite hearing. In our post-modern world, faith is back in style – any faith. After all, if knowledge is partial, you've got to have faith, because you can't know for sure.

The Nature of Faith
Now, they're talking our language, and the book of Hebrews says a lot about faith. Hebrews 4:2 says: For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. These sermons about the atonement are well and good, but they do us no good, if we don't combine what we hear with faith in Jesus.

What exactly is faith? Let's read Hebrews 11:1. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That translation was not the best effort of the New International Version (NIV). I'd like to use the King James Version translation of this verse. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. At the peril of sounding pedantic, let's focus on substance and evidence.

These words have everything to do with two powerful human experiences: sight and hope. Faith offers everything to hope and nothing to sight.

Chapter eleven illustrates the power of hope over and over. The first part of verse 13 is especially poignant. All these people (who believe in God) were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. Faith grows out of God's promises, like a tulip from its bulb. Faith sees a tulip, when all you have is a bulb. Faith sees future reality, when all you have is hope in the promises of God. That's why it says that faith is the substance of things hoped for.

The rest of verse 13 refers to sight in an intriguing way. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. They saw them. They saw them in their mind's eye, by faith.

But look how powerful that "sight" was! Verse seven says it made Noah build an ark, when there was no flood. Verse 8-9 say it made Abraham leave his native country and wander as an alien on the earth. Verses 24-25 say it made Moses refuse to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and to be mistreated along with the people of God.

"Noah, why did you build an ark, when there was no flood?"

"Because God promised."

"But, Noah, we can't see Him. We can't hear Him. How do you know it was God?"

"I believe Him."

"Abraham, why did you leave your native country and wander as an alien on the earth?"

"Becaues God promised."

"But, Abraham, we can't see Him. We can't hear Him. How do you know it was God?"

"I believe Him."

"Moses, why did you refuse to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter and be mistreated along with the people of God?"

"Because God promised."

"But, Moses, we can't see Him. We can't hear Him. How do you know it was God?"

"I believe in Him."

No man hath seen a light wave at any time. We deduce it from evidence it leaves behind after sophisticated experiments.

No one has ever seen God (John 1:18). We deduce Him from more than 4000 years of faith in the same God. That's why Hebrews 11:1 says that faith ... is the evidence of things not seen.

Faith seems fragile, doesn't it? Yet its staying power is legendary. Read with me verses 36-39. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated – the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

Appropriating the Atonement
Since Palm Sunday, we have tried to understand more deeply and explain more clearly the meaning of the death of Jesus Christ. I have relied heavily on the letter to the Hebrews to do this.

Hebrews makes a comparison. The Jewish high priest, alone with sacrificial blood in the Most Holy Place of heaven, is the sole Representative of the entire human race before God.

But He is more than our Representative. Death is the judgment of God on human sin that is written into the very DNA of our physical bodies. We all die, and our death has no redemptive value in the eyes of God. It is the justice of God against sin on grim display. Jesus came into this dead-end street and died a death He did not owe to pay a debt we could not pay.

In doing that Jesus was more than our Representative. A representative does for us what we might just as well have done for ourselves. Jesus is our Substitute. On the cross He did for us what "we could never have done for ourselves, and which does not need to be done over again," (The Death of Christ, 132).That in a nutshell is the doctrine of the Atonement.

When you have a serious infection, your doctor prescribes the appropriate medication. Aren't you glad that you don't have to understand the science of infectious disease for the medicine to work? Just take one pill two times a day before meals for ten days. Take every pill. That's how the science of infectious disease takes effect in our experience.

Likewise, it is possible and acceptable to believe the Christian message without understanding the doctrine of the atonement. Christ died for our sins. Christ has risen from the dead. Christ has supreme authority over the whole earth. Christ is coming again. Repent! Believe! You will be saved. That faith is how the doctrine of the atonement becomes effective in our experience.

Hebrews 11:6 puts it well. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. The Christian ministry exists to nurture, protect and deepen an earnest faith in Jesus Christ.

I asked a moment ago: Aren't you glad you don't have to understand the science of infectious disease for the medicine to work? But aren't you also glad that the doctor who prescribed the medication has an understanding of the science behind it? That gives us confidence to take the medicine the doctor gives us.

We don't have to understand the doctrine of the atonement to believe in Jesus Christ. But aren't you also glad that the theologians of the Church have an understanding of the doctrine of the atonement? That reassures us that our faith is on solid ground.

It goes further than that. A series of sermons like this one may deepen your faith by deepening your understanding and engaging your imagination. That in turn leads to deeper worship. Orthodoxy (the truth about God) comes to fruition in doxology (the adoration of God). It is proper that faith seek understanding. It is most proper that faith come to rest by adoring the mystery of God's love, when Christ died for the ungodly.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Finally, I'd like to end where I began – with a reflection on Post-modernism and Christianity. Think for a minute about one of the realities of our secular world.

For 250 years the elite academic centers of Western Civilization have been at best patronizing and at worst openly contemptuous of Christianity. The mainstream media, especially television and movies, have inundated our imagination with a vision of life that is radically different from a Christian vision of life.

In its proposed constitution, which was voted down last year, the European Union refused to recognize its Christian past. In this country, the Democratic Party seems embarrassed by the emergence of a Christian voice in politics. The Republican Party has at times cynically exploited evangelical Christians for its own purposes.

In accelerated intensity over the past 50 years this secular alternative to Christianity has bombarded the spiritual sensibilities of ordinary people. Yet within the heart of this secular juggernaut Post-modernism has arisen and has challenged the intellectual foundations of the secular world.

And to our astonishment faith is back in style – any faith. But "any faith" includes the Christian faith. Isaiah's words, coming out of the eighth century before Christ, offer insight into the present confusion of secularism. The LORD says:

Therefore once more I will astound these people
     with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
     the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish – Isaiah 29:14.

The Apostle Paul extended that insight in 1 Corinthians 1:20: Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Where is Descartes, whoever he was? Where is Marx? Where is Freud? Even Darwin trembles on his throne. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world in our lifetime?

Day in and day out, it may not look like that. The wicked freely strut about, because what is vile is honored among men (Psalm 12:8). We can be tempted to give in to the defeatist attitude that says: When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righeous do? (Psalm 11:3) Don't give in. Stir up your faith. Its staying power is epic.

The present reemergence of faith among the dominant concerns of mankind opens new opportunities for the central message of the Church to be heard. Christ died for our sins. God raised Jesus from the dead to a life beyond the threat of death and to a position of supreme authority over all the earth. The Church believes and teaches that His authority is actually being asserted over all the earth and will some day banish every enemy, including death.

The day is coming, when God will shake the nations of the earth, as a dog will shake a baby doll, so that what cannot be shaken will remain (Hebrews 12:27). Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks, for our "God is a consuming fire," (Hebrews 12:28, 25, 29).