Midweek Lent Sermon 4: Audio Sermon (29-Mar-2017)

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Midweek Lent Sermon 4 [John 19:4-16] (29-Mar-2017)

This sermon was preached at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, Magill, South Australia, 7.30pm.

Click here for PDF of sermon for printing.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”

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.

Tonight in our sermon we read about Pontius Pilate and his final dealings with the crowd before Jesus was lead off to be crucified. Last week, we read about where Jesus was scourged, and crowned with thorns, clothed with a purple robe, given a reed as a sceptre and mocked and spat upon.

This week, we read mostly about Pontius Pilate, walking back and forth inside and outside his headquarters, speaking to the crowd and to Jesus, before he finally gives up and hands Jesus over to be crucified.

Our reading tonight is broken up into three parts:

I.                   Pilate presents Jesus to the crowd, and testifies to his innocence.

II.                 Pilate goes back inside with Jesus and asks him where he is from.

III.              Pilate takes Jesus outside again, trying to release him, but to no effect.

So let’s come to our first part, where:

I.                   Pilate presents Jesus to the crowd, and testifies to his innocence.

We read in John 19:4, where Pilate says to the crowd: See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

Last week, we read about the terrible suffering that Jesus endured. In fact, his scourging and mocking is right at the centre of the creeds, where we say: He suffered under Pontius Pilate. We read so clearly now, that even though Pontius Pilate had had him whipped in one of the most horrendous punishments known to humanity, he still comes out afterwards and says: I find no guilt in him.

So why did he have him flogged? Well, it was all politics: it was simply to appease the crowd. And Pilate had thought that maybe if he had Jesus flogged, that the crowd would have a sense of shame about it, and they would feel sorry for Jesus and agree to release him.

So Pilate says: See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him. We read: So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”

What a mess Jesus must have looked, after all that he gone through just then. Compare that wonderful time before the fall into sin, when God created woman and brought her to the man. We read: Then the man said: This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. What an amazing thing it was for the first man to see for the first time the first woman!

Now everything is reversed. This time God, through Pilate, presents his own Son to the crowd. The Jews were God’s chosen people, his bride. And now Jesus, their bridegroom is presented to them. Behold, the man! And yes, they might even see quite clearly and openly that he is flesh of their flesh and bone of their bones. And yet, instead of receiving him with love and affection and devotion, as the first man received the first woman, they receive him with burning hatred, with not a drop of sympathy at all. We read: When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!”

These words of Pilate — Behold, the man! — also remind us of what St Paul says in comparing Adam and Christ. He says: The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. He also says: For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall be made alive. There is this comparison between Adam and Jesus. Adam sinned, Jesus dies for sin. Adam started off perfect and pure and strong and healthy and even immortal, and then ended up completely wretched because he chose sin. But then Jesus comes along, and he is true God, and he then becomes completely wretched and poor and hungry just like us when he becomes a man, not because he is a sinner, not because he chose to sin. But he chose to bear our sin, and to carry it. And now Pilate shows us what it looks like for a man to bear our sin: Behold, the man!

It will also be a wonderful thing when we appear before God’s throne, full of sin. There is nothing in us that is worthy of God accepting us or welcoming us into heaven. But we can say: Behold, the man! Don’t look at me and my sin, but look to Jesus and his atonement for sin. Look to Jesus and his purity. This is the man who has died for you and made himself your brother and your Saviour. Pilate says: Behold, the man! John the Baptist said: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

When the people called for his crucifixion again, we read that Pilate said: Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. Pilate here is almost throwing in the towel, so to speak. He is fed up with it all. He says to them that he finds no guilt in him. But on the other hand, he puts out a challenge to them: Take him yourselves and crucify him. It’s almost to say: I can’t come up with a reason to crucify him. So if you want to crucify him, you better have a good reason. I’ve exhausted the Roman law, so if you have a good reason to crucify him, I want to hear it.

So what do they say? They say: We have a law, and according to that law he ought to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God. Now the Jews had the law in the Ten Commandments about taking the Lord’s name in vain. And also we read the law in Leviticus: Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. Now the Jews here thought that because Jesus had said that he was the Son of God, that he was blaspheming the name of the LORD. But he would be blaspheming the Lord’s name if such a thing were not true. For example, if you or I said that we were to Son of God, it would be blasphemy, because it’s not true. But Jesus had not only testified with his mouth that he was the Son of God, but also through his works, and his wonderful healing and comforting miracles. It was true.

But there was a lie in what they said. Jesus had not made himself the Son of God. God himself had declared from heaven that he was His Son, at his baptism, and also at his transfiguration.

But this thing stabs Pontius Pilate in his conscience. You see, in Ancient Roman religion, the gods were super-human beings, as they often are in many pagan religions. And Roman people were open to the possibility of one of the gods coming down in human form. Caesar Augustus had actually called himself amongst other things Filius Dei, the son of a god. What the Jews said to Pilate here would have really made him tremble. I know that he is innocent, but the Son of God, you say? And so we read: When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.

Once again, Pontius’ Pilate’s grand plan to free Jesus through arousing sympathy for Jesus had backfired on him, he comes out in confidence, and he ends up in fear.

This brings us to the second part of our reading where:

II.                 Pilate goes back inside his headquarters to speak to Jesus.

We read: Pilate entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer.

Now Pilate is not asking him, “Where are you from?” just like we might say that to someone in the church narthex to someone, talking about what city or town they come from. Pilate already knows that: he knows that he is from Galilee. That’s why he had him sent off to King Herod. He is asking him something much deeper. And yet: Jesus gave him no answer.

This is like a young couple, who are in love, and thinking about getting married. They say to each other: I love you. And when they say this, they take a risk, and also commit themselves to each other. When Jesus says to Peter: Who do you say that I am? He says: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Peter knew where Jesus was from. He made a confession of faith.

But imagine the young couple, and one of them said, “Do you love me?” This question is not a commitment, but doubts whether they really do, and they want the other person to commit first. If you put yourself on the line first, then I’ll follow, but I won’t take the risk, and take the lead. This question could also carry underneath it a rebuke, as if to say: “Do you love me? You sure don’t act like it!”

And so, Pilate says to Jesus, “Where are you from?” He won’t make a confession of faith. He says to the crowd that he is innocent, but he won’t commit himself to Jesus. Jesus has already said enough to create faith in him. He had already said: My kingdom is not of this world. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Jesus already told Pilate that he came into the world from outside of it, from eternity, from the bosom of the Father. And so in answer to his question, Jesus remains silent.

This makes Pilate angry. He says: You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Pilate threatens Jesus here. It’s as if he says: Hey, speak to me, or I’ll crucify you just for that! This would be as if a world leader said to another world leader: Reply to my emails, or I’ll launch a nuclear bomb! Everyone knows just how silly this is. So Jesus does open his mouth, and doesn’t give his answer, but says: You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.

Jesus says something here about authority. We live in a society that doesn’t respect people in authority. Many students in schools don’t respect their teachers, citizens don’t often respect their politicians and leaders very highly, and we could give other examples. But God has actually created authority, and he has given it to the world as his blessing and as his gift. Now, there are plenty of people who abuse their authority, but the abuse of authority doesn’t make authority in and of itself a bad thing.

So God has created authority in the home, in marriage and in the family. He also has created authority in the church. And he also has created authority in the civil realm, in society, with leaders, police, armed forces, and so on.

It’s a wonderful privilege that God gives to us to pray for those who are under our authority, and to pray for those people who are in authority over us. St Paul writes in 1 Timothy: First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. Also, we read in Romans 13: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. St Peter also writes in his first letter: Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. Pontius Pilate is a governor, just like Peter mentions here in his letter.

Have a think about our leaders, and world leaders. We might imagine some leaders that we like, and some we don’t like. For example, there’s the prime-minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull. Or the South Australian premier, Jay Wetherill. Or there’s our local members of parliament. Or then there’s the Queen, who is also the Queen of the Commonwealth of Australia. Whether we personally like these people or not, the fact is they have their authority from God, and God has placed them there.

There is great wisdom is knowing what authority we have, and then to use it.

And so here we have Pontius Pilate, who is threatening to crucify Jesus for not opening his mouth. And Jesus says to him: You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. This means that when Pilate finally does give Jesus over to be crucified, it is God who has allowed it to happen. But also, if Pilate misuses his authority by sentencing an innocent man to death, it is a great sin. And Jesus says this to him: Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. Jesus says: If you crucify me, it will be a sin, and even a great sin. But those who have given me over to you, to manipulate you, and to use you, and to get what they want by pressing in on you, they have committed a greater sin. They are using God-given authority not to promote what is right and good, but in order to suit their own ends.

This now brings us to the third part of our reading tonight, where:

III.              Pilate brings Jesus outside again, and tries to release him, but to no avail.

We read: From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” This time, these words are addressed to Pilate. In effect, the Jews here are threatening Pilate, as if to say, If you don’t do what we want, we’ll put in a bad report about you to Caesar, and he won’t like that, will he, Mr Pilate? Pilate is now put in a difficult place. The crowd remind Pilate that he is not simply a man in authority over them, but he is a man under the authority of Caesar. What will Caesar think, they say, if you don’t put a rival king to death?

We read: So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. We can see here that this is Pilate’s last opportunity. He is going to sit in his official judgment seat. The judge is going to make his pronouncement. John also mentions the day and the time. It is the Day of Preparation—the next day is going to be the Sabbath, and time is running out. It is Friday at midday, and there are only so many hours left in the day. Later on in the chapter, we read that the Jews didn’t want to have bodies on the cross on the Sabbath, so they asked Pilate to break their legs and get the job over and done with. But here we are told specifically, that Pilate has ascended onto his judgment throne. As Peter says: He is a governor sent by God to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

And so mindful of this holy calling and duty that God has bestowed upon him, he says: Behold your King!

We read: They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”

Just as they chose to have Barabbas released—a murderer instead of their creator—so they also choose to have Caesar as their king, the Roman Emperor, who has taxed and oppressed them, and call for the death of the King of heaven, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the King of David, the Lion from the Tribe of Judah, the Son of David and the Son of God.

I once met on a train a young woman who told me, “I used to study theology, but now I’m studying politics.” I spoke too quickly—(it was a bit cheeky of me!)—and quipped back at her, “When you get rid of theology, the only thing left is politics.” Now, we need theology, we need God’s word—we need it for learning about our God and our salvation. But we also need politics—we need politics to shape and form our society to run smoothly. But you can’t exchange Jesus for Caesar. You can’t substitute God’s kingdom for the earth. The devil showed to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and said: All this I will give you if you bow down and worship me. You can’t exchange the joy and the bliss and the grandeur of heaven, for this world, these ashes, this dust, this valley of the shadow of death. And yet, this is what the people do here—and yet Jesus knows that he is winning for us an open door into heaven, and he bows his head and submits to the corruption of their politics, and he dies for it.

In Matthew’s Gospel we read: So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather than a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

Pilate tries to excuse himself by washing himself clean, in a little symbolic ritual, and declaring his innocence. But he is saying: Jesus is innocent, and I want to share in that innocence too. It’s you that are forcing me into this.

But then the Jews say something quite tremendous. They say: His blood be on us and on our children! It’s as if they are saying: “Don’t you worry, Pilate! You might have a bad conscience, but we don’t. We know he’s guilty. His blood can be on us and even on our children, but we know that we are right and that we have nothing to worry about. We know that we are innocent, and we know that he is guilty.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. They did not give him a fair trial. Pilate had tried to free Jesus, the crowd had simply pushed and pushed until their voices prevailed.

In some sense, they call upon themselves the guilt of Jesus’ death upon themselves, convinced that they are right and Jesus is wrong. However, those of us who believe that they were wrong and Jesus was right must really shudder at these words.

These words are very sensitive, especially in the way that they have been used in history. Sometimes, different people have developed a particular hatred for Jewish people, and this came to a particular head, when Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist party exterminated many, many Jews—together with many other unwanted people—in the holocaust at the time of WWII. Hatred towards to Jews was justified because they had called the guilt of Jesus’ death down upon them and upon their children.

And yet, we who are Gentiles, have been grafted in, through holy baptism, into God’s people. Both Jews and Gentiles are called to be part of God’s church on earth. And of course, Jewish people are so close to our faith, in that they have the Old Testament, and yet they are so far away in that they reject the New Testament, and Jesus as their Messiah. Jesus was a Jew, as were all the apostles, and all the writers of the bible. As St Paul writes: But if some of the branches [that is, some Jews] were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, [that is, Gentiles] were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who supports the root, but the root that supports you. The Jews were originally God’s chosen people, and now we have been made God’s chosen people together with them. Those Jews who reject Jesus as the Messiah are cut off, and need to be called to repentance and faith just like the rest of us. As long as Jews and Muslims in the Middle-East reject Jesus together they will always be fighting. Jesus calls both Jews and Muslims to him, to his cross, to his blood, to his peace which passes all understanding. Imagine what a joy it would be for Jews and Arabs if they had one common Saviour, Jesus Christ, having one common baptism, and could share in the Lord’s Supper together! This is not to say that Jesus’ peace is simply a political thing—not at all. However, Jesus says: Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you. What a wonderful joy it must have been for that Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 to read prophet Isaiah—that prophet which he knew so well—and then to realise that it was talking about Jesus!

It should be a great prayer for us towards those of the Jewish race and of the Jewish faith that the blood of Jesus may be upon them and upon their children, not as a curse, but as a blessing. And this should also be our prayer about ourselves and our children, just as Peter said on the day of Pentecost: Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

Behold the man! Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world—have mercy on us! Amen.

Midweek Lent Sermon 3 [Matthew 27:26-31] (22-Mar-2017)

This sermon was preached at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, Magill, South Australia, 7.30pm.

Click here for PDF of sermon for printing.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

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 Isaiah 50, we read the following words: I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I did not hide my face from disgrace and spitting. In our sermon tonight, we think about particularly where Jesus’ physical suffering turns particularly nasty in a way that we haven’t seen yet in our readings so far. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus anticipated this great suffering, and was so shaken by the thought of what was to come, he sweated blood and an angel came to minister to him.

In our reading tonight, we read about the scourging of Jesus, how the soldiers gathered around him and clothed him with a purple robe, crowned him with thorns, put a reed in his hand, mocked him by kneeling before him, spitting at him, and striking and slapping him. And then after all this, Pilate brings him out before the crowd, and present him to the them.

May the Holy Spirit come and help us tonight in all of our thinking, and increase our faith in Jesus, our Saviour. Amen.

Let’s look at the first part of our reading tonight:

I.                   The scourging of Jesus.

In ancient times, it was a common punishment to flog a criminal. Some countries in the world today still use this as a punishment. Even in the Old Testament, there was a law about it in the book of Deuteronomy: If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in proportion to his offense. Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight. We even read in St Paul’s letter that he had received this punishment. He writes in 2 Corinthians: Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. It was common for the Jewish people to give 39 lashes, 40 minus one, just to make sure that the people were not given more than forty.

But in Jesus’ case, it was something quite different. Notice in the book of Deuteronomy, God set a limit to the number of lashes—the number 40. And there is a reason given: Lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight.

Jesus was not flogged by the Jews, but by the Romans—in fact, he received a scourging, as it called.

But let’s go back for a moment to the book of Genesis. One thing that we read about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, is that before the fall into sin, it says: The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Later, when they had been deceived and had fallen into sin, what is the first thing they do? It says: Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. When God comes walking in the garden, Adam says: I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself.

A Roman scourging called for the prisoner to be naked. There was no consideration of shame—there was no regard for whether the person would be degraded. Also, the Romans would use a whip with pieces of metal or bone embedded in the whip. The purpose was to make a mess of the person. Also, there was no limit to the number as with the Jews.

This is what Jesus underwent in our reading. Also, in John, it says that Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. It was probably not the case that Pilate himself personally flogged him. We might say that Pilate had bought a horse, but that doesn’t mean that he personally went and inspected the horse and handed the money over. Most likely, he would have an employed horse-trainer who would go and do all of that for him. So also, with this: Pilate would have had someone employed to carry out this scourging. Think about if we had had such a thing like this in our society today—who would do it? Who in our country would agree to do this? Only the most deranged low-life imaginable would be willing to do this. We could imagine Pilate had got one of his most bloodthirsty soldiers, an “ex-prison guy”, in other way, a madman to do this job.

This is the kind of person that Jesus was in the hands of. And strangely enough, not much is said about it in the Scripture. In John we read that Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. Matthew and Mark simply say: And having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. And yet this one word: scourged, or flogged, indicates the fulfilment of a wonderful prophecy from Isaiah. We read: Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds [or with his stripes] we are healed.

This event teaches us about who we are. It brings us face to face with our sinful nature. Here we see a man laid bare, like Adam and Eve in the garden. Before the fall, there was no shame. But now, Jesus is stripped of his clothes—the purpose of this is to shame him. And in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were clothed with skins. Because of the sin, payment was required, and a animal, maybe a sheep or a leopard or something, lost its life in order to cover them. But here, Jesus’ bare skin is not covered up, but it is removed from him, one stripe at a time. And Jesus reveals to us his true humanity. When Jesus was on the mountain of the Transfiguration, he showed a glimpse of his divinity: the light of his divine nature shines through his face and his clothes and lightens up the night. We learn here that God the Father is his true Father, and that Jesus is his true Son. As John says: We have seen his glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father. However, that same skin which glowed with all of God’s power and energy, is now stripped to reveal that he had a human mother, Mary. And he shows to us, by submitting to this tremendous cruelty, that he underneath his skin, like all members of the human race, we have blood and flesh and bones.

The shame of this whole event of Jesus’ scourging is our shame. The innocent Son of God is stripped and tied in place, and subjected to a beefy pagan madman, and in his hand with one of the nastiest known weapons know to the human race. Can we even come to think that this is our human nature? This is our sin being punished.

But also, Jesus does not want us simply to think about this because he wants to shame us: no—he does this because he wants to cover over our sin, and forgive it. We should think about this not about what other people did to Jesus, but what Jesus himself accomplished and achieved. Psalm 32 says: Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Jesus’ nakedness and flesh is uncovered, you are covered by him. St John writes in his first letter: The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. And in Isaiah, we read: Upon him was the chastisement—not for nothing—but that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

So often as a pastor I have heard people say: If you knew what I had done, you wouldn’t be so quick to speak about forgiveness. What I’ve done can’t be forgiven. Yes—you’re right, I might not know what you’ve done. But I know what Jesus has done. And if only these words about Jesus’ suffering and death for you would hook into your mind and skin, your heart your flesh, just as that whip did to Jesus! Hebrews says: The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow. Let it pierce! Let it sink in. You are a beloved, forgiven, child of God. By his wounds, with his stripes, you have been healed.

We come to the next part of our reading:

II.                 Jesus receives a mock-coronation.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we read: Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put scarlet robe on him. Mark calls it a purple cloak.

When we hear in our times about someone wearing a certain colour, we don’t often think very much about it, though we do have some associations. We clothe baby boys in blue and baby girls in blue. We are used to the police and the navy wearing blue, the army wearing brown. Pastors often wear black and white. Brides wear white at their weddings. We might look twice if someone wore a gold or silver suit or a dress.

However, in ancient times, purple was a very expensive colour to wear. Purple dye was made from a particular type of sea-snail, and was hard to come by. Generally, it was royalty then that wore purple. Even today, if you see an official photograph of the Queen with her crown, she would often wear a purple robe. In the New Testament, we read about the businesswoman Lydia who became a Christian. We read: One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshipper of God. When Jesus tells the story of Lazarus and the rich man, we read that the rich man wore purple. This is to say that the man was dressing like a king, when he wasn’t one. Being rich doesn’t make a person royalty. (This would be like if wealthy people like Clive Palmer or Rupert Murdoch started to wear gold crowns!)

Here in our reading, Jesus is clothed in purple. This is a mock coronation. He is given a royal, purple robe, not because they recognise him as a king, but because they are mocking him.

Once again, if we go back to Genesis, we read that God said: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. God says to his human creatures: have dominion. In order words: live like kings and queens and royalty, ruling the world together with me. But Adam and Eve exchange this royal dignity of having dominion for being the devil’s slaves. They weren’t satisfied with the dignity they had already received from God, and the devil tempted them by saying: You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat it you will be like God! And yet the promise is false.

Now, Jesus, the true King of glory, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, is treated like a pretend king, and is clothed with a purple robe.

The next part of the coronation ceremony we read is where we read: and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand.

This is a mock version of a real crown, and a real sceptre, usually made out of gold, which were symbols of a king’s authority.

In Genesis we read: When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Can you imagine this picture of a perfect serene created world, with a gentle mist watering everything? But then after the fall into sin, we read where God says to Adam: Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. Here in our reading tonight we see these thorns and thistles return. The thorns are twisted into a terrible crown, and a thistle, or a reed, is put into Jesus hand as a sceptre. The very things which were God’s judgment upon Adam, Jesus now takes upon himself as he takes that same judgement upon himself.

In Psalm 110, we read the wonderful words: The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty sceptre. Rule in the midst of your enemies!

Here in the city of Jerusalem, from Zion, the LORD sends forth his mighty sceptre. Jesus receives a sceptre in his hand—but not a gold one, but an old stick. And yet the words are true: Rule in the midst of your enemies! Jesus is here surrounded by his enemies, and yet he is not being ruled, but he is ruling. We read in Matthew that the soldiers took the reed and struck him on the head. Jesus knows what he is doing—he is suffering all of this to make atonement for the sin of the world.

The next part of the mock coronation happened like this. We read: And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Mark says, they saluted him. Remember here that when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, we read: Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he”. [In Greek, the word are simply I AM, just as when he said to Moses, I AM, when he spoke from the burning bush.] It says: When Jesus said to them, “I AM”, they drew back and fell to the ground.

Do you see here that the immense power of Jesus’ words, and the use of the words, “I AM”, forces the people to the ground—the power is so great, so intense, and so immense. And the same here: when these soldiers are in the presence of Jesus, they can do nothing but kneel and hail and salute him. They do it out of mockery, but we know their actions speak true. This is the very thing that we should also desire when are face to face with Jesus: to kneel before him, to hail him, and to salute him as our king. But not in mockery, and God cannot be mocked. When King David was anointed as a king, God said to Samuel: The LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.

We also read in Philippians: At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Here we see in this mock coronation ceremony, that the soldiers also kneel before God and confess Jesus as king of the Jews. We can see their outward appearance, but God sees the heart.

What also is part of a coronation ceremony? Well—normally if a king or queen is crowned, there would be a great cheer from the crowd. But what do we read? And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. We see here a fulfilment of the prophecy from Isaiah: I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.

God would know what these men ate, what they had for breakfast. God would know when they had last brushed their teeth, and he would have seen the gingivitis and the phlegm. In his suffering, Jesus received the filth and the dirt of human spit upon his face. By contrast, after Jesus had risen from the dead, and had destroyed death and conquered death, and had no sign or scrap of death anywhere around him, we read that he breathed on his disciples and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. This breath would have been even fresher than that cool gentle mist over the Garden of Eden. That mist was created by God, but Jesus was God himself.

Just to finish our sermon tonight, we should also remember that at Jesus’ ascension, we see the other side of what happened in our reading tonight. Tonight we read about his mock coronation, but at the ascension we read about his entrance into heaven, where he sits down at the right hand of the throne of God. Instead of the sound of mockery, we read in Psalm 47: God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. In stead of the laughing, the jeering, the fake saluting, we read in the same Psalm: Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm! God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne!

Let’s bow the knee before our Saviour and Redeemer and our Sacrificial Lamb, who, as Isaiah said, was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our inquities. Let’s receive him as our Saviour and our king and our Lord, and worship him in spirit and in truth. Let our hearts and our lips speak together, and not in conflict with each other, as Jesus says to the Pharisees: The people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

The famous hymn says:

O sacred head, now wounded / With pain and scorn weighed down / In mockery surrounded / With thorns Thine only crown. / O sacred head, what glory / What bliss, till now, was Thine! / Yet, though despised and gory, / I joy to call Thee mine.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us! Amen.

Midweek Lent Sermon 2 [Matthew 27:15-23] (15-Mar-2017)

This sermon was preached at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, Magill, South Australia, 7.30pm.

Click here for PDF of sermon for printing.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

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 Lent sermon tonight, we’re going to continue from where we left off last week, where we were looking at the event where Jesus goes to Herod.

We read that Herod had mocked Jesus and sent him back to Pilate dressed in a royal robe of some kind. So now that Jesus has been returned to Pilate, this is what we read in Luke 23:

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of the charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.”

You remember in our readings last week, that Pilate had tried to rid himself of having to deal with Jesus, and so when he had heard that Jesus was from Galilee, he sent him off to Herod. Herod also didn’t know what to do with him, so he sent him back to Pilate.

And Pilate gathers together all the people again. And he says: You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people.

In our passage last week, we read that the chief priests had said: He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place. When they say he was stirring up the people, it didn’t so much mean that he was simply getting them excited—that would have been no crime. When Pilate says that they had brought Jesus to him as one who was misleading the people, he also doesn’t mean that Jesus had simply made some mistakes in his teaching. What he was talking about was that Jesus was being accused of leading the people in a revolution. He was being accused of misleading people or stirring them up against the established order.

But of course there was no proof that Jesus was doing anything of the sort. Remember though that Jesus says: I am the way, and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except by me. This saying of Jesus is a great comfort to Christians, but to outsiders it is a real stumbling stone. Paganism has always believed that there a multiple roads to God, and that experience is more important than truth. You can have two people who have some kind of religious experience, but say conflicting things. Pagan unbelief says, “Who cares about the conflict? You can’t criticise the experience. That man or woman is a holy man or woman.” This is not what Jesus teaches. He teaches only one way to God, and that is through him.

And so, would it be any surprise to us that those who don’t follow the words of Jesus are going to criticise him for misleading people? When King Ahab saw Elijah, he said: Is it you, you troubler of Israel? And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel but you have.” In the same way we could say about Jesus: It is not Jesus who is misleading people, but everyone else is misleading people.

Back to Pilate – Pilate once again proclaims Jesus’ innocence. He says: After examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.

Even though Jesus is innocent, Pilate says that he will punish him. Here, he means a flogging. It’s as if he is saying: I understand that you want him to stop preaching, but he hasn’t really done anything to deserve death. How about I give him a flogging? Hopefully, I’ll scare him enough that he won’t say anything more.

The punishment is unfair and unjust—it is simply to appease the crowd. However, we need to remember here that Jesus is the lamb of God, and he is carrying the sin of the world. And our sin can’t be dealt with by a simple flogging, and then it’s done. It is worthy of death, just as God said in the Garden of Eden to Adam: If you eat of that tree, you will surely die. Yes, Jesus is innocent, but he is carrying our sin, and he is doing it for us. He is making atonement for us, he is making a sacrifice for us.

Now, we come to the text which we read earlier from Matthew 27. We read: Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. What we are talking about here is a arrangement that the Romans had with the Jewish people to keep them happy, and to give some kind of appearance that they were good and generous rulers. So when it came around that the Jewish people were celebrating the Passover, at they were at this time, the governor would release a prisoner. This did three things: firstly, it gave the people the opportunity to release someone who was unjustly imprisoned, and possibly to right a wrong that had been committed by the Romans; secondly, it gave the Romans a chance to keep the people happy; and thirdly, it made the Romans look good.

Once again, we see how part of the way in which the Romans ruled the people was every now and then to give them what they wanted. So just as Pilate had threated to flog Jesus and release him, to keep the crowd happy, so also we see that there were other customs in place to keep the crowd happy.

We read: And they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. In John’s gospel we read about him: Now Barabbas was a robber. This is true, but he wasn’t a pickpocket. This is a serious robber, like a highway robber, or like an Australian “bushranger”, who would be happy to kill anyone who got in his way. In Mark’s Gospel we read: Among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. Do you hear that? He had committed murder in the insurrection. An insurrection is an uprising, or a rebellion, or the beginnings of a revolution. Luke says that he had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Luke even gives us the impression that he was one of the people who was instrumental in leading this uprising, and that he was one of the front-runners. After all, Matthew says that he was a notorious prisoner.

And so what do read that happens? We read in Matthew: So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” We also read: For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.

Here we see that Pilate has a plan. He knows that Jesus is innocent. He doesn’t want to send a man to his death who doesn’t deserve it. And so what is he going to do? Well—he thinks—maybe if I can get them to release Jesus, according to this custom. But here’s the problem: The custom was that there would be released whatever prisoner the crowd wanted, not whom the governor wanted. If a mother tried to pull this trick with their child, and said, “I’ll buy you whatever icecream you choose”, and then the mum tries to wrangle it in such a way that the child should choose her favourite, so that she could also have a lick, the child would smell the rat a mile off. “No, mum—you said I could have whatever icecream I wanted. I don’t want Rum and Raisin. I want to choose the icecream that I want!”

And so this is a similar trick that Pilate is trying to play on the crowd. To release Jesus was his idea, not theirs. And yet, he thought if he gave them a choice between someone they simply didn’t like, and a hardened criminal like Barabbas, they would obviously choose to keep Barabbas in jail. Think about a notorious criminal that we might know—we all know what prisons are like. The worst thing about going to gaol is not simply having your freedom taken away, but being stuck in there with all kinds of bloodthirsty characters. Barabbas is probably someone a bit like Chopper Reid. He thinks, if I gave them a choice between Jesus and Chopper, surely they would want to keep Chopper back in the clink! Surely, people must think: Don’t let Barabbas out! We don’t want him back loose on the streets! Pilate thinks that common decency would prevail. He sensed that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Hopefully, this choice between Jesus and Barabbas would put them to shame, and they would see just what fools they had been.

At this point, Matthew interrupts all of this “action”, and he tells us about a little event which only he tells. We read: Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.”

Pilate is not only being pulled in all directions by the crowd, but now his wife gets involved. There are many dreams in the bible—we might think particularly of Joseph in the Old Testament with his dreams. But then also there are many dreams in the Gospel of Matthew. When we read about Jesus’ birth, we read about Joseph having many dreams: about taking Mary to be his wife, about fleeing from Bethlehem to Egypt, about coming back from Egypt, and about settling in Nazareth. Also, we read about the Wise Men being warned in a dream not to return to Herod. Here, we have Pilate’s wife suffering much in her dream about Jesus. She wakes up, and is frightened, and warns her husband not to have anything to do with Jesus.

Isn’t it strange that here is a Gentile woman who perceives much more about what is going on than the crowd and the priests? Through this dream, her conscience is pricked, and she realises that there is something big going on here.

Sometimes people make too much a thing about dreams. Pagan people have often look to dreams as messages from whatever spirits they worship. Sometimes, in the bible, we see God also send people messages in a dream. But we also have to be careful that we don’t look for this, and try and use techniques to play games with our sub-conscious. If we dream, we dream. If we don’t, we don’t. Sometimes a dream brings to mind someone we know—well, we should pray for them. Or maybe a dream makes us worried about something—well, we should pray about it.

Take for instance, St Peter in the book of Acts falls into a trance. But that doesn’t mean that we Christians should work ourselves into a trance in order to get a message from God. That’s called shamanism—that’s what witch-doctors do in Africa and Siberia and South America. It’s a form of witchcraft that we should avoid like the plague. The same goes with dreams—if you want to hear God’s word, read and listen to his word in the Scripture. Don’t go chasing after dreams, because the devil can mess with people in their dreams too.

In the case of Pilate’s wife, all we read about is that dream terrified her conscience. And she says: Having nothing to do with that righteous man. This is the wrong message. Yes: he is a righteous man. But even though we are unrighteous, this righteous man—who is also the righteous God—wants everything to do with us. The fact that we are ungodly, and Jesus is righteous, the fact that we are sinners and Jesus is perfect, does not mean that we can have nothing to do with him. Rather the opposite—Jesus is laying down his life for you, so that you can be with him, both in this life and in the next. He forgives your sin, so that you can have your whole lives—and the next life—with him.

Now we come back to the crowd. We read: The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” And he said, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified.”

We see here that Pilate’s great plan has back-fired on him. He thought that this would be the opportunity to release Jesus. But instead, they choose to have Barabbas released. Now that his plan hasn’t worked, Pilate is stuck. The very fact that they have called for Barabbas, now gives them the opportunity to call for Jesus’ blood. Pilate is stuck in a corner. He says: What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They say: Let him be crucified. Pilate protests Jesus innoncence. He says: Why, what evil has he done? But the cat is now out of the bag. The horse has bolted. All the crowd have to do now is keep shouting louder and louder, so that they eventually win. Pilate’s protests are drowned out.

This is often the way it is. Truth can only be attacked with noise, noise, noise. If the truth is inconvenient, all we can do is make sure that the truth is drowned out, and that the falsehood or the error is proclaimed louder and louder. This is why it seems to us so often in the world that unbelievers and those who have false beliefs are more energetic and have more passion and fire in their bellies than believing Christians. But you see, energy and passion and fire is all they have. Jesus doesn’t pray to his Father: Sanctify them with your energy, with your passion, with your fire. Instead he says: Sanctify them with your truth; your word is truth.

So the crowd chooses to have Barabbas released and Jesus crucified. Just as a final thought for our sermon this evening, we see here the corruption of the human will. Because we are sinful, fallen human beings, every part of us is corrupt. Our bodies age and get diseased. Our hearts are full of all kinds of evil thoughts. Genesis says: The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. This includes our will. Our sin always wants to hide itself and protect itself—it never wants to be exposed. And so our hearts do not choose forgiveness. It is Jesus who chooses us.

Some Christians make a mistake in this regard. They think that Christian conversion is about choosing to follow Jesus, or making a decision to follow Jesus. But this isn’t the case. Jesus is the one who has made a decision from the foundation of the world to have you as his follower. He has called you through his word and Holy Baptism. Jesus said to his disciples not long before he was arrested on the night when he was betrayed: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.

Jesus has died for the sins of the whole world. That means he has died for your sin. He has called you through his word, and he has baptised you, and he constantly gives you the opportunity to hear his word of forgiveness spoken to you by your pastor in the church. This is what you should put your trust in, because this is Jesus’ words. Don’t put your trust in your decisions, and in your will—the human will is corrupt. In our reading tonight, the crowd freely chose to release a criminal and to crucify its Saviour. That’s what human will does.

However, once we have been converted, then Jesus sends us his Holy Spirit to change and shape our will, so that we choose things which are pleasing to him. This is something that is only begun in this life, though. Even as a Christian we will find ourselves doing things that we wish we hadn’t done, and things that we don’t want to do. St Paul says: I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Jesus here in our reading shows us what our hearts and our wills really are. Our sinful flesh, and our sinful hearts, want to see Jesus out of the picture. Like Pilate’s wife, our sinful hearts and our dreams want to have nothing to do with this righteous man. When Peter’s boat was breaking from all the fish Jesus had allowed him to catch, he said: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

Jesus was crucified because people just you and me wanted him crucified. And now he says to us: I know that wanted me dead. I know that like my disciples you would rather run away. But I have died for your will. I have died not because the world wanted it, but because you need it. And so, now, do not be afraid. What is more important is not want you want, but what God wants. We read in Isaiah 53: It was the will of God to crush him. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said: Father, if it is possible, let this cup be taken away from me. Yet, not my will, but your will be done.

Thank you, Jesus, for your perfect will, for submitting to your Father’s will, and even letting yourself be submitted to the will of the crowd, so that you could go to the cross to purchase and win me and all believers. Teach me your will, O Lord! Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world—Have mercy on us! Amen. 

Midweek Lent Service 1 [Luke 23:5-12] (8-Mar-2017)

This sermon was preached at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, Magill, South Australia, 7,30pm.

Click here for PDF of sermon for printing.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Herod with his soldiers treated [Jesus] with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.

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 mid-week series this year, we are going to be looking at those things which happened to Jesus just before he was crucified. Tonight we’re going to be looking at the event where Jesus was sent to Herod. Next week, we’re going to be looking at the event where Pilate offers Jesus’ freedom to the crowd, alongside a notorious criminal called Barabbas. Over the last three weeks, we will be reading about Jesus being scourged, and sentenced, and then led on his way to the cross.

So let’s look at our text for tonight.

So far in the history of Jesus’ suffering and death, Jesus has been arrested and he has been interrogated by the High Priests, Annas and Caiaphas, and now he has been brought before Pontius Pilate, who was the Roman governor. Judea, at that time, had been conquered by the Romans, and one of the ways in which Romans exercised control over people was to take away the people’s right to sentence a person to death. So if the Jewish people wanted to sentence Jesus, they had to bring him to Pilate—and this is what had happened.

Pilate by this stage found himself in a very awkward position, because he had questioned Jesus, and couldn’t find a reason for sentencing him to death. On the one hand, the Jewish priests and the crowd were adamant that Jesus was a criminal, but Pilate couldn’t work it out. On one hand, he was under tremendous pressure from the Jewish leaders and the crowd, but also the case wasn’t clear to him either.

This is where we’re up to in the historical order of things. So tonight we’re going to look at our text in four different parts:

I.                   Why did Jesus end up being sent to Herod?

II.                 Who is this Herod, and why was he in Jerusalem?

III.              How did Herod treat Jesus?

IV.              What came about as a result of this event?

So may the Holy Spirit enlighten us this evening as we listen to his word. Amen.

I. Why did Jesus end up being sent to Herod?

Just before our reading begins in Luke 23:5, we read at the beginning of our chapter where Pilate had been talking to Jesus, and then went out to the crowds, and said: I find no guilt in this man. Now for the Jewish priests and the crowds, this was a real blow to their cause. They were dead set on making sure that Jesus was sentenced to death. They had carefully planned it—they had paid Judas to betray him, they had arrested him, they had questioned him, and they weren’t about to be made fools of now—there was no turning back. Could you imagine what they must have thought when Pilate comes out and declares Jesus to be innocent? They must have been furious!

So they brought something more for Pilate to consider. We read: But they were urgent, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.”

First, we hear from this that they were urgent. Apart from what they said, they said it forcefully, they were getting fired up. On one hand, they were blinded by the story they had kept telling themselves, that there really was a good reason to have Jesus executed. Sometimes when people have been telling themselves a lie for so long, they forget what the truth really is. And then they are so far entrenched in the lie, that if they backed out of it now, they would look like pure fools. By this stage they had convinced themselves that they were doing the right thing, and the truth of what Pilate said, that Jesus was innocent, seemed ridiculous to them. We often find this in our own culture too, where truth doesn’t matter anymore, but it all about the politics!

So what it is that they actually said? We read: He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place. What do they mean by this? What wrong are they accusing Jesus of now? They said: He stirs up the people. Obviously, we see that these people here themselves are stirred up! But this is not really what they meant! They are accusing Jesus of creating unrest, of causing a revolution. We see in the Gospels many times where Jesus simply teaches people the word of God, calls them to repentance, and where he goes around and heals people and comforts them. How did the priests say that Jesus was stirring people up? Simply by teaching! Now funnily enough, on the face of it, you wouldn’t necessarily expect this kind of thing to stir people up, but in fact it does. You might remember how Jesus went to Nazareth, and the people tried to push him off a cliff. And then you probably remember how John the Baptist, when he went around preaching, was locked up and finally beheaded. People were stirred up! But then if you read the Book of Acts, we read about the apostles going out everywhere, and people were sometimes very much stirred up, even to the point of rioting! When Paul and Silas were in Thessalonica, they were accused of turning the world upside down. And even Paul says about himself: Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned…

Now what do we make of all this? Because every culture and every people and every society and every family and even every individual is completely corrupted by sin, the call to repentance and the gift of the forgiveness of sins really do turn the world upside down, because these things are from God himself. So many people who are converted to Christianity later in life often find themselves thinking that their whole lives have been turned upside down. Now, we have to realise this today. Many times the Christian faith will be met with opposition, and if it doesn’t meet with opposition, we might have to ask ourselves if we watered it down to make it more palatable! We Christians are part of an army, and we pastors too are on the frontline. And then we move forward a few steps, and we say, “Ow! I got shot in the leg!” Boo-hoo! Waa-waa! “I thought people were supposed to be nice! How can they be so awful?” Answer: Actually, people really are sinners. And this is war!—is it a surprise to you to be shot? This is the army, don’t you know! Were you expecting a cup of tea and scones?

I heard an old pastor once reflect on the 144,000 people mentioned in the book of Revelation. He said: “When I was a young seminary student I thought that 144,000 people in heaven wasn’t very many, but then I was a pastor for 10 years and I thought it was a lot!”

So—as Jesus says: If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. And so we see here in our reading the people simply accusing Jesus of stirring people up. Who cares if what Jesus says is true! Who cares if what he says is right, and wonderful, and godly, and filled with the Holy Spirit! If it causes a fuss, and messes up our party, and rains on our parade, then--it’s bad! Let’s call to mind here what we read in Hebrews: Let us go to [Jesus] outside the camp and endure the reproach that he endured. Remember Jesus says: Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Let these things be a warning to all of us that we don’t try and step away from the world’s ridicule of Christians—this ridicule is the sweet nectar of life, it is the blessing of Jesus himself. And when we are accused of nothing but stirring people up, then let it be a great privilege for us to be together with Jesus, even if it is bearing the same accusation that he received.

Now one thing that the Jewish priests mentioned is not just the fact that Jesus was stirring people up, but that he was teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place. All of a sudden, Pilate’s ears prick up and he says to himself: Galilee, you say?

We read: When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. Why did he ask this question, do you think? Because there was a Roman law that said that if you were on trial you had to be tried by the person in charge of your own province. So if Jesus was from Galilee, then Pilate would be off the hook. He would simply send him off to the tetrarch of Galilee.

So we read: And when he learned that he belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time.

And Pilate must have thought: Boy, that’s a load off my mind! It saves him making a decision. He passes the buck down the line. He tries to shrug off his responsibilities and actually making a statement under a pretext. “It’s not my department!”, he says. So often when it comes to us thinking about hard questions for our life and for our faith, we often pass the buck and take the easy way out, to avoid having to take a stand. It’s easy to put on a show—but it’s not easy when we find that we have to take a stand. But even in the face of all this human weakness, Jesus knows exactly what he is doing, and he stands firm for us. He is passed around, fobbed off, but he is standing still. The world may carry on and swirl and twirl around Jesus, but Jesus—our Saviour—stands still and he holds his ground. And thank God that he does, because he is the solid rock on which our faith is built.

This now brings us to our second question:

II. Who is Herod, and why was he in Jerusalem?

when we read about the birth Jesus we come across a King Herod, who was also known as Herod the Great. He was the one who tried to trick the wise men from the east into telling him where the baby Jesus was, and pretended to them that he wanted to come and worship him too. Also, in his rage, he killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem, to make sure that Jesus was wiped out.

The Herod in our reading today is actually King Herod’s son, also known as Herod Antipas. Herod’s family is also descended from the Edomites, who are the descendants of Esau. You might remember all the way back to the book of Genesis, where Jacob tricks his twin brother Esau. Esau first of all sells his birthright for a bowl of soup, and then Jacob pretends to be Esau before his blind father Isaac, and takes away his blessing. Isaac then says to Esau: Behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you grow restless you shall break his yoke from your neck. Right from this time, there is a conflict between the tribe of Jacob, the tribe of Israel, and also the tribe of Esau. We read in Genesis 27: Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. In some sense, this hatred continues to rise and flare up all throughout history, and this is what happens in our reading today, when Jesus is brought before Herod. Jesus is from the tribe of Jacob, and Herod is from the tribe of Esau.

We also know something about this Herod in our reading from the time when he had had John the Baptist beheaded, because he had made a silly promise to his daughter in the presence of his guests at his birthday party.

Now the reason why Herod was in Jerusalem was because it was common for people from all over the place to come to Jerusalem for the Passover. It is probably the case that this is also the reason why Herod happened to be in Jerusalem at this time.

This now brings us to our next topic:

III. How does Herod treat Jesus?

This is what we read about what happened to Jesus, when he was in Herod’s house: When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him. Herod is a strange, twisted man. He’s a man who likes a show, he likes a display, but when his conscience gets in the way then he swats it like a fly. For example, it says that Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. And yet, when he promises up to half of [his] kingdom to Herodias’s daughter, we read the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her. Hmm! -- You wouldn’t want to break your word to a spoilt teenager when she oversteps the line, but beheading a prophet, that’s OK! This is Herod.

Also, we read that when Herod heard about what Jesus was doing, he said, John, whom I beheaded, has been raised. Herod had thought that Jesus was John the Baptist come back from the dead. What a bad conscience he must have had! He knew he had killed a holy man, and so he thinks that Jesus must be John come back from the dead to wreak some revenge on him.

And yet, when Jesus is brought before him, we read: He was very glad. Actually, Herod had liked John too. We read: When [Herod] heard [John], he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly. On one hand, he knew John was right, but he wasn’t prepared to break up his unlawful marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias. He was afraid of the consequences.

It says that Herod had long desired to see Jesus, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. Jesus had performed many signs: He had healed the blind, made the deaf hear, made the mute speak, made the lame to walk and had raised the dead. But those things weren’t simply things to show off, but Jesus had compassion on those people themselves and wanted to comfort them and heal them and send them away rejoicing. What about Herod? Well, he wanted to turn everything into a magic trick show. Did he want Jesus to turn some water into wine for him? Did he bring in a leper which he had prepared earlier, and get Jesus to whip up some soft smooth baby skin for him?

So you see how twisted this is? Jesus isn’t a circus clown. He isn’t in the entertainment industry. This is also how the devil tempts Jesus in the wilderness. He says to him: If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. What’s the point of that? The same goes with Herod. It’s almost as if he says: Now that you’re here, Jesus, if you’re the Son of God, can you do a back-flip off my garbage-bin?

It all sounds so ridiculous when put like this, but many of us are not far from treating Jesus like this ourselves. For example, how many people go for years and years without prayer, or pray in a sanctimonious kind of way, but then one day something happens and they go to Jesus and say, “Are you really there? If you are there, can you do a back-flip for me?” And boy, do we get angry when Jesus doesn’t perform the miracle that we wanted. Jesus knows what we need even before we ask him.

Or what about church? Why do we come? Do we treat Jesus like a performing seal at Sea-World, doing clever tricks? Do we come to church expecting entertainment, and a Sunday morning thrill? Do we come expecting an emotional high, a spiritual rush, a mountain-top faith experience? All of this closes our ears to the word of God, and to the wonderful truths that Jesus wants to speak to us, and that he wants us to learn. He is not here to perform for us; he is here to save us, and to forgive us, and finally, after this life, to rescue us from this sinful life and take us to live with himself forever.

Do you see now what happens with Herod? So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him.

Jesus refuses to give him what he wants. He won’t budge an inch. We read in Isaiah 53: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. We see here Herod and chief priests and scribes shearing Jesus like a sheep. Herod is not interested in Jesus the lamb, but the wool. Once he has him trophy, he is done with him. The priests and the scribes want to expose his naked skin, and to point and accuse, cutting away at his reputation and the normal protections that a person has and expose his shame.

But Jesus is innocent. He has nothing to answer. And he will not throw his pearls to the swine. He will not give what is holy to the dogs. His shame is our shame—he takes it upon himself and he dies for it.

We see then the Herod goes a step further. When he doesn’t get the sign that he wants, he turns nasty. He calls in his soldiers—he bolsters his weakness with some strong men, against a man who has already been beaten and blindfolded. We read: Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.

Here’s the amazing thing… what Herod does to Jesus is done out of mockery and contempt: he clothes his in one of his royal robes. And yet what he doesn’t recognise is that the man who stands before him really is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. This Jesus really is the king of glory. The intent is wrong, the action is true. He really is a king, and though they don’t recognise it, the angels do. Herod and the soldiers mock, the angels bow in adoration. Herod is playing dress-ups, but Jesus is for real.

Jesus wears our sin, our guilt and our shame. He takes it on himself. Jesus stands before God in his suffering and death wearing the garment of our sin. And all this he does so that when we stand before God, we stand before him wearing the garment of his righteousness, given to us in Holy Baptism. He covers us completely over. We read in Psalm 32: Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Isaiah 61:10 says: He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. What a wonderful thing this is that Jesus does for us!

This brings us to our last question:

IV.  What came about as a result of this event?

We read in verse 12 of this chapter: And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been an enmity with each other.

In Psalm 2, we read some very well-known words: Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed.

Here we see the governor, Pilate, and the tetrarch, Herod, and the chief priests all working together against Jesus. Even Pilate and Herod become friends as a result! In Acts 4, we read about when the first Christians prayed together about this very fact: For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

But also, we learn from this that the purpose of Christianity is not simply to make friends. Other people know how to make friends too. Other people can reconcile with one other and it doesn’t make them Christians. There are many people who unite together against Christ. It’s amazing how opposition to Jesus can draw all kinds of unlikely people together.

But in the church, we are drawn together around Jesus and his word. And this is the thing that draws us together—the friendships that we develop in the church come from this. We also need to be careful that we don’t make friendships—even in the church!—in opposition to God’s word and against Jesus.

So as we consider all these things tonight in our reading, let’s look to Jesus, who is the Lamb of God who remained silent, like a lamb before its shearers. Let’s thank him for his wonderful patience as he bore the weight of the world’s sin and our sin. Let’s thank him for having freely taken on the garment of our shame, and for giving us the robe of his righteousness, the gift of baptism and faith. And no matter how many friendships the world may make with each other, let us ask Jesus to draw us ever closer into friendship with him, as he teaches us, just as he did so long ago throughout all Judea, from Galilee and even to this place here today.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world—have mercy on us! Amen.