29 March 2013 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA
Text: John 18:1-19:42 (Isa 52:13-53:12, 2 Cor 5:14-21)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
“His appearance was so marred
beyond human semblance.” “His form
beyond that of the children of mankind.”
“No form or majesty.” “No
beauty.” “Despised and rejected.” “Man of sorrows.” “Acquainted with grief.” “Men hide their faces.” “Despised.”
“We esteemed Him not.”
“Stricken, smitten by God,
and afflicted.” “Pierced.” “Crushed.”
“Chastisement.” “Wounds.” “Iniquity.”
“Oppressed… afflicted…
slaughter.”
“Oppression and judgment… He
was taken away… Cut off from the land of the living.”
“Stricken.” “Grave.”
“Death.”
“Yet it was the will of the
Lord to crush Him.” “Grief… offering…
anguish.” “Poured out His soul to death…
numbered with the transgressors… bore the sin of many.”
These are hardly the
word-pictures of one who has triumphed, of a hero, a rescuer, the King of kings
and Lord of lords. This is the last
thing one would expect of God in the flesh, the conquering general who has
crushed the head of the source of all evil forever. Instead, these are disturbing images of
torture that one might expect in a dungeon, the fate of a horrific criminal
suffering under the oppression of sadistic criminals in a horrific and
oppressive justice system.
Dear friends, that is what
Good Friday is all about. The prophet
Isaiah paints a picture that is disturbing and repulsive, right out of our
worst nightmares, something that could only have been dreamed up by the most
deranged and evil people who ever lived.
For that is what we are. We are those who delivered the blows upon the
innocent Jesus, by our sins in thought, word, and deed; by our sins and
iniquities by which we have offended God.
We surely deserve punishment both temporal and eternal. And that punishment is laid out for us in
shocking graphic imagery by the holy prophet, “the holy, innocent, bitter
sufferings and death” of the Lord’s beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
It is enough to make us hate
ourselves and the sin-laden world we inhabit with billions of others just as
deranged, disturbed, demented, and death-destined. It is enough to make us lose hope.
But dear friends, hope is
exactly why this terrifying prophecy was fulfilled in Christ. All of the punishment we deserve was diverted
to Jesus, to the suffering Servant, to the Lamb of God pure and holy, to the
Atonement, the Sacrifice, the Scapegoat, to Him whose love controls us. The cruel passion and scandalous death of our
Lord Jesus Christ is not a random act of meaningless violence, but rather the
supreme act of love by the Supreme God who is Love in the very flesh, a flesh
that was “pierced for our transgressions,” and “crushed for our iniquities.” For “all this is from God, who through Christ
reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is,
Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespass
against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
Reconciliation.
The ancient enmity between
God and man has been ended by God who is
a Man, a Man who is God. The punishment
demanded by divine justice was absorbed and fulfilled by divine mercy. The blood that had to be shed to pay the
penalty was paid by our Lamb, for “He died for all.”
The Lord Jesus endured a
heart-wrenching betrayal to save us. He
allowed Himself to be taken into custody – even though the mention of our Lord saying
“I am” hurled His captors to the ground by the sheer power of His Word, and by
the divine revelation of who he is. He
endured this to rescue us.
He allowed Himself to be
bound and marched to kangaroo religious trials even as the wicked so-called
high priest Caiaphas was to prophetically declare that Jesus is that “one man”
who “should die for the people.” He suffered
exactly that for us.
Our Lord was denied, struck,
tried in a civil case under the mighty and cruel Roman Empire. He was again betrayed, this time by a
mealy-mouthed politician. He was passed
over and sacrificed by the people for the sake of releasing a terrorist whose
name ironically means “son of the father.”
He was flogged. He was
mocked. He was crowned with thorns. He was exposed for ridicule in His
suffering. And He did all of this so
that we, who deserve the treatment He received, might be reconciled to God.
He was condemned. He carried His own cross. He was crucified. And though He was, is, and ever shall be, our
true King, He was treated as an impostor by the real impostors. Even His only remaining possessions, His
clothes, were stolen and made the object of a dice game. He was reduced to poverty in order that we
might be rich. He suffered anguish so
that we might be spared. He permitted
Himself to taste the bitterness of death so that we might savor the sweetness
of life.
“It is finished,” He
proclaimed, fulfilling the demands of God’s perfect law. And even in death, He was still saving us by
freely lavishing upon the world His atoning blood and saving water as He was
indeed “pierced for our transgressions.”
And in a final act of
humiliation in which was mankind’s redemption, the Lord Jesus was put into a
borrowed tomb, where His lifeless corpse awaited a visit from the Marys, to be
given one last act of kindness in the form of treating the body, an act that
turned out differently than they expected.
For even though the
universe-shattering events of these few days in April nearly two millennia ago
were prophesied by Isaiah seven centuries prior, it is still shocking and
surprising to us, still appalling to our ears, and yet music to our desperate
and dying souls.
No, dear brothers and sisters
in Christ, this is no random act of violence, but rather a carefully planned
act of love, a heroic rescue, a redemption beyond that which any mere human
author or tale-teller can come up with.
For “behold My Servant shall
act wisely… high and lifted up… exalted.” “So shall He sprinkle many nations; kings
shall shut their mouths because of Him.
“The will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” “He shall see and be satisfied.” “Many to be accounted righteous.” “He… makes intercession for the
transgressors.”
This is the imagery of
victory, of healing, of reconciliation, of the destruction of death. These are word-pictures of love, of mercy,
and of everlasting life.
“For the love of Christ
controls us.” “If anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation. The old has passed
away; behold the new has come. All this
is from God.”
“Therefore,” we preachers
repeat to the beloved people of God, people redeemed by Christ Jesus, in the
very words of St. Paul, “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal
through us. We implore you on behalf of
Christ…” “We implore you on behalf of
Christ, be reconciled to God. For our
sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the
righteousness of God.”
We implore you, dear friends,
on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
For we know what is coming. We
forgiven sinners loved by God know the great surprise that awaited the Marys. And with our fellow redeemed around the
globe, we wait in joyful hope and expectation to see what they saw.
“It is finished.” Amen.
In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment