Sermon: Judica (Lent 5) - 2021

21 March 2021

Text: John 8:42-59

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

We Christians are often told that we should be more like Jesus.  This is, of course, true.  But when people say this, they usually think that Jesus condones sin and is just nice to everyone.  They have clearly never read even one of the Gospels.

Yes, we should be more like Jesus.  We are called to take up our cross and follow Him.  We should strive to be without sin – even though we are.  We should struggle to love others perfectly – even though we cannot.  But there is one thing that we cannot be, and that is the salvation of the world.  As the author of Hebrews says: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come… He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.”

That, dear friends, we cannot do.  We can only take up our own crosses.  We cannot save the world.  For only Jesus is our substitutionary sacrifice: the Ram caught in a crown of thorns who took the place of Isaac, and the burnt offering who willingly climbed up the hill with the wood on His own back.

And yet after all that our Lord has done for the world, He and His followers are reviled and hated.  Jesus compels no-one.  He does not force anyone to repent.  He does not make anybody listen to Him.  And this is true of the Church.  The exit door is open and unlocked.  Anyone who does not want to hear this sermon can leave.  Anyone who does not believe in Jesus as the redemption of the world is free to abstain from His body and blood.  Anyone who repudiates the faith is perfectly able to renounce his baptism and walk with us no more.

Unlike Muslim countries, there is no death penalty to those who change their minds.  Unlike an army at war, there is no firing squad for deserters.  Unlike Communist China, there are no concentration camps or bullets to the back of the head for dissenters.

And yet, in spite of the entirely voluntary nature of following Jesus, people become enraged – especially when we confess our faith or clarify what it is that we believe.  Simply saying what we believe within earshot of others may incur the wrath of the mob, the loss of a job or status as a student, ostracism from friends, or even criminal charges, as has happened in that repressive and regressive country that is becoming increasingly tyrannical: Canada.  Our own country is poised to pass a law known as the Equality Act that may well criminalize our faith.  It is sufficiently vague as to cause grave concern to many legal experts.

And all of this because we believe that Jesus is God, and we yield to the Bible as the only infallible source of truth.  In some places, simply saying there is objective truth at all is enough to incite violence.

And so it should hardly be shocking to hear the account in our Gospel of the assassination attempt on Jesus.  Our Lord held no political position, had no worldly authority, and coerced no-one.  Anybody and everybody was free to ignore Him, walk away from Him, and live as if He never existed.  But they wouldn’t.  Rather, “they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.”

In the words of the hymnist: “What makes this rage and spite?  He made the lame to run, He gave the blind their sight?”  What fuels their rage, dear friends, is not what he does, but who He is.  And this revelation is what triggered His would-be assassins in the temple: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” 

I am.

This is the name of God.  And Jesus uses it to make it very clear that He is not only older than Abraham, He created Abraham.  In fact, it was Jesus who provided the sacrificial ram for Abraham as a substitute for Abraham’s son Isaac.  It was also Jesus who wrestled with Isaac’s son Jacob and renamed him “Israel” – the one who wrestled with God.  It was Jesus who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, saying, “I am who I am.”  It is Jesus who is the Word, who was in the beginning with God and who was God.  It is Jesus who said, “Let there be light” – and the universe came into being.  And it is Jesus who redeems us by calling us out of our lives of darkness and sin into His marvelous light.  It is Jesus who said, “It is finished.”

The darkness hates the light.  Evil hates the good.  Satan loathes the Christ who destroyed him at the cross.  And the people, under the sway of the devil hate Jesus with an irrational rage.

This is why the crowds then hated Jesus, this is why the mobs today hate Jesus, and this is why you will be hated if you indeed confess Jesus (and if you are not hated, you’re doing it wrong):

“Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.’”

Our Lord spoke the truth – in season and out of season.  Both preachers and hearers of the Word are called to speak the truth “to men who like it or not like it not.”  We offer the world a more excellent way – not because we are excellent, but because we are not.  And since we are no better than the angry mobs who hate Jesus, and since His blood atones for us and we have salvation, we “receive the promised eternal inheritance.”  We do not speak in order to win an argument or to be found to be right.  Rather we confess this truth out of love for those who are dying without the vaccine, and that vaccine is the Medicine of Immortality that Jesus offers in His blood. 

But receiving the Medicine requires admitting that one is in need of it.  It requires humility to face this condemnation of the Law and to cry out to Jesus for help.  If you have ever wondered why our Divine Service has this prayer near the beginning: “Lord, have mercy,  Christ, have mercy,  Lord, have mercy,” that is the reason why.

Those who are under the sway of the prideful devil will not humble themselves.  Dear friends, this is why at our baptisms we vow to renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways.  And this is why the rage, the spite, the hatred, and even the legal persecution of Christians – who have no worldly power to make anyone listen to us.  And it is our cross to bear the world’s hatred as we follow our Lord. 

Yes, we should strive to be more like Jesus: renouncing the devil and being willing to confess the truth even in the face of mobs who hate us.  For it is love and the truth that conquers hatred and the lie.

Let us indeed be more like Jesus, willing to suffer for the sake of those who wish us harm.  Let us be more like Jesus in pointing people to the great “I am” who “entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” for us and for those who will listen.

Amen.

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