Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday of Lent 5, 2024

19 Mar 2024

Text: Mark 14:53-72

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Jesus has been brought to an illegal nighttime hearing before the “high priest,” the “chief priests and the elders and the scribes” – and others on the Council.  Their plan to suborn perjurers who would give false testimony “against Jesus to put Him to death” is falling apart.  Their own stories don’t match.  The best they can do is hearsay evidence about our Lord’s prophecy that the temple would be destroyed, trying to distort that into a terroristic threat.  “Yet even about this, their testimony did not agree.”

The high priest and his associates have bungled the plan.  At this point, they must have been worried that they would have to let Jesus go free, and then there would be a backlash from His supporters.  And who knows how the Romans might respond!  If our Lord wanted to be found not guilty, it would have been an easy thing for Him.  But that is not the plan.  For Jesus has not come to save Himself from injustice, but to save us from justice.  He is not making a case for His own judicial innocence, but for ours.  The high priest questions Jesus, and at first, He “remained silent and made no answer.”  And here, the high priest must have been almost panic-stricken.  For they had no case.

But the question was never really about terroristic threats.  They all want to know if Jesus claims to be the Messiah.  For this is what really worries them.  Jesus works miracles.  Jesus forgives sins.  Jesus does things that only God can do.  And so the high priest interrogates Jesus again, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”  And here is where Jesus testifies, telling them the truth that they both want to hear, and do not want to hear: “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

Not only does He testify that He is the Messiah, the Son of Man, but also the Son of God.  He is “I am,” the divine name that the high priest himself is forbidden to speak. 

And this, dear friends, is why the world hates Jesus.  He is God incarnate.  He is fully human and yet fully God.  He is the God who created the world, who has come to save the world, and yet He is condemned by the world.  He has come to rescue mankind from death, and mankind is putting Him to death.  He is the true High Priest of all nations, who has come not to condemn – and yet the high priest of His own nation has ordered Him to be condemned.

They mockingly bid Him to “Prophesy.” 

And Jesus, the great I AM in the flesh, the one whom all the world will see “seated at the right hand of Power” has indeed come to prophesy, to speak forth God’s Word.  For He is God’s Word by whom creation was made, now appearing within that creation – being judged and condemned by that creation.  Jesus has already prophesied concerning the temple – which will be destroyed in forty years.  He has already prophesied that Peter would deny Him.  But Jesus has come to prophesy forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who believe in Him, that His blood atones for the world, and not even death could hold Him: for He has conquered death. 

Jesus speaks the prophetic good news of God to all creation, because He is the Word of God: the Creator. 

Amen.

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