A Picture of Atonement
It was a mountain one-room school house where severe discipline was used to keep the rowdyism of uninterested pupils in class. The noon recess was ended and the teacher was interrogating the class with regard to the disappearance of Sally Jane’s lunch. After a few minutes of verbal threats and demands, a sob was heard. It was little Billy—a thin, undernourished child. His family was the poorest of the poor.
“Did you take Sally Jane’s lunch?” demanded the teacher.
“Yes, sir,” mumbled Billy through his tears. “I was hungry.”
“Nevertheless, you did wrong to steal and you must be punished,” declared the teacher.
As the teacher removed the leather strap from its place on the wall, Billy was ordered to the front of the room and told to remove his shirt. The arm of the teacher was raised over the bent and trembling form of little Billy.
“Hold it, teacher!” shouted a husky voice from the rear of the room. It was Big Jim striding down the aisle, removing his shirt as he came. “Let me take his whipp’n,” he begged.
The teacher was aghast, but knowing that justice must be demonstrated, he consented and laid the belt to the back of Big Jim with such force that even the stronger boy winced and his eyes watered. But Billy never forgot the day that Big Jim took his place.
I Have the Peace
A friend visited an elderly woman badly crippled by arthritis. When asked, “Do you suffer much?” she responded, “Yes, but there is no nail here,” and she pointed to her hand. “He had the nails, I have the peace.” She pointed to her head. “There are no thorns here. He had the thorns, I have the peace.” She touched her side, “There is no spear here. He had the spear, I have the peace.” That is what the atonement of Jesus Christ means for us—He gave of Himself so that we might have the peace. –Ralph Turnbull
A Curious Feeling about the Cross
We crucified him on a stick, but we have always had a curious feeling that He somehow managed to get hold of the right end of it. –George Bernard Shaw
The Heart of the Faith
Nikolai Berdyaev, who abandoned Marx for Christianity, insists that neither history nor theology not the church brought him to the Christian faith, but a simple woman called only Mother Maria. He was present at a concentration camp when the Nazis were murdering Jews in gas chambers. One distraught mother refused to part with her baby. When Maria saw that the officer was only interested in numbers, without a word she pushed the mother aside and quickly took her place. The action revealed to Berdyaev the heart of Christianity—and what atonement means.
Covering Sins
The story of Christ’s coverage for sins has been told so often to some of us that the message just doesn’t seem to get through. We are jaded. Somehow we need to find ways to get the message through in vital and fresh and arresting ways.
There is a wonderful story about a young family moving into a new house. The move had been scheduled weeks in advance, but when the day approached, the husband announced that an important meeting had been called at the office, and he would be unable to help. Consequently, the wife had to handle the move by herself. After the moving van had pulled away, the wife found herself standing in the living room of the new house surrounded by boxes to be unpacked, appliances to be hooked up, a screaming baby, and a five-year-old who decided to throw one of his metal toys through the picture window. Fortunately, the child wasn’t hurt, but the jagged glass was scattered everywhere and a brisk wind was blowing through the opening. The wife was now so upset that she simply had to tell her husband what was happening. When she called him on the phone, a secretary informed her that he was tied up in the meeting and could not be disturbed. The secretary asked, “Would you like to leave a message?” This didn’t help her at all because from past experience the wife knew that he could be extremely lax about returning phone calls home. So she figured out a way to get to him. She replied, “Just tell him the insurance will cover it. Call home for details.”
The moment he got the message, he called home.
Maybe we need to learn from this some ways to arrest people with the message of God’s coverage for sin. Maybe we need to rephrase the headlines of our faith for each generation in ways that will seize their minds and demand their attention.
The Substitute
There was a law in Tokyo about 1900 that no foreigner could take up residence there unless he had a “substitute.” There were natives who hired themselves out for this purpose. If the foreigner broke any law, the substitute suffered the penalty for it, even if the penalty were death. In a similar way, our standing before God and His law is only obtainable through the substitutionary work of His Son. And this substitutionary work is obtained without any fee—only faith in Him. –James Gray
Appropriating the Solution
A Japanese soldier by the name of Shoichi Yokoi lived in a cave on the island of Guam to which he fled in 1941 when the tides of war began to change. Fearing for his life, he stayed hidden for twenty-eight years in the jungle cave, coming out only at night. During this self-imposed exile, he live on frogs, rats, snails, shrimp, nuts, and mangoes. Even when he figured out the war was over, he was afraid to come out for fear he would be executed. Two hunters found him one day and escorted him to freedom. He was living all this time under the indictment of sins that had all been dealt with—but he simply had not appropriated the atonement that was available.
Pursued by the Atoning Love
One evening a woman was driving home when she noticed a huge truck behind her that was driving uncomfortably close. She stepped on the gas to gain some distance from the truck, but when she sped up, the truck did too. The faster she drove, the faster drove the truck.
Now scared, she exited the freeway. But the truck stayed with her. The woman then turned up a main street, hoping to lose her pursuer in traffic. But the truck ran a red light and continued the chase.
Reaching the point of panic, the woman whipped her car into a service station and bolted out of her car screaming for help. The truck driver sprang from his truck and ran toward her car. Yanking the back door open, the driver pulled out a man hidden in the backseat.
The woman was running from the wrong person. From his high vantage point, the truck driver had spotted a would-be rapist in the woman’s car. The chase was not his effort to harm her, but to save her even at the cost of his own safety.
Likewise, many people run from God’s provision of atonement on the cross, fearing what He might do to them. But His plans are for good, not evil—to rescue us from the hidden sins that endanger our lives.
Buying Back the Boat
One of the old favorites is the story of the father and son who worked for months to build a toy sailboat. Every night when he came home from work, the man and his boy would disappear into the garage for hours. It was a labor of love—love for each other and for the thing they were creating. The wooden hull was painted bright red and it was trimmed with gleaming white sails. When it was finished, they traveled to a nearby lake for the boat’s trial run. Before launching it, the father tied a string to its stern to keep it from sailing too far. The boat performed beautifully, but before long a motorboat crossing the lake cut the string, and the sailboat drifted out of sight on the large lake. Attempts to find it were fruitless, and both father and son wept over its loss. A few weeks later as the boy was walking home from school, he passed his favorite toy store and was amazed to see a toy sailboat in the window—his sailboat! He ran inside to claim the boat, telling the proprietor about his experience on the lake. The store owner explained that he had found the boat while on a fishing trip. “You may be it maker,” he said, “but as a finder, I am its legal owner. You may have it back—for fifty dollars.” The boy was stunned at how much it would cost him to regain his boat, but since it was so precious to him, he quickly set about earning the money to buy it back. Months later he joyfully walked into the toy store and handed the owner fifty dollars in exchange for his sailboat. It was the happiest day of his life. As he left the store, he held the boat up to the sunlight. Its colors gleamed as though newly painted. “I made you, but I lost you,” he said. “Now I’ve bought you back. That makes you twice mine, and twice mine is mine forever.”
The Son and the Drawbridge
A man had the duty to raise a drawbridge to allow the steamers to pass on the river below and to lower it again for trains to cross over on land. One day, this man’s son visited him, desiring to watch his father at work. Quite curious, as most boys are, he peeked into a trapdoor that was always left open so his father could keep an eye on the great machinery that raised and lowered the bridge. Suddenly, the boy lost his footing and tumbled into the gears. As the father tried to reach down and pull him out, he heard the whistle of an approaching train. He knew the train would be full of people and that it would be impossible to stop the fast-moving locomotive, therefore, the bridge must be lowered! A terrible dilemma confronted him: if he saved the people, his son would be crushed in the cogs. Frantically, he tried to free the boy, but to no avail. Finally, the father put his hand to the lever that would start the machinery. He paused and then, with tears he pulled the lever. The giant gears began to work and the bridge clamped down just in time to save the train. The passengers, not knowing what the father had done, were laughing and making merry; yet the bridgekeeper had chosen to save their lives at the cost of his son’s.
In all of this there is a parable: the heavenly Father, too, saw the blessed Savior being nailed to a cross while people laughed and mocked and spit upon Him and yet, “He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”
Reconciliation, Hand in Hand
There was a little girl whose parents had a miserable marriage and were divorced, having nothing in common save their affection for the child. One day as the girl was playing in the street, she was knocked down by a bus and seriously injured. Taken to the hospital, she was examined by the doctors but was found to be beyond human aid. Hastily summoned to the hospital, her parents heard the sad news and stood silently, one on either side of the bed, looking down helplessly at the little girl. As they stood there, the child’s eyes suddenly opened and seeing her parents, she tried to smile. Then drawing one arm from under the sheet, she held it out in the direction of her father. “Daddy,” she said, “give me your hand.” Turning to her mother, she stretched out her other arm. “Mummy,” she said, “give me you hand.” Then with a final effort of her fast-ebbing strength, she drew them close together. This is a picture of what Christ did on the cross. The Savior took the hand of sinful hateful humanity and placed it in the loving hand of God. Jesus reconciled us to God; He broke down the barrier; He restored the broken fellowship caused by sin or turning our backs on God. Just as in this little girl’s dying to bring her parents together, Jesus was dying to bring God and us together, but we have to make the effort to keep the relationship going.
A Keen Justice
Zaleusus flourished about 500 BC, His government over the Locrians was severe but just. In one of his decrees, he forbade the use of wine unless it were prescribed as medicine; and in another he ordered that all adulterers should be punished with the loss of both their eyes. When his own son became subject to this penalty, the father, in order to maintain the authority of the laws, but to show parental leniency, shared the penalty with his son by ordering one of his own eyes to be thrust out along with one of his offending son. In this way, the majesty of his government was maintained, and his own character as a just and righteous sovereign was magnified in the eyes of his subjects.