So if you look at all of the cultures around the world, both past and present, and you
look at their mythologies and their fairy tales, the children's stories, you'll see
a number of things that are different, but you'll see a few things that most cultures
around the world have in common when it comes to these kinds of stories.
And one of those common aspects that you see in virtually every society is the concept
of a curse.
It seems that societies, both past and present, all around the world, all have some kind
of understanding of a curse.
If you look at the Greek and Roman cultures, curses are very prevalent.
If you anger the gods and goddesses, you're liable to wind up being cursed.
It's also very common in Celtic cultures.
It's also common in cultures that practice voodoo, the idea of a voodoo curse.
The Mediterranean people have the concept of the evil eye, and you have to protect yourself.
And many people will wear jewels, specific kinds of necklaces and jewelry that's meant
to ward off the evil eye.
If you look in German cultures, traditional German culture has the concept of the hex.
And even Indian culture has the concept of the shrop.
But whatever we call it, whatever name it goes by, most cultures have a concept of a curse
embedded in their fairy tales and in their mythology.
And if you look at these stories, they all kind of involve a similar thing.
You have somebody who was going along, living their life, then they crossed a line or transgressed
or did something wrong.
They broke the rules or angered somebody who was more powerful than they were.
And so they wound up being cursed.
So if you look, for instance, at the Greek myth of Sisyphus, this is fairly well known,
Sisyphus was cursed to spend all of eternity rolling a boulder up a mountain.
But every time he gets near the top, the boulder rolls back down to the bottom and he has to
start all over again.
Many of us know this story.
If you look at the old French fairy tale that we call Beauty and the Beast, what's that
about?
That's about a man who is cursed.
And because of the curse, he no longer looks like a man.
He looks like a terrifying animal, a beast, a monster.
And the only way that he can ever be free from this curse is if he gets true love's kiss.
Right?
There's another old French fairy tale that we call Sleeping Beauty about a woman who pricks
her finger on a poison spinning wheel and ends up falling into an enchanted slumber.
And she'll sleep for a hundred years unless someone with royal blood,
comes and wakes her up.
Has to be royal blood.
Right?
There's even in Hindu culture the story of Lord Vishnu.
Lord Vishnu is very powerful, but even Lord Vishnu falls under a curse.
Vishnu's curse is interesting.
His curse is to be forced to become incarnate in the world and to have to live as a human
being and experience all of the suffering that human beings experience in their lives here
on earth.
And so you have this concept of a curse that's very widespread.
So here's the question I want to ask.
Are these stories just for entertainment value or getting our kids to fall asleep at night?
Or are they reflecting something deeper about the human condition?
Are all of these stories human and cultural ways of trying to make sense of life and what
it means to live in this world as human beings?
I mean, how many people identify with Sisyphus?
Right?
You work and you strive and you do the best you can.
And no matter how hard you work, the work is never done.
There's always more to do.
And even the work that you do do, most of it never lasts.
Even the best buildings, the best construction fades over time.
Right?
Or you work really hard, but your boss doesn't even seem to notice.
Right?
Or you excel far beyond your peers and yet you never get promoted.
The sense of futility, I think, is present in most everybody's job.
Right?
Or if you look at Beauty and the Beast, are there people here who would identify with the
beast?
Right?
There's the person that I know I am, that I should be, that I want to be, the kind of
dad that I want to be.
You know, the kind of husband I want to be, the kind of Christian that I want to be, the
kind of pastor I want to be.
And all too often I feel like what actually comes out is not that person.
It's a beast.
It's a monster.
You know, words will leave your mouth and you'll think, how in the world did that come
out of me?
I'm not like that.
And yet all too often you feel that if somebody really saw the truth about you, they would
say, man, that's a monster.
They'd run away in fear.
Right?
Do some of us feel like Sleeping Beauty?
Feel like inside, spiritually, I'm numb.
I'm, I'm lifeless.
I'm dead.
Even the curse that befalls Lord Vishnu, there, you know, you look at the suffering in the
world today.
You go online and look at all of the atrocious things that are happening around the world.
It's easy to begin to think that maybe life itself is a curse.
Right?
So today what we're going to do is we're going to look at the concept of the curse and we're
going to look at what Scripture has to say about it because this is a very prevalent
theme in the Bible.
And we're going to look at this wonderful passage, Galatians chapter 3, verses 6 to 14.
And we're going to look at this story in three parts because all good stories, right, have
three parts, right?
Three acts.
First, we're going to look at the curse.
Then we're going to look at our redemption.
How does redemption come from the curse?
And then finally the blessing that follows that redemption.
So curse, redemption, blessing.
Let's pray.
Our Father, we just sang and then we prayed a moment ago about your Word.
We prayed that your Word, which is precious, that comes to us from your mouth, that's meant
for our good and your glory.
We prayed that that would be something that we are able to read, mark, learn, and inwardly
digest.
And so I pray that by the power of your Spirit you would enable us to do just that, Lord,
that you would do your work in us through your Word.
In your Son's name, amen.
So first we're going to look at the curse.
Let me give you a little context of what's going on here in Galatians.
There's a major controversy that Paul is addressing in Galatia, and we may word it like this.
Big disagreement.
Who is entitled to God's blessing and who is still under God's curse?
Who can expect blessing from God and who is still under the curse?
And there were a number of Jews in Galatia who had converted to Christianity, and yet
they believed that they were entitled to God's blessing not because of Jesus, but because
of their Jewish identity.
They had been born Jews.
They had been circumcised, if they were male, like any faithful Jew.
They had kept the ceremonial law to stay clean, and they had observed these things.
They had kept themselves separate from the Gentiles, and so they could reasonably assume, according
to Jewish teaching, that they were among the blessed, the chosen.
They were unlike the uncircumcised, those people who don't have the law, those people who are
unclean, the Gentile outsiders.
Those people are very obviously still under the curse.
So this is what was going on.
And Paul's very upset about this.
And you know, some of you have asked, why in this series on Galatians have we talked
so much about racism over the last several weeks?
And the reason is this.
What we see happening is a form of religiously justified racism.
Right?
Why should I care about people whom God has cursed?
Why should I spend five minutes thinking about such people?
If God's cursed them, they're not worth my time, nor should I even associate with them.
Certainly I shouldn't eat with them or invite them into my home.
I might become tainted.
I might become cursed yet again, that the curse may be contagious.
Therefore, stay away.
So Paul's very upset about this, and so he's confronting this entire way of thinking.
And here's what Paul says.
Listen to Paul's words.
He says this in verse 10.
For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse.
So what is he saying?
Not just those people who are unclean or uncircumcised, but he says,
all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse.
For it is written, and he quotes Deuteronomy,
cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.
The implication is clear.
No one can keep everything that's written in the book of the law.
But there's something else that I want to clarify.
He uses a phrase, the works of the law.
And I just want to be clear.
This is a specific phrase with a specific connotation that Paul is fond of.
And it's almost always used in a negative sense.
So he's not talking about the law in general.
He's not saying the law is bad or evil or broken.
What he's saying is the works of the law.
And when he talks about that, he's talking about the idea that one can be saved by observing the law.
In other words, it's legalism.
So when Paul talks about the works of the law, that's a biblical phrase that means legalism.
And he says if you live that way, if that's the way you think you're going to get blessed,
if that's the way you think you're going to escape this curse that you're under,
you're deluding yourself.
Anyone who does that is still under the curse.
This would have been utterly shocking to Paul's Jewish hearers.
Because they assumed that if anybody would be blessed by God, it would be them.
Now let's talk a little bit about what the curse is.
You know, we talked about some fairy tales, but Scripture actually also uses this language of curse.
Scripture says, and if you look at the Bible, even though there's lots of different books
and lots of different genres, the Bible tells actually one great complete whole story.
And if you go back to the beginning of that story,
it tells us that God actually created the world as a good and beautiful and perfect place.
And yet it was incomplete.
It was a world that by design required human agency.
It was a world that was designed to need us,
to care for it, to cultivate it, to bring it to its fullest potential.
And then he created human beings to do that kind of work.
But then the Bible says that human beings rejected that vocation.
We rejected our place in God's creation.
We said we would rather be God than serve God.
And because of that act of rebellion, that act of sin, we fell.
And at that point, the world came under a curse.
That's when the curse set in.
So all of the world is under that curse.
So what does it mean to live under the curse?
What's life like?
How do you know you're cursed?
Well, think about the fairy tales that we talked about a moment ago.
Right?
Living under the curse means we face futility in our work.
Genesis 3 talks about the thorns and the thistles.
Think about your job.
Think about all of the times you feel like you're slamming up against a brick wall,
either with something that you're trying to get done
or with people that you're trying to deal with,
with a deal that you're trying to broker.
You feel like again and again and again, you're slamming up against a brick wall.
That's life under the curse.
Right?
Life under the curse means that there is always a disconnect
between the person that we wish we could be
and the beast that we often become under the right circumstances,
or shall I say the wrong circumstances.
You know, the nicest person,
the most agreeable person under the right circumstances can become a monster.
There's a disconnect.
Right?
Especially if you're, you know, I've talked about this already,
but if you haven't felt it before,
when you become a parent,
you really feel it.
You really, you have all these ideals of the kind of mom or dad you want to be.
And almost every day,
you're painfully aware of how short you fall of those standards.
Right?
Living under the curse means being sleeping beauty.
It means being spiritually asleep.
And actually, the Bible says we're spiritually dead.
We're cold and we're frozen inside.
We need to be thawed out.
Life under the curse means that much of life is suffering.
The unbearable burden of being in this world is overwhelming sometimes.
Right?
Life under the curse means there are wildfires tearing California apart,
destroying homes, killing people.
You know, life under the curse means that Jewish worshippers
sitting in their own synagogue get shot.
Right?
Life under the curse means again and again and again,
we pick up the paper and we read about,
we don't really pick up the paper anymore,
but we read about atrocious things happening around the world.
We read about a study that tells us our environment
is on the brink of irreversible collapse
because of human exploitation and inaction.
This is life under the curse.
But the worst thing about the curse,
the worst ramification of this state
is the fact that the word curse in the Bible
is ultimately a covenant word.
And it's used to describe what happens to people
who don't keep the covenant that God makes with humanity.
And ultimately,
what God says to people who want to have nothing to do with Him,
people who go their own way,
who reject God,
who say,
I don't even believe in you.
I don't want anybody telling me how to live my life.
God ultimately says,
what?
Have it your way.
Spend eternity
completely and utterly cut off from me.
The Bible uses the phrase,
the outer darkness.
That's the end of the curse.
That's the ultimate destiny
for those who are under the curse.
And it's a horrible fate.
So some people, like the Jews,
believe this great and pernicious lie
that says,
even though I'm cursed,
I can reverse the curse myself.
Right?
I can escape this curse.
I can gain blessing
by keeping the ceremonial law,
by making sure I'm circumcised,
by making sure I'm clean.
Right?
But even the most irreligious person,
and, you know,
I think D.C.
is the kind of city
that attracts people like this,
like moths to a flame.
Even the most irreligious people out there,
when we look at all that's wrong with the world,
all the injustice,
all the racism,
all the poverty,
the economic inequalities,
all of these things,
there are many, many, many people in this city
who believe that with enough willpower,
with enough ingenuity,
with enough education and awareness,
with enough legislation,
and the right people in power,
we can fix this world once and for all.
Many people are driven by this utopian dream
of what could be,
if only.
And the harsh reality that we have to accept is,
that utopian dream is never going to be realized.
It's never going to come.
Thousands and thousands of years,
and we love to talk about all the progress that we've made,
but all of the core issues in the world are still there.
They're still there.
You know,
I was blessed to be,
earlier this week,
able to be,
Dan and Kevin and I,
went to listen to a series of lectures
given over a couple of days by N.T. Wright,
who's a, you know,
great Bible scholar,
scholar of history,
and somebody that,
that I've read a lot of.
And anyway,
his talks are always very eloquent,
very inspiring.
But one of the talks in particular,
I thought was very relevant to,
to the things I've been thinking about,
because he said,
that in many cultures and societies around the world,
we all share these common ideals.
Things like justice,
truth,
beauty,
the priority of relationships,
even spirituality.
These are things that you find,
in virtually every culture and society,
some concept of these things.
And yet he said,
in every case,
you're looking at a paradox.
Because in every case,
you have something like justice,
that we value.
Virtually every society says,
we have to have justice.
And yet here's the paradox,
we value it,
and yet no matter how hard we try,
and how long we try,
we can never fully attain it.
Right?
Why would we value something,
that we can't attain?
You know,
you look at something like justice,
and you say,
well,
you know,
we've done a lot in the realm of justice,
and maybe we have.
See,
everybody says,
you know,
yes,
that person needs to be brought to justice.
That wrong needs to be punished.
That inequality needs to be rectified.
Anybody in this room would say that.
But how quickly,
how quickly will we shrug off justice,
if it's going to be applied to us?
You know,
what's the first thing you do when you're in trouble?
You go hire a lawyer.
And all of a sudden,
it's not about justice anymore,
it's about how good your lawyer is at getting you off.
Right?
And you look at our criminal justice system.
I think lots of people on both sides of the political aisle,
would agree that our criminal justice system,
is more often than not,
criminally unjust.
Right?
How many people are just wasting away in prison
because of harsh minimum sentencing laws,
and some minor infraction has them spending years of their life?
Right?
These are things that many people agree,
this is not justice.
While people with much greater crimes go free,
this is not justice.
Right?
It's a broken system.
It's a proximate form of justice at best,
but this is the paradox again and again.
Now,
why would we value something like justice or power or truth
and yet never be able to attain it?
That's life under the curse.
That's the stone being pushed up the mountain
that again and again and again rolls down to the bottom.
Right?
So this is life under the curse,
and we cannot save ourselves.
So where does redemption come from?
Where does hope come from?
You may be familiar,
I think most of you are,
with C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia,
and one of the books is the book called
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
And in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,
like any children's fairy tale,
any good fairy tale,
there is a curse.
In fact, the entire land of Narnia is under a curse.
And because of that curse,
everything is cold,
everything is dark,
everything is frozen.
It's always winter,
but it's never Christmas.
Christmas never comes.
And it's under a curse,
and it's held in bondage
to the villain
who's the evil white witch.
And she has set herself up
as the pretender to the throne,
the false ruler of Narnia.
And so one of the characters, Edmund,
falls under the spell of the white witch.
You know, he gives in to his pride
and his self-pity
and his grandiosity.
And as a result,
he betrays his brother and sisters.
And because of this act of betrayal,
the white witch says,
there is a deep magic in Narnia,
a deep law that has been written
into the stones themselves.
And this deep magic says
that anyone who commits
such an act of treachery
belongs to me.
I get their blood.
He's forfeited his life.
She has a hold on him.
And there's seemingly no way out.
And then Aslan, the lion,
the god figure in this story,
the true ruler of Narnia,
he comes,
and he alone knows
that below and behind
the deep magic
is a deeper magic.
And he says,
the witch can only see back
to the beginning of time,
but if she were able to see
before time,
before creation,
she would know
that before the foundations
of the earth were laid,
there was a deeper magic
written into the fabric
of reality itself.
And this deeper magic
says this.
The deeper magic says
that when a willing victim
who has committed no treachery
is killed in the traitor's stead,
the curse will be broken.
And even death itself
will start to work backwards.
And so, as many of you know,
Aslan sacrifices himself
on the stone table.
And he breaks the curse.
And he rescues Edmund.
And death begins to work backward
and he comes back to life.
And then he is able
to liberate Narnia
from the curse
that has held it enslaved
for so long.
It's a great story.
And what I want you to understand,
the reason I'm telling you this story
is because Paul is saying
something very similar here
to the Jews.
You know, the law
is like the deep magic.
And the Jews point back
to Moses and they say,
God gave Moses the law
and we live under the law.
That's how to be blessed.
That's how to save ourselves
and escape the curse.
And Paul says,
no, no, no, no.
There's a deeper magic.
Don't you see?
And he points them
all the way back to Abraham.
And I think further still,
all the way back to before
the heavens and the earth
were even created.
And he says,
there's a deeper magic.
It's the gospel.
It's the gospel of grace.
And he says,
how do you think
that your forefather,
Abraham,
how do you think
that he gained
the blessing of God?
Was it through the law?
No, the law had not
even been given.
Then what happened?
Abraham believed God
and it was credited to him
as righteousness.
It was an act of faith.
Paul says,
this is the deepest magic of all.
It's the gospel.
It's the gospel of grace
that comes through faith.
And here's the gospel.
Verse 13,
Christ redeemed us
from the curse of the law
by becoming a curse for us.
For it is written,
curse it is everyone
who is hanged on a tree.
Paul says,
don't you get it?
You're dealing with the God
whose eternal nature
is to have mercy.
His plan all along
was to send his son
to become a curse.
Now notice what it doesn't say.
It doesn't say that Jesus
paid the penalty for our sin.
It doesn't say that he
paid what was due.
He paid the debt.
It doesn't say that he
experienced part of the curse,
the part that he would have experienced
if he were one of us.
It says he became the curse.
Now honestly,
most commentators
don't really get into
what that means
because it's
very strong language.
He didn't just pay the penalty
for the curse.
He became the curse.
Now what does that mean?
He says something
similarly mysterious
in 2 Corinthians 5.21.
God made the one
who did not know sin
to be sin for us.
Here's the best I can do
to help you understand
what this means.
Every single thing
that we have ever done
against God,
every time we've yelled
at our kids,
every time we've wished
somebody was dead,
every time we fantasize
about committing adultery
with somebody,
every time we've done
anything like that,
every time every evil
was ever committed,
every time a gun
was ever fired
that ended a life,
every time a crime
was ever committed
or an act of racism
or injustice
was perpetrated
on another human being,
every time any sin
was ever committed,
God treated Jesus
as though he were
personally responsible
for each and every act
of sin
that has ever been committed.
The full weight,
the full crushing weight
of that curse,
that global curse,
slammed down on Jesus
on the cross.
And remember what we said
a little while ago
about the ultimate end
of those who are cursed.
You know,
when does Jesus cry out?
He doesn't cry out
when the nails go
into his hands.
Jesus cries out
when in his heart
he feels that break
for the first time
and he realizes
that he's been cut off.
He's been alienated.
And he experiences
the full pain
of eternal alienation.
Jesus is cast
into the outer darkness
and he cries out
in pain and agony
and fear and dread.
But then as Jesus died
and then as death
began to work backwards
and then as Jesus
rose from death
we see the same thing
that the curse
was broken,
the curse was lifted
and those who had no hope
began to gain hope.
Right?
What happens in all
of the great myths
and fairy tales?
People can't save themselves.
They need something
or someone
of immense power
to save them
from the curse.
And so they need
either an act
of divine intervention
or they need
true love's kiss
or they need somebody
of royal blood.
And don't you see?
Right?
None of these stories
are true in themselves
but they all point
to the one great story,
the deeper story
that is true.
Right?
Jesus is God
intervening
in history.
Jesus is true love's kiss.
Jesus is one
with royal blood
but not just the prince.
He's the king.
Right?
And unlike Vishnu
who is cursed
to become a human being,
Jesus joyfully
took on human flesh.
Not because he was cursed
but in order
to end the curse.
This is the story
under all of the stories.
The one true story
from which all
of the great stories
around the world
derive themselves.
So those who put
their faith
in Jesus Christ
rather than their own
self-salvation projects
are set free
from the curse
and this is Paul's
great point.
But then Paul goes on
and says something
even more amazing.
It doesn't just
stop there.
Such people aren't
just set free
to go on their merry way.
They're set free
and then they are blessed.
Because remember
what we said
at the very beginning.
God created the world
to need human vocation,
to need human beings
to work and to serve
in the world, right?
And so the entire purpose
of salvation
is to restore to us
that vocation.
And so then God
has to bless us
and empower us
to take up that mantle again.
And so what does he do?
He sends the Holy Spirit.
God's blessing, right?
Verse 14.
So that in Christ Jesus
the blessing of Abraham
might come to the Gentiles
so that we might receive
the promised spirit
through faith.
Thousands of years earlier
God had come to Abram
and said I'm going to build
of you a great nation
and from your offspring,
through your offspring
I will bless all of the nations.
We've seen that blessing
come to pass
through Jesus
and the pouring out
of God's spirit
on his people.
And the Bible says
that the resurrection
of Jesus
and the pouring out
of the Holy Spirit
are the first signs
we have
that the curse
has lost its power
and that it's fading.
that one day night
is going to give way
to dawn.
One day winter
will give way
to spring.
In Narnia
once Aslan comes
everything begins
to change.
And my favorite scene
in the book
is this point
where the White Witch
and her dwarven thrall
and Edmund
who's still
by her side
and utterly hopeless
by this point
they're racing
in the sled
that she travels in
because it's been
snow and ice
for as long
as anyone can remember.
So they're racing
along the sled
and all of a sudden
the sled begins
to slow down
because it's getting slushy.
And here's what it says.
Every moment
the patches of green
grew bigger
and the patches of snow
grew smaller.
Every moment
more and more
of the trees
shook off their robes
of snow.
Soon wherever you looked
instead of white shapes
you saw the dark green
of firs
or the black prickly branches
of bare oaks
and beaches
and elms.
Then the mist
turned from white
to gold
and presently cleared
away altogether.
Shafts of delicious sunlight
struck down
on the forest floor
and overhead
you could see a blue sky
between the treetops.
Faster, faster
said the witch.
There was no trace
of fog now.
The sky became
bluer and bluer
and now there were
white clouds
hurrying across it
from time to time.
In the wide glades
there were primroses.
A light breeze
sprang up
which scattered
drops of moisture
from the swaying branches
and carried cool
delicious scents
against the faces
of the travelers.
The trees began
to come fully alive.
The larches
and birches
were covered with green.
The laburnums
with gold.
Soon the beech trees
had put forth
their delicate
transparent leaves.
As the travelers
walked under them
the light
also became green.
A bee buzzed
as it crossed
their path.
This is no thaw
said the dwarf
suddenly stopping.
This is spring.
What are we to do?
Your winter
has been destroyed
I tell you.
This is Aslan's doing.
When God's people
in faith
and the power
of the Holy Spirit
act in God's name
and do the good work
of justice
and mercy
in this world
these are signs
that the winter
has ended
that the curse
has been lifted
and that spring
is on its way.
when we take
in foster children
through DC 127
who need homes
that's when you see
the ice beginning
to break apart.
You know
when we humble
ourselves
and ask forgiveness
when we do
the hard work
of trying to understand
and even love
our enemies
when we
are willing
to forgive
seemingly unforgivable
hurt and pain
the sun
is starting
to shine
through the trees
when we invite
strangers
into our home
so that they
might become
friends
and even
family
the grass
is beginning
to push up
through the permafrost
when we do
the hard work
of racial
reconciliation
humbling
ourselves
listening
repenting
the flowers
are beginning
to bloom
when we care
for immigrants
or refugees
or young children
who need mentors
when we as the church
do all of these things
be very clear
on this point
when we do
all of these things
we're not trying
to end the curse
we are declaring
that the curse
has been ended
right
we live in a world
that feels dark
and it feels cold
and it feels frozen
most of the time
but though the world
still feels dark
and cold
it is only a matter
of time
the night will give way
to the dawn
the winter will give way
to spring
and so our job
as the church
our calling
our holy purpose
is to stand
in the darkness
and to point
to the western horizon
let's pray
the king
to the south
and the forth
where the làm
will give way
and automotive
is to перв
to the earth
and to other
beings
and one
to the earth