Sunday, April 5, 2009
Palm Sunday
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pontius Pilate asks this crowd that has been gathered in front of him “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” This is the crowd that just days before had welcomed Jesus with open arms as they shouted and proclaimed of Christ Jesus “Hosanna!! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David! Hosanna in the highest!”
But now, after some prodding from the chief-priests, this same crowd, these same people are demanding that Pilate release the murdering insurrectionist Barabbas, and that Pilate would condemn Christ Jesus to death.
This crowd that upon Jesus’ arrival seemed so devoted and so enamored, now reveal themselves to be every bit as fickle as, well us. They loved Jesus when He was the latest fad, when it was cool to follow Jesus, but as soon as He fell out of favor, they wanted nothing to do with Him. And we would have been right there with them demanding the release of Barabbas, and the crucifixion of Jesus.
The crowd’s actions are evidence that Christ Jesus was a huge disappointment for them. Just days before they had been proclaiming Him to be the One who comes in the name of the Lord, bringing forth the kingdom of God. With that kind of buildup, how could they not have high expectations? How could they not have expected action? This Jesus is the One who comes bringing forth the Kingdom of God, what else would they expect but instant transformation and instant action?
And is that what they are seeing in Jesus as He stands in front of Pilate? No. Jesus is almost completely silent as He stands in front of Pilate. If you have a Bible that puts the words of Jesus in red letters, when you look in the sections and chapters that lead up to this moment where Jesus is standing in front of Pilate, you see many red-letter words; sentences and paragraphs, almost entire chapters all in red. But as the story gets to this point, the red-letter words almost completely disappear.
Jesus is not saying anything. He is not doing anything. He is not defending Himself. The only time Jesus says something in front of Pilate is when Pilate asks Him if He is the King of the Jews, to which Jesus says “You say so.”
At least Barabbas was a man of action. He was a revolutionary. This is how completely antithetical Jesus is to the hopes and desires that Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem had created in the hearts and minds of those crowds of people who had welcomed Him. He was such a disappointment, their dreams were so shattered that their demand for Jesus’ death was a bitter response to how Jesus had let them down.
Jesus was such a disappointment for this crowd that they had allowed themselves to be manipulated by the chief-priests to demand the release of a revolutionary. Jesus conforms so little to the popular expectations for a deliverer that the Jewish authorities find themselves making an alliance with the very type of person that posed a threat to those in authority-a revolutionary. When war was finally declared on Rome and the temple overthrown, the priestly class was overthrown by revolutionary leaders, like Barabbas.
But this crowd and the chief-priests looked at Barabbas, thinking that in him they saw life, but in reality the revolutionary behavior that he represented and signified merely led to death. But this is the case with us also. Jesus is just as much a stumbling block and foolishness for us today as He was for those crowds back then.
You see even though Jesus says very little in His encounter with Pontius Pilate, what He says completely exposes just how lost the crowds and chief-priests and Pilate were. The one thing that the chief-priests and the crowd and Pontius Pilate had in common was that for various reasons, they rejected Jesus’ answer to Pilate’s question. They rejected Jesus’ declaration, subtle as it was, that He is the King of the Jews and that He is the Messiah and the Son of God.
And that is what unites us with them. For on our own, we cannot recognize Jesus for who He is. On our own we would continue to reject and despise Jesus. As Luther says in the catechism, we cannot believe in Jesus or come to Him by our own power.
But as foolish at it may have appeared to those around Him, Christ Jesus was following the path that was laid out for Him and which God revealed through the prophet Isaiah centuries before Jesus had arrived; Here is our Lord giving His back to those who struck Him and His cheeks to those who pulled out His beard, setting His face like flint, knowing that in spite of what many will perceive to be a shameful appearance-His Father will not allow Him to be put to shame.
And Jesus does this by stepping out in faith. The entire life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus was an obedient act of going forth in faith. Paul writes in the second lesson for this morning that Christ Jesus was born in human likeness. Paul here is giving no doubt that Christ Jesus experienced everything on a human level-all the pain and suffering that comes with being human. Though He was in the form of God and could have utilized that to escape pain and suffering, He didn’t because He did not regard His equality with God as anything to be exploited.
And so in faith, Christ Jesus came among us, and He became One of us. This is the faith that took Him up to this encounter with Pontius Pilate. And it is in this same faith that He was able to remain so silent and obedient in the face of Pilate’s interrogation, never once wavering in the direction of exploiting His equality with God-showing that perfect faithful obedience even unto death, even death on a cross.
You see when Pilate asked that question to the crowd “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” he had the mistaken notion that he was the one in control. In fact in John’s account of this, Jesus tells Pilate that the only authority that Pilate has, has come from God.
Pilate may have thought that he had Jesus under wraps and that by sending Jesus to His death, He was eliminating Jesus as a problem and a threat. And why not?? He was sentencing Him to death.
But what Pilate didn’t know was that by sending Jesus to His death, Pilate was in fact releasing Jesus to the people. He was releasing Him to the moment that Jesus knew was coming; the moment when He would lay down His life, taking upon Himself all of the sins of the world; Pontius Pilate’s, all those in the crowd, the chief-priests, mine and your’s, and bearing the punishment for them all-giving you the gift of righteousness before God, through the laying down of His life-and the gift of your salvation through His resurrection-making of death, the gateway to eternal life.
And the fruits of this faithful act of sacrifice and obedience could be seen immediately after Jesus breathed His last and we hear the centurion say “Truly this man was the Son of God.”
Faith was already being created, even prior to the resurrection. And indeed it would continue after the resurrection as the testimony of what Christ had done for all God’s people was brought forth and countless people were brought into the church of Christ, having repented and believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ; and now He comes to you giving you the faith that the chief-priests and Pontius Pilate and the crowd that called for Jesus’ crucifixion did not have. He has come to you through the Holy Spirit in His Word and revealed to you the glory of that moment that seemed so shameful.
He comes to you in His Word, opening your ear so that you will not be rebellious, so that you will not turn backward but rather turn to Him in repentance and receive the forgiveness of your sin in Word and sacrament, and that you will believe in Christ Jesus and see Him for who He is. The Word of Christ which you hear and is coming to you through the Words of my mouth-is filling you with the mind of Christ, keeping you among His own preserving you until that day when every knee, in heaven and earth and on earth and under the earth will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord-and you will be welcomed home to His glorious and eternal kingdom.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pontius Pilate asks this crowd that has been gathered in front of him “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” This is the crowd that just days before had welcomed Jesus with open arms as they shouted and proclaimed of Christ Jesus “Hosanna!! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David! Hosanna in the highest!”
But now, after some prodding from the chief-priests, this same crowd, these same people are demanding that Pilate release the murdering insurrectionist Barabbas, and that Pilate would condemn Christ Jesus to death.
This crowd that upon Jesus’ arrival seemed so devoted and so enamored, now reveal themselves to be every bit as fickle as, well us. They loved Jesus when He was the latest fad, when it was cool to follow Jesus, but as soon as He fell out of favor, they wanted nothing to do with Him. And we would have been right there with them demanding the release of Barabbas, and the crucifixion of Jesus.
The crowd’s actions are evidence that Christ Jesus was a huge disappointment for them. Just days before they had been proclaiming Him to be the One who comes in the name of the Lord, bringing forth the kingdom of God. With that kind of buildup, how could they not have high expectations? How could they not have expected action? This Jesus is the One who comes bringing forth the Kingdom of God, what else would they expect but instant transformation and instant action?
And is that what they are seeing in Jesus as He stands in front of Pilate? No. Jesus is almost completely silent as He stands in front of Pilate. If you have a Bible that puts the words of Jesus in red letters, when you look in the sections and chapters that lead up to this moment where Jesus is standing in front of Pilate, you see many red-letter words; sentences and paragraphs, almost entire chapters all in red. But as the story gets to this point, the red-letter words almost completely disappear.
Jesus is not saying anything. He is not doing anything. He is not defending Himself. The only time Jesus says something in front of Pilate is when Pilate asks Him if He is the King of the Jews, to which Jesus says “You say so.”
At least Barabbas was a man of action. He was a revolutionary. This is how completely antithetical Jesus is to the hopes and desires that Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem had created in the hearts and minds of those crowds of people who had welcomed Him. He was such a disappointment, their dreams were so shattered that their demand for Jesus’ death was a bitter response to how Jesus had let them down.
Jesus was such a disappointment for this crowd that they had allowed themselves to be manipulated by the chief-priests to demand the release of a revolutionary. Jesus conforms so little to the popular expectations for a deliverer that the Jewish authorities find themselves making an alliance with the very type of person that posed a threat to those in authority-a revolutionary. When war was finally declared on Rome and the temple overthrown, the priestly class was overthrown by revolutionary leaders, like Barabbas.
But this crowd and the chief-priests looked at Barabbas, thinking that in him they saw life, but in reality the revolutionary behavior that he represented and signified merely led to death. But this is the case with us also. Jesus is just as much a stumbling block and foolishness for us today as He was for those crowds back then.
You see even though Jesus says very little in His encounter with Pontius Pilate, what He says completely exposes just how lost the crowds and chief-priests and Pilate were. The one thing that the chief-priests and the crowd and Pontius Pilate had in common was that for various reasons, they rejected Jesus’ answer to Pilate’s question. They rejected Jesus’ declaration, subtle as it was, that He is the King of the Jews and that He is the Messiah and the Son of God.
And that is what unites us with them. For on our own, we cannot recognize Jesus for who He is. On our own we would continue to reject and despise Jesus. As Luther says in the catechism, we cannot believe in Jesus or come to Him by our own power.
But as foolish at it may have appeared to those around Him, Christ Jesus was following the path that was laid out for Him and which God revealed through the prophet Isaiah centuries before Jesus had arrived; Here is our Lord giving His back to those who struck Him and His cheeks to those who pulled out His beard, setting His face like flint, knowing that in spite of what many will perceive to be a shameful appearance-His Father will not allow Him to be put to shame.
And Jesus does this by stepping out in faith. The entire life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus was an obedient act of going forth in faith. Paul writes in the second lesson for this morning that Christ Jesus was born in human likeness. Paul here is giving no doubt that Christ Jesus experienced everything on a human level-all the pain and suffering that comes with being human. Though He was in the form of God and could have utilized that to escape pain and suffering, He didn’t because He did not regard His equality with God as anything to be exploited.
And so in faith, Christ Jesus came among us, and He became One of us. This is the faith that took Him up to this encounter with Pontius Pilate. And it is in this same faith that He was able to remain so silent and obedient in the face of Pilate’s interrogation, never once wavering in the direction of exploiting His equality with God-showing that perfect faithful obedience even unto death, even death on a cross.
You see when Pilate asked that question to the crowd “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” he had the mistaken notion that he was the one in control. In fact in John’s account of this, Jesus tells Pilate that the only authority that Pilate has, has come from God.
Pilate may have thought that he had Jesus under wraps and that by sending Jesus to His death, He was eliminating Jesus as a problem and a threat. And why not?? He was sentencing Him to death.
But what Pilate didn’t know was that by sending Jesus to His death, Pilate was in fact releasing Jesus to the people. He was releasing Him to the moment that Jesus knew was coming; the moment when He would lay down His life, taking upon Himself all of the sins of the world; Pontius Pilate’s, all those in the crowd, the chief-priests, mine and your’s, and bearing the punishment for them all-giving you the gift of righteousness before God, through the laying down of His life-and the gift of your salvation through His resurrection-making of death, the gateway to eternal life.
And the fruits of this faithful act of sacrifice and obedience could be seen immediately after Jesus breathed His last and we hear the centurion say “Truly this man was the Son of God.”
Faith was already being created, even prior to the resurrection. And indeed it would continue after the resurrection as the testimony of what Christ had done for all God’s people was brought forth and countless people were brought into the church of Christ, having repented and believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ; and now He comes to you giving you the faith that the chief-priests and Pontius Pilate and the crowd that called for Jesus’ crucifixion did not have. He has come to you through the Holy Spirit in His Word and revealed to you the glory of that moment that seemed so shameful.
He comes to you in His Word, opening your ear so that you will not be rebellious, so that you will not turn backward but rather turn to Him in repentance and receive the forgiveness of your sin in Word and sacrament, and that you will believe in Christ Jesus and see Him for who He is. The Word of Christ which you hear and is coming to you through the Words of my mouth-is filling you with the mind of Christ, keeping you among His own preserving you until that day when every knee, in heaven and earth and on earth and under the earth will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord-and you will be welcomed home to His glorious and eternal kingdom.
Amen
posted by Steve at 9:35 AM
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