This sermon was preached at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, Magill, 7.30pm.
Click here for PDF version of sermon for printing.
Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Luke
22:61-62. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the
saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today,
you will deny me three time.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, bless
all of us with your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us
that we may hear well. Amen.
In our sermon tonight, we’re
going to be dealing with two things: firstly, concerning the spitting and
slaps and mockery that Jesus received after he was condemned to death, and
then secondly, concerning Peter’s denial of Jesus.
Let’s start with the first part.
We were reading last week about how Jesus was on trial before Caiaphas the high
priest and the Jewish council, called the Sanhedrin. After making all kinds of
attempts to gather together false testimonies, two witnesses come forward to
accuse Jesus: This man said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to
rebuild it in three days.” Jesus is asked about this accusation, but
remains quiet. After this, the high priest summons Jesus to testify with an
oath whether he is the Christ, the Son of God. I adjure you, he says.
It’s as if he gave him a bible, and required of him to tell the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth. And Jesus gives the answer: I AM. You
have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at
the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.
All the way through the Gospels,
we see Jesus tell all kinds of people to keep quiet about their confession of
faith. Even after Peter says that he is the Christ, the Son of the living
God, Jesus strictly charged the disciples to tell no one. But all of
this was so that Jesus himself would testify to these things before the high
priests himself, and let himself be condemned to death precisely for this
reason. Jesus tells the truth about himself, and he is rejected, and condemned
to death. We read in the beginning of the Gospel of John: He came to his
own, and his own people did not receive him. Here we can see Jesus standing
before his own people, and his own people do not receive him. And so the high
priest tears his robe, and the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, give to Jesus his
death sentence for blasphemy.
And so tonight, just after all
of this, we read: Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some
slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?”
We have three things that are
mentioned here: they spit, they strike him, and some slap him.
Let’s think about each of these things separately. No one likes to be spat at:
not only is it shameful and offensive, but it’s also dirty. Spit and phlegm can
spread diseases, and such like. But we read about this in Isaiah 53: Surely
he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Or as we read in the
Gospel of Matthew, a slightly different translation of this: He took our
illnesses and bore our diseases. So here we see the people projecting their
dirty, filthy spit and phlegm into Jesus’ face.
Now, if it weren’t for sin,
there wouldn’t be any disease. That’s not to say, that if a person is sick in a
particular way, it is a result of a particular sin that they personally
committed. But disease is something that never existed before the fall. It
comes as a result of sin, and it comes about because we have a fallen, corrupt
nature, that is weak and now is not just susceptible to temptation for our
soul, but also for disease for our body.
Jesus’ body is completely free
of disease. Just as he took on our flesh and was without sin, so also he took
on our flesh without disease. But here in our reading, the people spit on
Jesus, and Jesus here bears all the disease in the world, and dies for it. But
he also takes on their sin, because when they spit on him, they do it because
they hate him. This reminds us that in the next life, we will not only be
completely free from sin, but completely free from disease and disability and
corruption. The resurrection of the body in the next life is the complete and total
healing of our bodies which we are looking forward to.
Also, there is an occasion in
Mark’s gospel where Jesus heals a man who is deaf and dumb, and Jesus touches
this man’s tongue with his own spit. This is not something dirty, but is
completely pure and perfect, like clean fresh water from a spring, because this
is the Son of God, and everything he does brings healing. Or there is another
occasion in the next chapter of Mark where there is a blind man and Jesus spits
on his eyes. Once again, it’s the same
thing: Jesus has no disease in him, no dirtiness, no filthiness, and so this is
something that cleanses the man and makes him see.
We might also think about the
Lord’s Supper, where we receive Jesus’ body and blood. When we come to the
Lord’s Supper, we remember the occasion where people spat upon this same body
which we receive here, and how Jesus died for our sin. But we also bring to
Jesus in the Lord’s Supper our physical needs. We bring him our sin and place
it in his hands, and we also bring him our diseases, and our weakness, and our
woes. So that’s why we go to people when they are in hospital and bring them
the Lord’s Supper, for their healing. This is even spelled out quite
specifically by St Paul in 1 Corinthians when he is teaching about the Lord’s
Supper. Paul speaks about the possibility where people can receive the Lord’s
Supper in an unworthy manner, which means eating and drinking, without
believing what the Lord’s Supper is (the body and blood of Christ) and
believing what it’s for (for you and for the forgiveness of sins). If we go to
the Lord’s Supper like pigs at a trough, without faith in it and in Jesus’
words about it, then St Paul says, he or she eats and drinks judgment on
himself. And he says: That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some
have died. So also, in the same way, if we receive the Lord’s Supper in a
good way, to our blessings, instead of judgment, we receive forgiveness,
instead of being weak and ill, as St Paul says, we receive it for our strength
and health. Instead of receiving it for death, we receive it for life. And
Christ distributes health and healing when and where it pleases, not to benefit
our sinful flesh, but when and where it benefits his kingdom.
So, in us is disease, in Christ
is healing. One more thing, in light of the people spitting at Christ. Think
about after Jesus rises from the dead, and he goes to his disciples and doesn’t
spit on them, but he breathes on them. Now, normally, if we breathe on someone,
it doesn’t smell good—it smells like our breakfast getting digested. But when
Christ breathes upon them, there is no death in his body, no decay, no rotting,
no corruption. Christ’s breath is like standing next to a waterfall and
breathing in the fresh air. And so, when we spit at Christ: we say: Here you
are, Jesus. Receive our spite, our malice, our anger, our angry spirits. And
when Christ then breathes on his disciples, he says: Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive anyone their sins they are forgiven. We have spat
our sin onto Christ well enough—and Christ then comes to us, we who are so
completely undeserving, and he breathes out his Holy Spirit and his
forgiveness. What a precious gift!
We also see in our reading
tonight, how the people strike Jesus and slap him. This reminds me of something
in the Old Testament. In the book of Leviticus, we read about the Day of
Atonement, where the high priest once a year enters into the Most Holy Place in
the temple (the Holy of Holies), and puts sprinkles blood on the Ark of the
Covenant. (I remember very clearly Pastor Stuart Kleinig, who was a vicar here
in the late 90s, I think, giving a very clear sermon about his on Good Friday
in this church!) Anyway, part of the ceremonies that were to take place on that
day involved a live goat, which is called the “scapegoat”. We use this term
“scapegoat” to talk about someone who takes the blame for someone else, like in
the recent drug scandals in the football and the rugby. So we read from
Leviticus 16: When he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place and the
tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. And Aaron shall
lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the
iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their
sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the
wilderness by the head of a man who is in readiness. The boat shall bear all
the iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in
the wilderness.
Now, we know full well, that
Jesus by going on his way to the cross, is carrying out a Day of Atonement.
It’s not a Day of Atonement once a year as in the Old Testament, but it’s a Day
of Atonement, once for all time. And here in our reading, Jesus is in the
presence of the high priests, and the Jewish council, and what happens: they
strike him and they slap him. It’s just as if they are laying their hands on
the scapegoat, putting all the sin of the world on this one man, and then he is
sent out of the city to die. They, of course, don’t realise what they are
doing, but Jesus does. And he bears with their cruelty and he accepts this
laying on of hands.
Of course, we also read in the
Gospels that children were brought to Jesus, and that he laid his hands on
them and what? He blessed them. When the people lay their hands on
Jesus, and strike him and slap him, they seek to curse him. But when Jesus lays
his hands on us, and reaches out and touches us, he blesses us. This is what he
does when he baptises us, he lays his hands on us and blesses us.
And so, we see in our reading,
that people spit on Jesus, strike him and slap him. It’s our sin that is laid
on Jesus here. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet
we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But then when
Jesus breathes on us, and lays his hands upon us, it is for our blessing, our
blessing, our blessing.
One more thing about this first
part: We read that Jesus is mocked. We read even in Mark’s gospel that they
blindfold him, and say: Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck
you?
These people obviously don’t
know what prophesy is. And many people today don’t know what prophesy is. In
Deuteronomy 18, we read a wonderful prophesy about Jesus, where Moses says: The
LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your
brothers—it is to him that you shall listen. But just before this, Moses is
talking about the practices of the nations that the people of Israel are going
to drive out when they enter the Promised Land. Moses says: These nations,
which you about to disposses, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as
for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.
Do you know the difference
between a fortune-teller and a prophet? One is from the devil, and the other is
from God. One the LORD your God has not allowed you to listen to, and the other
he commands you to listen to. But anyone who has ever gone through and read the
prophets in the Old Testament will know that there is much more to be found
there than simply telling the future. And when God sought to tell his people
about the future through a prophet, then this was a word that came from him for
everyone’s benefit. But the devil also imitates this, but not for our eternal
salvation, but only for this life—it’s a trick. This we call
fortune-telling—palm-reading, tarot cards, mediums, psychics, horoscopes—all of
this is forbidden by God. Now sometimes, we read in the bible about these
things, and the fortune-tellers actually speak the truth. In the Book of Acts,
there is a young girl with a spirit of divination and fortune-telling who
speaks the truth about Paul and Silas, and says: These men are servants of
the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation. She speaks the
truth, and yet Paul still says: I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to
come out of her. He casts out the demon. So, we learn here, that sometimes
fortune-telling seems to work, and says something that is true. Sometimes
people read their star signs and it rings true. But the question we Christians
need to ask ourselves is not, “does it work?”, but “what power is behind it?”
We realise that when Jesus starts preaching in the synagogues, who is it that
first recognises him, and speaks the truth about him? It’s the demons, and yet
Jesus still rejects them, and casts them out.
And so, here in our reading
tonight, Jesus is the wonderful prophet that the whole world has been waiting
for. But he is blindfolded, slapped around, and asked to prophesy like it’s a
game, as if Jesus is just another Mystic Meg, or some kind of cosmic
palm-reader. We can see here the devil’s temptations in the wilderness: If
you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. And so, the
mockers are saying, “If you are really the Son of God, we can slap you, and you
should be able to tell us who it was.”
Yes, he can. He knows every hair
on every persons head, and not one sparrow falls to the ground without his
knowledge. And yet, he will not play their games, and he will play ours either.
And when all the world’s fun is over, the day of judgment will come, and then
the games will cease. And Jesus will say: Now, I’ll tell you who slapped me.
You all did. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But we also
know that Christ died for only one kind of person in the world: sinners like
you and me. And he has a wonderful inheritance prepared for us, many rooms in
his father’s house, and he prophesies these things to us ahead of time, so that
we can listen to him and believe him and trust him.
And so, in the second part of
our reading, we read about Peter, where he denies Jesus three times. We read in
John’s Gospel, that Peter was allowed into the high priest’s house by John
himself. Peter had been given special access—he had friends in high places.
Peter was also curious and wanted to know how things would pan out. And through
this curiosity, Jesus actually uses him, because Jesus wants to send the
apostles out into the world as witnesses to his life and his suffering and
death. So Peter is given a special opportunity to witness Jesus’ trial here.
To most people who would have
been there, this is a very simple thing that happens. Three people ask Peter if
he knows Jesus, and Peter denies it three times. Most people wouldn’t have
noticed too much else about what was going on. The first time, we read about a
servant girl who says to him: You also were with Jesus the Galilean. She
talks directly to him about it. But Peter says: I do not know what you mean.
We read: When he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him.
Maybe Peter thought that things were getting a bit too hot inside, so he
wanted to go out through the entrance hall. But the girl says: This man was
with Jesus of Nazareth. This time, Peter is not being spoken to, but
accused to others. It’s as if she points to him, and calls out to anyone who
can hear: This man was with Jesus of Nazareth. The pressure is on for
Peter. He denies it with an oath: I do not know the man. I promise you,
he says, I swear to God, I do not know the man. But the third time, someone
says: Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you. It’s
not enough simply to be with Jesus, but it’s a crime to talk like him.
Sometimes in Australia, we can recognise someone from Sydney, Melbourne or
Queensland, just by the way we talk. And then people from Adelaide go
interstate, and we get asked if we’re English! The same thing happens to Peter
here: he is accused, just because of the way he talks. Maybe when he made an
oath before, he said: Truly, truly, I say to you, I do not know the man! People
think: He’s talking just like Jesus. And now we read: He began to invoke a
curse on himself and to swear, I do not know the man. And immediately the
rooster crowed.
And everyone else carries on as
if nothing has happened. But not Peter and not Jesus. We read in the gospel of
Luke that the Lord turned and looked at Peter. While all of this
spitting and slapping and mockery is going on, Jesus has time to deal with his
little sheep—and he turns and he looks. And we read: And Peter remembered the
saying of Jesus: Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. In
Mark’s Gospel, it says before the rooster crows twice. There was already
another rooster crow earlier to warn Peter. But now, Peter is convicted of his
sin. And he went out and wept bitterly.
You know, Peter is such a
loveable character in the gospels. He often sticks his foot in things, he jumps
in the lake without his shirt on and swims to Jesus, he wants Jesus not just to
wash his feet but his hands and his head. Only minutes before he had said to
Jesus: You shall never wash my feet.
And earlier in the gospels,
Peter said: I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. Though
they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.
In our reading the people mock
Jesus and ask him to prophesy. But when Peter denies Jesus, he knows that Jesus
prophesy has come true: Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the
rooster crows, you will deny me three times.
There is a wonderful
encouragement that Jesus says to Peter in Luke’s gospel: Simon, Simon,
behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I
have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned
again, strengthen your brothers.
You can see that Satan enters
into Peter only as far as Jesus permits. You might think of the book of Job,
where Satan asks to pester Job. Jesus says to Peter: Satan demanded to have
you that he might sift you like wheat. Have you ever felt close to the
devil’s sieve like this? But Jesus says: But I have prayed for you that your
faith may not fail. Peter realises that he has sinned, and weeps bitterly,
not because of him, but because this is in answer to Jesus’ own prayers. Jesus
also prays for us that our faith may not fail. And Jesus allows Peter to deny
him for a reason. Firstly, so that Peter realises that Jesus has to go to the
cross alone, by himself. And no one else, not even Peter, can atone for
anyone’s sins. And only when Peter realises this, can he then be a great
preacher of his Lord and Saviour, and a preacher of the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus says to him: When you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Peter
denies Jesus, and Jesus prophesies it and allows it, not because Jesus is the
one who causes sin. But Peter is a sinner, and sinners sin. But Jesus also
wants to teach him sympathy and love for others who have fallen and need to
hear about God’s grace. And so this whole denial happens so that Peter can go
and strengthen the brothers. We are often allowed to be steeped into certain
sins for years, sometimes completely unawares, and then when we repent, when we
turn again, we can be of such tremendous use in Christ’s kingdom to help others
with the same problem. Aren’t you strengthened by this? Don’t you realise that
even the great Peter is a sinner just like you?
But he also need a Saviour, just
like you. And so just as Peter denied Jesus three times, after the
resurrection, Jesus goes to Peter and says three times: Simon, son of John,
do you love me? And Peter says: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And
Jesus says to him: Feed my sheep. You know that I love you, even though
I let you down. You know that I love you even though I wasn’t there when you
needed me. You know that I love you even though I am a terribly hardened sinner
and I just can’t seem to get any better. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have
the words of eternal life.
Amen.
Lord Jesus, you know that we
love you, and yet we have spat at you, and struck you, and mocked you with our
own thoughts, words and actions. But we also know that you have prayed for us,
that our faith may not fail. Turn us again, that we may be useful in your
kingdom for strengthening others. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment