Easter VI B [John 15:9-17] (6-May-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today our Gospel reading comes from John chapter 15, and this particular chapter is part of a sermon that Jesus gives to his disciples on Maundy Thursday evening, on the night when Jesus was betrayed. Maundy Thursday is a very special day in the church calendar, and it is the day before Jesus died, which is Good Friday. So Jesus had had the Lord’s Supper with his disciples, he had washed his disciples feet, and then in chapters 14, 15 and 16 of John, we read where Jesus gives a powerful sermon, a farewell speech, before he goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane. Also he gives this sermon to his disciples after Judas had left the room to go to the high priests to organise Jesus’ arrest later that night. This message was not for Judas, but for the other eleven disciples.

So at the beginning of chapter 13 of John we read about where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, and he prophesies and predicts that Judas is going to betray him, and Judas leaves. We also read where Jesus says: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. This is a very well-known verse. Jesus also foretells that Peter will deny him three times. And then in chapters 14, 15 and 16 we read this sermon of Jesus, where he says: In my Father’s house are many rooms… I am the way, the truth and the life…Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you… There are so many memorable verses in this sermon. Also in chapter 17, Jesus prays a wonderful prayer, often called the “High Priestly Prayer.”

Our reading from today comes from chapter 15, in the middle of this Maundy Thursday sermon. Jesus says: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. We see God the Father here cutting off and removing the dead wood on the vine, but also he prunes the good branches so that they bear more fruit. But also we see that Jesus is the vine. All the members of Christ’s church, his family, his bride, are so intimately connected to him that the same juices that flow through him flow through his disciples. And sometimes as Christians we suffer tremendously, and we ask God why this is happening. But God is not cutting us off, but pruning us.

Jesus says: Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Here Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the way that he will be with them, and dwell with them and in them, and will be so intimately connected with them in everything that they do. It is not just Jesus’ teaching or his doctrine or his power that is with them, but himself! He says: Apart from me you can do nothing. Jesus will be with them all the way.

Then Jesus says: If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Everything that turns away from this vine is thrown away. Everything comes from remaining in Christ and his word. Jesus says: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you. Jesus and his words go together. When we have Christ and his word, then our prayers are wonderfully answered. Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. But none of this is for our glory, but for the Father’s glory. Jesus says: By this my Father is glorified.

Now we come to our reading for today, which says: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. Jesus speaks here about Christian love. This wonderful love reaches from the Father to the Son, and from the Son to us. And Jesus says: Abide in my love. Jesus has been talking about how we are connected to him like branches on a vine. Love is a fruit of faith. St Paul even calls love a fruit of the Spirit, in fact, he lists it as the first of many fruits. So when we saved by faith, and this faith then looks to Christ and our neighbours, faith produces the fruit of love, friendship, and fellowship.

Now if love is produced from faith, it’s also very important that faith is right. When we speak about faith, we don’t put our trust in ourselves or in the things in our sinful human hearts; we put our trust in the pure, clear word of God. Faith clings to the word, just as Jesus says: If you abide in me and my words abide in you… So when we turn our backs on the truth of God’s word, love also dries up, and we end up with tremendous fighting in the church. St Paul wrote a wonderful chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13, where it says: Love is patient and kind, and all that kind of thing. We often read this passage at weddings. But in the middle of that chapter it says: Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Also, there’s another wonderful passage about love in 1 John 4, where it says: God is love. Perfect love casts our fear. But at the beginning of the chapter it says: Test the spirits to see whether they are from God. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Do you see how John here talks about truth and then he goes on to talk about love? Also St Paul says in Ephesians, not simply to speak with love, but to speak the truth in love. I mention these things because today often when we talk about love, people often say that speaking the truth even when people don’t want to hear it is loveless. No—it’s not loveless at all! As Christians we should strive to believe the same thing, live the same way, and help each other in doing this—all on the basis of God’s word. We see all throughout the New Testament about how the apostles stood very firmly together, in unity and peace, being of one mind and one heart, speaking the truth with the very voice of the Holy Spirit. It is the same oneness and unity of mind and heart around the word of Christ that we should also strive together for, which draws us together in love.

And so we read in our reading how Jesus says: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. By faith we are grafted on and united to Christ, like branches on a vine. And branches bear fruit. Each day we learn what it means to love. Jesus tells us to keep his commandments, and to do good works, not because the good works save us, but because this is simply what branches on a vine do. A wheel doesn’t spin so that it can become round. The fact that it is round is the reason why it spins. So we don’t love in order to be grafted into the vine, but because we are grafted in, we then start to bear the fruit of love.

Jesus then says: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. Jesus is the bringer of joy. Now many people in the world seem happy enough, and don’t look to Jesus at all for joy. Sometimes these people are even happier than most Christians. But it is short-lived. Something happens in their life that they don’t expect, and everything is wrecked, and they don’t understand why. Jesus was sometimes very sorrowful and sad, especially when he went to the cross. But he had sadness first and joy later. So like Jesus, we have sadness and suffering first, and then eternal joy which Jesus promises us comes afterwards. Jesus shares with his people not just any joy, but his own joy: that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

So Jesus says: This is my commandment, that you love another as I have loved you. Jesus has loved us, by dying on the cross, and saving us completely freely, without any contribution from us. And we see here that Jesus commandment to love one another comes from the wonderful way in which he has loved us. He loves us even though we don’t deserve it and we have really treated him terribly, and so also even when we hurt each other and treat each other badly, Jesus calls us to love one another, to model and picture that love which he has shown us. Sometimes this love is very difficult for us, but it is this kind of love that Jesus shows to us all the time, and which is continually pumped into us because we are his branches connected to him, the vine.

Now, Jesus goes on to show exactly what this kind of love looks like. He says: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Jesus’ love is not just a sentimental, emotional, soppy love, like from a love story on some kind of soap opera. Jesus is not a man of feelings and sentiments and warm fuzzies, but he is a man of action. He speaks the truth, and then he acts upon it. And what is this wonderful act of love that he has done for us? He laid down his life for us. Jesus says: The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Here he says: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Jesus sees what needs to be done for us, and he does it.

But Jesus doesn’t die for his friends, for people who already love him. St Paul says: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. When Jesus dies, then he makes us his friends, even though we were his enemies. So he says: You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. In ancient times, a friend of a king was like a member of his cabinet, or inner circle. A servant is just told to do something without thinking. But Jesus tells his apostles everything, and the apostles then preached and wrote it out for our benefit.

Jesus’ friends are the people to whom he has told everything. All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. When the apostle Paul was preaching once, he said: I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Jesus didn’t shrink from telling everything to the apostles, and Paul and the other apostles didn’t shrink from passing everything on from Jesus. Even in the church, we continually pass everything on. Jesus says: teach them to observe everything I have commanded you. In the church, we pass on everything—the law and the gospel—the things we should do and not do, and the things we should believe. We are Jesus’ friends, and we learn his teaching and his doctrine, we grow in love, and we tell it to others. And this is how Christian friendship grows: we talk about everything there is to know in the Scriptures, just as Jesus told his disciples everything from God the Father’s own heart and mouth.

Jesus says: You are my friends if you do what I command you. We often hear this as meaning that we are only Jesus’ friends when we do good works. If our good works are not perfect as Jesus commands us, then we are not his friends. But Jesus has also commanded us to pray: Forgive us our sins. We also do his commandments not when we simply follow his laws, but also when in all of our failures we continually bring our sins to him and receive his forgiveness. Jesus also commands us to believe the good news, and we are his friends when in all our sinfulness, we believe these pure words of forgiveness which he speaks to us.

And so Jesus says: 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, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you. When we think about making friends, we often think about choosing friends. Some Christians often think that they became a Christian by choosing to follow Jesus. There’s even an old song: “I have decided to follow Jesus”! But it is not us who have chosen to follow Jesus, it is Jesus who chose us to follow him. Even with the apostles, we read about how Jesus went to them and said: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men! He chose them, and so also through his word and holy baptism, Jesus also chose you to be his disciple and to follow him.

As Jesus’ friends, we learn and talk about all his words in the Scripture—he has hidden no secrets from us. Jesus chose and appointed these disciples, and he has chosen and appointed you, not to accomplish nothing, but to bear fruit, and fruit that will last, that will remain, that will abide. As soon as you and I are taken out of the picture, the living words of Jesus and the Holy Spirit will continue. The Holy Spirit will continue to work long after we have died. We human beings won’t last, but the fruit that has been produced from Jesus the vine will continue to abide until the very last days of this world.

Jesus says: So that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you. As we learn Christ’s word and grow in Christian love, we also grow in prayer. Prayer is also a fruit of faith—when we in faith see our own need and look to God, then our faith produces the fruit of prayer. Jesus says: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you. We might look at many prayers we have asked, and they seem to be unanswered, even some of those prayers that we have asked from such a state of desperation and helplessness and despair. God was our only help, and even then he didn’t seem to help.

But Jesus and the Father know what we need so much better than we do. Little children ask their parents for such ridiculous things like trains and aeroplanes and pet ponies. We are such little children when it comes to prayer. We stumble and stammer, and God knows what we need. And he will give us whatever we need to serve him in his kingdom. His ways are often above our ways, and we don’t understand why he gives someone something and doesn’t give someone something else. But we simply ask in Jesus’ name, and if it glorifies that holy name of Jesus, God will give it to us. He gives us so much that we so often don’t notice or even thank him for. The most wonderful thing he gives us is the precious gift of making us friends of his own son, and grafting us onto this vine, so that we may produce wonderful rich fruit.

And so let’s thank Jesus for this wonderful message that he gives us today. Let’s thank him for the wonderful words of forgiveness that he continually speaks to us, because of his death on the cross. We thank you for the way in which he comes and dwells with us and in us, and connects us so intimately to himself like branches on a vine. And we pray in his name that we may continually learn his word, learn his perfect sacrificial love, and ask him to use us in his kingdom in whatever way he sees fit. Jesus says: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Amen.

Dear Jesus, our true vine, use us, your branches, to bear fruit, and fruit that will abide. Let your Father be glorified in us, so that we may bear much fruit not to our glory, but to his glory. Into your hands, dear Jesus, we commend our bodies, our souls, our minds and our spirits. Amen.

Easter V [Acts 8:25-40] (29-April-2018)

This sermon was preached at the Parish Picnic at the Lions' Park in Biggenden, 10am, and Woodgate Community Hall, Woodgate, 5pm. 

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

Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today in our sermon, we’re going to take a little break from our normal focus on the Gospels, and focus on our first reading from the book of Acts, which tells about the ministry of the evangelist Philip and the conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch. It’s a very interesting and rich passage, and it’s very helpful for us today, as many Christians like us would like to see many more people convert to the Christian faith, possibly like this man in our reading.

Now we read today about Philip. The book of Acts tells us what happened in the church after Jesus ascended into heaven, and we read about many key events as the church began to grow. In Acts 6, we read about seven men who were chosen to help the apostles and share their work, so that the apostles could dedicate themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. Philip was one of these men, and so was Stephen. Stephen was stoned to death, and after this time, there was a great persecution of Christians, and many people were forced out of Jerusalem. Philip was caught up in all of this, and ended up going to Samaria, and then we come to our reading today.

So we read: An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza”. And it says: This is a desert place. Humanly speaking, it doesn’t seem like Philip is about to embark on a very fruitful mission trip. Why would the angel send Philip out into the middle of nowhere? Often people think about mission in a wrong way. They think we need to plant a church in an area where there is a new booming housing development, or something like that. They think of the church like a secular business. Philip does not go to an area which is “financially clever”. Instead, he simply goes where God wants him to go.

We read: And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. We read that he was an Ethiopian…a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. Candace was the title of the queens in an area of ancient Ethiopia, on the river Nile, called Meroë. This area today would be in the northern part of Sudan. The ruins of ancient Meroë are still there. It also says he was a eunuch. A eunuch usually refers to a man who has been castrated, and in many ancient cultures, this was done to court officials and soldiers. And because of this, the man himself probably had a high-pitched voice, like a boy, which is why it was probably obvious that he was a eunuch.

So Philip comes across this strange, wealthy man from a far-away country. In Acts chapter 1, Jesus says to his apostles: You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. In the book of Acts, we see this start to happen. The gospel is first preached in Jerusalem, and then when the persecution happens, the Gospel moves out to Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. At the end of Acts, Paul preaches the gospel in Rome. Here the Gospel was probably spread through this man back to Ethiopia. You can see the Gospel moving to the ends of the earth.

But also, in the book of Genesis, we read that Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth, and from these three sons the entire human race would have descended. The Jews were descended from Shem. But the Ethiopians, or the people from the kingdom of Cush, were descended from Ham. So as the Gospel moves from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, we also see the Gospel moving from the Jews, the descendants of Shem, to the descendants of Ham and Japheth. The Gospel is moving from the Jews to the whole human race.

So we read: The Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Today it’s common for people when we’re reading the bible, not to ask, “What does it mean?” but “What does it mean to you?” Now this can be dangerous, because people think that they can twist the bible to make it say anything. But St Peter writes: No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

St Paul also says that all Scripture is inspired by God. This means that all of the bible was written by people, by human beings, but those people were all inspired by God, and lead along by the Holy Spirit. Here the Ethiopian man is reading Isaiah. Isaiah wrote this book, and it has Isaiah’s personality all over it, and it’s different from reading other prophets like Daniel or Jeremiah. And yet, the Holy Spirit inspired Isaiah and Daniel and Jeremiah, and all the other biblical authors, so that their word is not just a human word, but it is the word of God. St Paul says in 1 Thessalonians: When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

So for every book of the bible, we have two authors: we have the human author, in this case, the prophet Isaiah, and God himself, the Holy Spirit. Now, if someone writes something in the newspaper or a book, and we don’t understand what they mean, technically we could write to them or ring them, and simply ask what they meant. When a writer dies, we can’t do this anymore. So here, the prophet Isaiah is dead, but the other author of the book is the Holy Spirit, and he is still alive. And so we can still “ring up” the Holy Spirit if you like, and ask him to help us understand the Scriptures. Also, many times the Holy Spirit blesses particular people with a special gift of interpretation, and this is what happens here. Philip is an experienced interpreter of the Scripture, and the Ethiopian recognises this, and invites him to help him understand what he is reading.

We read: Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. Here we see how the Holy Spirit opens the door and gives Philip a wonderful opportunity to talk to him about Jesus, and from this text.

We see here how Philip carries out what Jesus had said: teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Philip teaches the man. The passage from Isaiah speaks about Jesus like a sheep led to the slaughter, not opening his mouth. Jesus is our sacrificial lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who makes atonement and full payment for all of our sins. When he was on trial, he remained silent, even though with one little word, he could have brought the whole thing to an end. We see how on the cross, his life is taken away from the earth. Jesus stretched out his hands on the cross, and breathed his last breath.

One of the most amazing things about the bible is the way in which we see such wonderful clear prophecies about the life of Jesus in the Old Testament. Two passages especially are Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, which the Ethiopian man was reading. You can’t help but read these two chapters and see how Jesus’ suffering and death is described in explicit detail. And yet, Psalm 22 was written around 1000 years before Jesus, and Isaiah 53 was written around 800 years before Jesus.

Psalm 22 says: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus prays these words himself on the cross. It says: All who see me mock me: “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him!” These are the exact words that people said when they mocked Jesus on the cross. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongues sticks to my jaws. Jesus’ mouth is parched when he says: I thirst. They divide my garments among them, and for clothing they cast lots. The Roman soldiers really did cast lots for Jesus clothes. But then if we go to Isaiah 53, it says: He had no form or majesty that we should look at him. Jesus face and appearance were disfigured through the torture he endured. He was a man of sorrows. We see Jesus deeply sorrowful in the Garden of Gethsemane. It says: He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, with his wounds we are healed. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. I could read so much more of this chapter, but we can see how clearly this chapter speaks of Jesus 800 years in advance.

Philip had many opportunities to speak about Jesus from this chapter that the eunuch was reading. But then as they were travelling along, it says: they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What presents me from being baptised?” There is something very special about this Ethiopian man. He doesn’t go away to think about it, he doesn’t weigh up his world-view or philosophy. He simply believes what Philip says to him, and he wants to be baptised immediately. It’s just like when Jesus says to Matthew, Follow me, and he immediately rose and followed him. When the eunuch hears Philip speak about Jesus, he is hearing Jesus himself, just as Jesus promised: I am with you always to the end of the age. Whoever receives you, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives the one who sent me.

Today, there are many churches that just don’t care about baptism very much. And sometimes we meet Christians who have gone to church for years, and were never baptised. In the New Testament, this just doesn’t happen. The eunuch here understands that being a Christian means being baptised, and being baptised means being a Christian. Period.

Sometimes someone might ask you: When did you become a Christian? Most Lutherans would say: When I was baptised. This eunuch would have said the same thing too. Maybe he was actually converted a few minutes before, but it doesn’t matter. The problem today is that many people put all the emphasis on their personal conversion in their heart. Now it is important that we are all converted, and that we are not just simply hypocritical Christians who go through the motions. However, it is common to hear Christians say that they became a Christian when they made a decision to follow Jesus.

Now the problem with this is that our decisions always have our sinful motives all mixed up with them. A young person might go to a youth camp and drinks far too much lemonade, and then later on that night, they give their heart to Jesus. Then later, they think: was I being genuine, or was it the lemonade talking? When people look to the heart, they start to doubt. But baptism is a solid rock, because it’s not your work; it’s God’s work. If you want to become a citizen of America or Indonesia, or whatever country, you can’t just decide to become one. You have to be received by those countries as a citizen. And so in conversion, we don’t simply choose to follow Jesus, because even our choices are corrupt. The Holy Spirit has to convert our will and our choices too. In baptism, Jesus receives us into his kingdom as a full citizen, and then we know that we belong to his heavenly country. The eunuch is our passage is a citizen of his own home country, Ethiopia, and works for a wealthy queen, but then after listening to Philip, he asks to become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, with Jesus the Son of God as his king. This baptism is the solid rock then on which he builds his faith. His faith may waver and sway in strength from day to day, but Jesus and his baptism will never move.

Also, even though the eunuch was reading the Scripture, his heart was still closed to it. It was an angel who sent Philip. The Holy Spirit urged and prompted Philip to go and meet this Ethiopian eunuch. God was the one who took the action in converting this man, and without that action of God, nothing could be done. You remember Lazarus was dead in the tomb for four days. He didn’t choose to rise from the dead. It was Jesus who chose to go there, and to raise him up. The dead man didn’t exert himself at all—he was dead! So also, Philip meets this man, with a dead mind, who couldn’t understand the Scripture without the Holy Spirit’s help. And he teaches him, he baptises him, and the man is raised from the dead.

Ethiopia today, by the way, has one of the largest populations of Christians in the world. It has 40 million members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and there are even 9 million Lutherans in that country, making it the largest Lutheran church body in the world. It is often said that this Ethiopian eunuch was the first then to bring the Gospel back to his own country. A man who was physically made a slave to his queen, by being castrated, and couldn’t have a family of his own, now through the Gospel goes home and becomes the spiritual father of a large nation. The man is given a new birth in holy baptism, and is given a new identity and a new calling, a new vocation, and a new task. So it says: He commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptised him.

There’s a wonderful way that this reading ends. It says: And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. It must have been quite some powerful teaching that Philip gave that man! As soon as the man was taught by Philip and then is baptised, Philip is immediately taken out of the situation. The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. I would think that Philip and the eunuch would like to have stayed friends and carried on the friendship long into their old age. But that wasn’t to be. Philip was there for one minute and then he was gone.

Sometimes when we as Christians want to talk to people about the Christian faith, we often make a big emphasis on building relationships with people. Now this is good, but sometimes we start to think that people’s conversion depends upon our relationships with people. But it doesn’t. Sometimes we meet someone for a few minutes, and we can say something that completely changes a person’s life, sometimes when we didn’t even realise it. The Holy Spirit might send us somewhere for a very brief time, and then as soon as we have been of whatever use God wanted us to be, we are removed from the situation, never to see the person again. This is what happens here too. But the Ethiopian is not sad that Philip has been taken away, but it says: he went on his way rejoicing. He has something even more wonderful that his friend Philip, he has Jesus with him. He has his Saviour, his Lord, his Redeemer, his King, with him, and if he has Jesus, then of course, he can go on his way rejoicing.

And so let’s give thanks to God for the wonderful way in which he has taught us through his Holy Spirit, brought us to holy baptism, given Jesus to us as our Saviour, who sacrificed himself for us on the cross, and made us part of his eternal kingdom. And we also pray that the Holy Spirit would use us and send us into whatever little corner of the world he chooses, however insignificant it may seem. Let’s commend ourselves to him for service in his kingdom! Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful way in which you called this Ethiopian man to yourself, and sent out your Gospel to the ends of the earth. We are gathered here today also at the ends of the earth, far from the city Jerusalem, and we pray that the Gospel would still go further and further and bring light and forgiveness to the hearts of many more people. Amen.

Mid-week Lent Service II [Matthew 27:15-23] (28-Feb-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 5.30pm.

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 are 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 an 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 we 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 looked 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.

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’ innocence. 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 be 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.