A Different Way – 2 Thieves
Tertullian once said, “Just as Christ was crucified between 2 thieves, so this doctrine is ever crucified between 2 errors.” Each of these thieves steal the full beauty of the gospel & take the rich, and beautiful grace of God and makes it small.
Tim Keller calls those 2 thieves religion & irreligion.
Religion is my high school! I grew up going to an ultra conservative Christian high school where moralism ruled the day! There were more rules than anyone could imagine, rules about how much facial hair you could have, rules about how straight your tie should be, and my favorite rules about how much gum you could chew. They gave awards to the best Christians at the end of the year and at our prom we couldn’t dance (dancing leads to shinanigans!) all we could do is sit around & eat dinner together. Sometimes religious circles are just creepy! Like the time my high school teacher brought in a video of his wife giving birth & thought it was ok to show it to his high school history class.
What religion leads us to is two responses that are completely opposite but have the same root.
- The first is where my high school lead me, it is self hatred. Scripture tells us, all of us have sinned, it even tells us that the core of hearts is deceitful. So in this system of belief you get exhausted from trying to live a perfect life when we know we can’t. The beauty of grace is the knowledge that I am completely sinful yet completely loved!
- The second response is Self Rightouesness. You come to believe that you are better than others because you live up to a certain moral clarity. So instead of being humble, you become arrogant, loud & embarrassing to those of us who really are seeking to follow the way of Jesus. Scripture tells us, that our greatest deeds are like filthy rags. So even when we are at our best we miss the mark! So why boast of anything other than the cross of Jesus?
The Second thief is irreligion. As religion values truth above grace, irreligion values grace without truth. It tells us that each of us create our own standards of living, each of us are free to live how we want when we want. They speak of a God of love ,if a God exists, but the love of their God costs them nothing. The beauty of the gospel is that his love lead him to action on our behalf. That even when we failed he loved! Because of that love we desire to serve him & desire to be obedient.
Richard Rohr says, “that is the great surprise – We don’t come to Jesus by getting it right we come to him by getting it wrong!”
A different way – The gospel of Jesus teaches us that we are more sinful & flawed than we could ever imagine. We are also more deeply loved by our creator than we could ever hope!
When we speak of a different way this is the heart of the message!
The gospel is a different way – it sits between 2 thieves who cast stones at each other & it rejects them both and invites both of them to a different way. The beauty of a life with Christ.