St John 19:1-42
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
On Holy Monday, as the world watched the great cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris burn, we heard from St Peter’s First Epistle: He Himself bore our sins in His body on the Tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls (1 Pt 2:24-25).
Tonight you realize that the blessed Apostle is referencing the prophet Isaiah. Referencing, not quoting, because the word St Peter used, translated as “stripes” in the old King James Version or “wounds” in the ESV, is actually in the singular. It is the word for wound or welt. A deep gash.
The Roman lash was a mop-head of leather straps embedded with bits of bone and metal. Our Lord’s back wasn’t striped with many different cuts. It was one, giant gaping wound. As the flesh was ripped away from muscle, the muscle itself was lacerated and torn. His lungs weren’t working. His kidneys failing. All of this before He endures asphyxiation and extreme fatigue upon the Cross. Even if they hadn’t crucified Him it is likely that He would have died from the scourging.
Isaiah said that His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and His form beyond that of the children of mankind, kings shut their mouths because of Him (Is 52:15). Our Lord Christ, the wholly Innocent One, is so gruesomely beaten that even Pilate is shocked by the cruelty. Behold the Man is as much a description for the sake of the crowd as it is a confession.
But what sort of evil could cause a man to do this to another man? Even narcissistic psychopaths have their limits. And then, having opened His back in this way, as He is bleeding and dying, in complete agony in front of you, barely able to stand up, to take Him to the barracks, slap Him, spit in His face, and press a crown of thorns down into His skull. How is this sort of cruelty even possible?
In all of this everyone is surprised by Jesus’ actions. Peter is ready with the sword to go down fighting if need be. But he doesn’t know what to say or do about the Man who meekly gives Himself up as a Lamb into the lion’s mouth. For all his bravado, he is undone by the meek face of Jesus, looking at him in disappointment tinged with sorrow.
Judas, too, probably expected Jesus to resist arrest, to defend Himself in some way. But when He is condemned and sentenced to death the betrayer is overcome with remorse and succumbs to ungodly despair. And in one unforgivable moment spills his guts upon the cursed earth.
Even Pilate is surprised by the silence of the Lamb who makes no answer to the accusations leveled against Him. None of these charges should stick. He’s not guilty. But He refused to defend His case. But the Prefect was just as complicit as the crowds. Water, apart from God’s word, cannot wash away his sins.
Perhaps what is most astonishing, though, is that Jesus knew such things were going to happen to Him. He knew. And yet He willingly goes to Jerusalem. He gives Himself over to His betrayer and captors. He receives the verdict, though it is all a sham. He endures the flogging. He is nailed to the Tree. He goes all the way to death. And He does it all willingly!
What are we so think or say about such a Man? Is He hell bent on some kind of suicide mission? Is He intent on throwing His life away? He’s had a lot of followers on and off along the way, but He’s managed to alienate many if not most of them. Public opinions rise and fall like election polls; the crowds tend to be fickle, their loyalties shallow. They’ll eat His bread, but drink His blood? That seems a bit strong.
Even His own family has already feared at times that He has lost His mind. And hasn’t He been telling His dozen or so disciples that He’s going to Jerusalem expecting to be condemned and put to death? And remember how He responded when Simon Peter objected to that prospect? He spoke of His coming death as a necessity, a given, and as the very purpose for which He has come into the world. He has clearly said that He will lay down His life into order to save others.
So, is Jesus suicidal as He enters Jerusalem and His way for the Cross?
By no means! He is not despairing, but confident and faithful. He is not crazy, but trusts in His God and Father. He is not giving up hope, nor abandoning His vocation, but proceeding in the way that His Father has set before Him. He sets His face toward Jerusalem and with steeled resolve and unyielding faith toward God and fervent love for you, He goes to the Cross to accomplish the salvation of mankind.
And remember what it is that first brings Jesus to Jerusalem before the start of Holy Week - the death of His dear friend Lazarus. And when the disciples attempted to dissuade Him from returning to Jerusalem on account of the Jews who were just now seeking to stone Him, Jesus said to them, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. After saying these things, He said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, I go to awaken him. The disciples presumed He meant rest. Therefore He told them plainly, Lazarus has died and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe (Jn 11).
For your sake I am glad. Knowing what lies ahead - all the betraying and denying and beating and killing - knowing all this, Jesus is glad! For your sake. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame (heb 12:2). Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted (Is 53:4).
The fallen world, Judas, Pilate, Peter before the Resurrection and Pentecost, even you according to your sinful flesh, cannot make sense of this Self-Offering, this Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. Sure, you can discern, to some extent, the self-sacrifice of duty, of those who put themselves in harm’s way to save others: soldiers, police, firefighters, chaplains who run into burning cathedrals to rescue relics. We call such men heroes. But in our fantasies and delusions we don’t want this kind of savior - a bloody Corpse on a garbage dump outside Jerusalem. We like our heroes to don capes and carry hammers.
What the fallen world and our corrupt flesh doesn’t recognize, nor can it really even know, is the true glory of the Crucifix. It does not see the bullet that Christ takes, the bomb He smothers and absorbs with His Body. Matthias Grunewald depicted the Crucified One covered in sores, lesions, marked and scarred with our sin, like on the bulletin.
But reason does not realize the ransom He pays to redeem the world from complete and utter destruction; the hideous strength of bearing the worlds infirmities. The Crucifix seems to be not the faithfulness of duty, but the foolishness of idiocy. Not the glory of a heroic rescue from danger, but a futile waste, a misguided effort, a failed mission, a dismal loss. No beauty. No adoration.
Or, at best, the world might think of the crucified Jesus as a Martyr for some cause. His death is some fervent emotional plea to tolerance and niceness. We want our heroes handsome and witty, with personal demons and emotional angst. But the Self-Sacrifice of the Son of God disguised in the shame and bloody gore of the Crucifix is sheer folly to us. And seemingly inconsequential. Therefore, the holy evangelist St John, quoting the prophet Isaiah, says, Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? (Is 53:1)
But St John goes on to say that Isaiah said these things because he saw the glory of the Christ and spoke of Him. So descriptive, so precise, so accurate was the prophecy of Isaiah that his text is sometimes called the Gospel according to Isaiah. For He speaks of the glory of the Christ. The Lord high and lifted up, seated in glory upon the throne of His Cross, the prophet standing on the train of His robe as it filled the Temple. It was a glorious death, a powerful weakness. A salvation despised and rejected by a world that cannot comprehend and doesn’t want it.
But to you who are being saved: Christ the crucified, the power of God and the salvation of God. The Lamb who is slain, who atones for your most vile and repetitive sins, rescues you from the clutches of death by His own gruesome and horrific death.
Because He knew. He knew the price and paid it anyway. It was the will of God to crush Him; He has put Him to grief. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed (Is 53). All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself (2 Cor 5:18). For our sake He made Him to be Sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).
Martin Luther once wrote, “The right way to reach a true knowledge of Christ’s sufferings is to perceive and understand not only what He suffered, but how it was His heart and will to suffer. For whoever looks upon Christ’s sufferings without His heart and will therein must be filled with fear rather than joy. But if we can truly see [by faith in His Word] His heart and will in it, it gives true comfort, trust, and joy in Christ.”
He was led out to the garbage dump and quarry that is Golgotha. The abandoned, imperfect stones cut for the Temple strewn about the earth. One likely providing support for the very Cross on which our Lord died. The true Stone, the One rejected by the builders, now made the head of the corner, the keystone on which everything is held, in heaven and on earth.
Including you! Behold the life giving Cross on which hung the Salvation of the world! Do not hide your face, but rejoice with repentant joy, at the Sacred Head now wounded. He is yours. And you are His. You are under His royal train, cloaked in His own righteous robe. You are covered in the holy, precious Blood that streams from His riven side. His innocent suffering and death avails for you. This is your consolation, your shield, when you must die.
For this is agony turned into victory. The Father accepted the Sacrifice of the Son. All that remains is burial. Burial . . . and resurrection. His first. And then yours. Your Shepherd and Bishop shall lead you the verdant pastures of the resurrection, for He has absolute power over death.
Good Friday is not a funeral for Jesus. Golgotha now holds out the hope of victory by the Resurrection of the Lamb who was slain, yet behold, He lives! Rejoice, dear Christians, you who have been marked by your Lord’s crucifix. He has born your diseases and carried your infirmities. He has conquered. He divides His spoil with you. Your Alleluias are nigh.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
On Holy Monday, as the world watched the great cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris burn, we heard from St Peter’s First Epistle: He Himself bore our sins in His body on the Tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls (1 Pt 2:24-25).
Tonight you realize that the blessed Apostle is referencing the prophet Isaiah. Referencing, not quoting, because the word St Peter used, translated as “stripes” in the old King James Version or “wounds” in the ESV, is actually in the singular. It is the word for wound or welt. A deep gash.
The Roman lash was a mop-head of leather straps embedded with bits of bone and metal. Our Lord’s back wasn’t striped with many different cuts. It was one, giant gaping wound. As the flesh was ripped away from muscle, the muscle itself was lacerated and torn. His lungs weren’t working. His kidneys failing. All of this before He endures asphyxiation and extreme fatigue upon the Cross. Even if they hadn’t crucified Him it is likely that He would have died from the scourging.
Isaiah said that His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and His form beyond that of the children of mankind, kings shut their mouths because of Him (Is 52:15). Our Lord Christ, the wholly Innocent One, is so gruesomely beaten that even Pilate is shocked by the cruelty. Behold the Man is as much a description for the sake of the crowd as it is a confession.
But what sort of evil could cause a man to do this to another man? Even narcissistic psychopaths have their limits. And then, having opened His back in this way, as He is bleeding and dying, in complete agony in front of you, barely able to stand up, to take Him to the barracks, slap Him, spit in His face, and press a crown of thorns down into His skull. How is this sort of cruelty even possible?
In all of this everyone is surprised by Jesus’ actions. Peter is ready with the sword to go down fighting if need be. But he doesn’t know what to say or do about the Man who meekly gives Himself up as a Lamb into the lion’s mouth. For all his bravado, he is undone by the meek face of Jesus, looking at him in disappointment tinged with sorrow.
Judas, too, probably expected Jesus to resist arrest, to defend Himself in some way. But when He is condemned and sentenced to death the betrayer is overcome with remorse and succumbs to ungodly despair. And in one unforgivable moment spills his guts upon the cursed earth.
Even Pilate is surprised by the silence of the Lamb who makes no answer to the accusations leveled against Him. None of these charges should stick. He’s not guilty. But He refused to defend His case. But the Prefect was just as complicit as the crowds. Water, apart from God’s word, cannot wash away his sins.
Perhaps what is most astonishing, though, is that Jesus knew such things were going to happen to Him. He knew. And yet He willingly goes to Jerusalem. He gives Himself over to His betrayer and captors. He receives the verdict, though it is all a sham. He endures the flogging. He is nailed to the Tree. He goes all the way to death. And He does it all willingly!
What are we so think or say about such a Man? Is He hell bent on some kind of suicide mission? Is He intent on throwing His life away? He’s had a lot of followers on and off along the way, but He’s managed to alienate many if not most of them. Public opinions rise and fall like election polls; the crowds tend to be fickle, their loyalties shallow. They’ll eat His bread, but drink His blood? That seems a bit strong.
Even His own family has already feared at times that He has lost His mind. And hasn’t He been telling His dozen or so disciples that He’s going to Jerusalem expecting to be condemned and put to death? And remember how He responded when Simon Peter objected to that prospect? He spoke of His coming death as a necessity, a given, and as the very purpose for which He has come into the world. He has clearly said that He will lay down His life into order to save others.
So, is Jesus suicidal as He enters Jerusalem and His way for the Cross?
By no means! He is not despairing, but confident and faithful. He is not crazy, but trusts in His God and Father. He is not giving up hope, nor abandoning His vocation, but proceeding in the way that His Father has set before Him. He sets His face toward Jerusalem and with steeled resolve and unyielding faith toward God and fervent love for you, He goes to the Cross to accomplish the salvation of mankind.
And remember what it is that first brings Jesus to Jerusalem before the start of Holy Week - the death of His dear friend Lazarus. And when the disciples attempted to dissuade Him from returning to Jerusalem on account of the Jews who were just now seeking to stone Him, Jesus said to them, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. After saying these things, He said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, I go to awaken him. The disciples presumed He meant rest. Therefore He told them plainly, Lazarus has died and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe (Jn 11).
For your sake I am glad. Knowing what lies ahead - all the betraying and denying and beating and killing - knowing all this, Jesus is glad! For your sake. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame (heb 12:2). Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted (Is 53:4).
The fallen world, Judas, Pilate, Peter before the Resurrection and Pentecost, even you according to your sinful flesh, cannot make sense of this Self-Offering, this Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. Sure, you can discern, to some extent, the self-sacrifice of duty, of those who put themselves in harm’s way to save others: soldiers, police, firefighters, chaplains who run into burning cathedrals to rescue relics. We call such men heroes. But in our fantasies and delusions we don’t want this kind of savior - a bloody Corpse on a garbage dump outside Jerusalem. We like our heroes to don capes and carry hammers.
What the fallen world and our corrupt flesh doesn’t recognize, nor can it really even know, is the true glory of the Crucifix. It does not see the bullet that Christ takes, the bomb He smothers and absorbs with His Body. Matthias Grunewald depicted the Crucified One covered in sores, lesions, marked and scarred with our sin, like on the bulletin.
But reason does not realize the ransom He pays to redeem the world from complete and utter destruction; the hideous strength of bearing the worlds infirmities. The Crucifix seems to be not the faithfulness of duty, but the foolishness of idiocy. Not the glory of a heroic rescue from danger, but a futile waste, a misguided effort, a failed mission, a dismal loss. No beauty. No adoration.
Or, at best, the world might think of the crucified Jesus as a Martyr for some cause. His death is some fervent emotional plea to tolerance and niceness. We want our heroes handsome and witty, with personal demons and emotional angst. But the Self-Sacrifice of the Son of God disguised in the shame and bloody gore of the Crucifix is sheer folly to us. And seemingly inconsequential. Therefore, the holy evangelist St John, quoting the prophet Isaiah, says, Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? (Is 53:1)
But St John goes on to say that Isaiah said these things because he saw the glory of the Christ and spoke of Him. So descriptive, so precise, so accurate was the prophecy of Isaiah that his text is sometimes called the Gospel according to Isaiah. For He speaks of the glory of the Christ. The Lord high and lifted up, seated in glory upon the throne of His Cross, the prophet standing on the train of His robe as it filled the Temple. It was a glorious death, a powerful weakness. A salvation despised and rejected by a world that cannot comprehend and doesn’t want it.
But to you who are being saved: Christ the crucified, the power of God and the salvation of God. The Lamb who is slain, who atones for your most vile and repetitive sins, rescues you from the clutches of death by His own gruesome and horrific death.
Because He knew. He knew the price and paid it anyway. It was the will of God to crush Him; He has put Him to grief. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed (Is 53). All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself (2 Cor 5:18). For our sake He made Him to be Sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).
Martin Luther once wrote, “The right way to reach a true knowledge of Christ’s sufferings is to perceive and understand not only what He suffered, but how it was His heart and will to suffer. For whoever looks upon Christ’s sufferings without His heart and will therein must be filled with fear rather than joy. But if we can truly see [by faith in His Word] His heart and will in it, it gives true comfort, trust, and joy in Christ.”
He was led out to the garbage dump and quarry that is Golgotha. The abandoned, imperfect stones cut for the Temple strewn about the earth. One likely providing support for the very Cross on which our Lord died. The true Stone, the One rejected by the builders, now made the head of the corner, the keystone on which everything is held, in heaven and on earth.
Including you! Behold the life giving Cross on which hung the Salvation of the world! Do not hide your face, but rejoice with repentant joy, at the Sacred Head now wounded. He is yours. And you are His. You are under His royal train, cloaked in His own righteous robe. You are covered in the holy, precious Blood that streams from His riven side. His innocent suffering and death avails for you. This is your consolation, your shield, when you must die.
For this is agony turned into victory. The Father accepted the Sacrifice of the Son. All that remains is burial. Burial . . . and resurrection. His first. And then yours. Your Shepherd and Bishop shall lead you the verdant pastures of the resurrection, for He has absolute power over death.
Good Friday is not a funeral for Jesus. Golgotha now holds out the hope of victory by the Resurrection of the Lamb who was slain, yet behold, He lives! Rejoice, dear Christians, you who have been marked by your Lord’s crucifix. He has born your diseases and carried your infirmities. He has conquered. He divides His spoil with you. Your Alleluias are nigh.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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