Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday of Lent 5 – 2020

31 March 2020

Text: Mark 14:53-72

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Our Lord’s passion is underway.  He has been arrested and brought to the high priest – where the “chief priests and the elders and the scribes” are in on the conspiracy.  Our Lord’s followers are gone – except for Peter, who perhaps motivated by morbid curiosity, lurks about.  

The court proceedings look like a comedy sketch.  The false witnesses that they had lined up aren’t working out: “their testimony did not agree.” 

Everybody there knew that Jesus was innocent.  And if He is innocent, then He is the Messiah.  And if He is the Messiah, they are not in a position of supremacy.  And what’s more, their Messiah does things that only God can do.  None of His accusers believe that He is an illusionist or a magician.  In fact, our Lord’s arrest warrant as recorded in the Talmud accuses Him of “sorcery,” that is, they admit His supernatural works, but they attribute them to Satan – as if the devil is in the business of making the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk; as if Satan cured lepers and forgave contrite sinners.  They know the truth, but they conspire against it.

What they don’t realize is that God is using them, playing them like violins to carry out His will of redeeming mankind by the sacrifice of the One True Lamb at the cross.

And to show that He is in charge, and not their kangaroo court, our Lord Himself gives them the evidence that their bungling buffoons on the witness stand cannot provide.  In answer to the question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed,” Jesus replies, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

“I am,” says God in the flesh!  He is the Great I AM; He is God in human form; He is the eternal Son of the eternal Father.  And had these men been faithful sons of Israel and true followers of the eternal God, they would have prostrated themselves before their Messiah.  But they are the spawn of Satan, and they begin to torture and mock Him, in line with their lost, unrepentant souls.

St. Peter denies Him – not in malice, but in weakness.  For when the roster crows, Peter weeps.  Peter and all of the apostles will repent, will be restored, will be forgiven, and will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim Christ to the world with courage and power.  And those who took part in the diabolical conspiracy, in the worlds of the hymn, “deeply wailing, shall their true Messiah see.”  But as for Peter and the apostles, and His disciples of every age, our confession of the Man of Sorrows upon His return will be this: “Thou shalt reign, and Thou alone!”  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.