Jesus, a Magnificent Failure!
There’s a story about a Scorpion and an Old Man. In the story, the old man sees a scorpion floating helplessly in the water. The old man quickly stretches out his arm to rescue the drowning creature. When he touched it, the scorpion stung him. Instinctively the man withdrew his hand. A minute later, after he had regained his balance, he tried again to save the scorpion. This time the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hand became bloody and swollen and his face contorted with pain.
A passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots struggling with the scorpion and shouted: “Hey, old man, what’s wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly evil creature. Don’t you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful creature?”
The old man turned his head. Looking into the stranger’s eyes he said calmly, “My friend, just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, that doesn’t change my nature to save.” (adapted from version told by Henri Nouwen)
Christian Scripture and Failure
The Christian scriptures are full of stories of failure. Adam and Eve’s failure to follow God’s command in the garden resulted in their expulsion. In Genesis God failed to rid the world of evil through the flood. God saw that humans were wicked and decided to destroy them from the face of the earth. Their wickedness was so complete that they couldn’t even imagine good things. “When the Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on earth, and his heart was grieved.” (6:5-6)
However, the situation wasn’t changed after the flood. “Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the desires of man’s heart are evil from the start.” (8:21b) The flood was a failure for it did not change the human heart. What did change, though, was God. Like the story of the scorpion and the old man, how can God blame his creation for behaving according to its nature? So, God realized he was the one who had to change.
God made a unilateral covenant with his people, not because of any merit on their side or anything that they did to deserve it. The covenant is entirely God’s initiative. God rejects his previous desire to destroy. Never again he says, in a covenant that restricts God’s freedom, the covenant of the rainbow (Genesis 9:8-13). God willingly gives up his freedom for our sake.
God’s Bold Experiment
God changed and realized he had to try something new to reach his people. And so, when the time was right, thousands of years after the flood, God tried something entirely new. He emptied himself and became one like us in his effort to reach us and save us.
This bold experiment ends with worldly failure on the cross, but is the failure God’s or ours? And is it truly a failure? Remember God’s wisdom appears as foolishness. God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Noah and his family were saved from the flood, but the flood was not able to wash away the stain of sin upon humankind. Christians are saved through the waters of baptism which washes away the stain of original sin, yet it doesn’t free us entirely from evil in this world. Before the flood, God looked around and saw only Noah was good. When God looks around today, what does he see? Are there any good persons in our world? Is this human experiment the ultimate failure, or the ultimate success? Are we humans capable of changing our nature? Did Jesus death on the cross make a difference?
Jesus’ Walk to Calvary
This week we walk with Jesus to the cross. Jesus died an ignominious death, the death of a common criminal. A failure in the eyes of the world. But, if he was a failure, he was a magnificent failure! His failure went far beyond our worldly success.
God sent his own son, and we, human that we are, stung him like the scorpion in the story. Yet God was able to turn failure into success. God’s failure is greater than human success. God’s failure redeemed a broken, sinful world and transformed humanity. Through Jesus’ life and death, we humans have found a way to change our nature from evil to good. God took a risk on us and reached out to save us from our own nature. Through Jesus’ failure on the cross, we have been saved.
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