Lent Midweek

Matthew 27:11–26 - Lent I-V Midweek - March 12, 19, 26; April 2, 9, 2014

The King Condemned

The office is greater than the man.  This is true.  We honor the President of the United States, not because he deserves it in his own person, but because it is right to honor his office.  He is God’s instrument for good despite any and all the evil he might do besides.  Likewise, we honor our pastors even if their personal idiosyncrasies annoy us, not simply out of charity, although this alone is enough to treat them well; but we honor them because the Office of the Ministry is worthy of our respect and obedience.  Through it, God accomplishes much good.  It is the Means of Grace Office through which God saves us from our sin.  We honor our secular rulers, because we honor good order — we thus consent to the authority that God has given them.  We honor the pastor because we honor the gospel — we thus consent to the word that God speaks.  The office is greater than the man. 

Remember Caiaphas.  He was a scoundrel.  But he had been appointed the chief priest.  He filled the office that God had instituted, the office into which God had once placed Aaron.  He was without faith, and yet God used him to do the work that the chef priest was called to do.  And we just heard what that was.  He was God’s instrument to make atonement for God’s people by offering the life of an animal in their place, by shedding its blood to cleanse them from their sin.  When the Jews were bickering with one another about what to do with Jesus of Nazareth, whether to let him go or to rile the crowds against him, we read what happened in John chapter 11:

And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is better for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.”  Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation …

How well Caiaphas spoke.  He spoke from his office.  But the office is greater than the man.  It was God who spoke through him. 

In the Gospel lesson which we heard this evening, we have a similar situation.  Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea.  He was harsh and cruel; but he had authority.  It was God’s authority he exercised whether he honored God or not.  The question the governor asked Jesus was the question God was asking.  That’s why Jesus answered him: “Are You the King of the Jews?” Pilate asked.  “It is as you say,” Jesus answered.  Jesus was answering God.  He knew he was on trial.  And he knew to whom he must give an account.  When Jesus answered the governor, he was answering the one who had his Father’s authority to condemn.  And it was to this authority alone that Jesus would submit.  As Jesus told Pilate in John 19: “You could have no authority at all against Me unless it had been given to you from above.”

Now, this was not a challenge to Pilate’s authority.  It was an acknowledgement of it.  Jesus knew where all authority came from.  And he himself knew a thing or two about receiving authority from above.  As he says in John 10: “I have authority to lay down [my life], and I have authority to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”  This command is the command to submit to authority.  When Jesus subjected himself to Pontius Pilate, he obeyed his Father’s command to lay down his life.  It is as we sing in that wonderful hymn:

“Go forth, My Son,” the Father saith,
“And free men from the fear of death,
From guilt and condemnation.
The wrath and stripes are hard to bear,
But by Thy Passion men shall share
The fruit of Thy salvation.”                       — and how does Christ respond? —

“Yea, Father, yea, most willingly
I’ll bear what Thou commandest.
My will conforms to Thy decree. 
I do what Thou demandest.” 

Jesus wasn’t coerced.   He was willing.  He saw in Pilate’s authority to put him to death the authority of his Father.  And so he saw what his Father wanted – he saw what love required and he loved it.  He saw his eternal Father’s gracious plan for your salvation.  That is why he permitted himself to be led forth without complaint.  In the same passage from John 10, Jesus says that no one takes his life from him, but that he lays it down of his own accord.  “For this reason the Father loves Me,” he says, “because I lay down My life that I may take it again.”

But how can Jesus say that he lays down his own life?  He didn’t put himself to death.  He didn’t throw himself off the top of the Temple as Satan suggested.  And even when the angry mob tried to stone him or throw him off a cliff, on more than one occasion Jesus used his divine power to avoid such a death.   So how can Jesus say that he lays down his own life when it was so clearly unjustly taken from him?  

We learn the answer to this question when we remember whose authority Pontius Pilate wielded.  Jesus willingly suffered under Pontius Pilate because Pilate’s authority was legitimate.  Jesus agreed with his Father’s just condemnation against the sin he bore.  Jesus bore our sin.  The Father imputed it to him.  Jesus was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, not by Pontius Pilate, but by God, because the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.  When we confess in the Creed that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried, we are not simply placing these salvation events in real time and history – although we are!  But we are also confessing that it was God’s authority that condemned him.  It was God’s wrath against our sin that Jesus suffered, and that killed him.  The office is greater than the man.  Jesus was not lynched.  He was lawfully executed by God-given authority to do so. 

Jesus placed himself under the law and willingly took our sin upon himself.  It’s like the scapegoat who bore the sins of Israel and was released into the wilderness to be killed by some wild animal.  That was the idea.  So also when Jesus was baptized, he took the sins of the whole world upon himself.  And what happened?  God’s Lamb became the Scapegoat.  He was driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness.  But unlike the countless goats in the Old Testament that were torn apart by fierce beasts, Jesus contended against the devil and prevailed.  He overcame every temptation with which the devil tempts us.  He was holy and obedient although he bore our sin the whole time.  He lived a perfect life in order that he might give his perfect life to us — in order that his perfect life might cover our sinful life.  But in order to do this, he had to submit to God’s judgment against our sin. 

The Scapegoat, who escaped unscathed by the devil in the wilderness, returns to the Temple so that he might be condemned on the altar of the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 

There is a reason why Jesus ignored the mocking accusations of the chief priests and elders who bore false witness against him.  It is because their accusations were meaningless.  They amounted to nothing more than ridicule.  So Jesus bore them patiently.  As St. Paul asks in Romans 8, “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.”  Jesus knew who his judge was.  He was not concerned about scoffers.  He knew that the false accusations and insults of the crowd could not hurt him.  But what was on Jesus’ mind?  As St. Paul continues, “Who is he who condemns?”  That’s the question.  That’s what Jesus was concerned about.  And Jesus knew. 

It is God who condemns.  It is God who handed Jesus over to be crucified.  It is God who condemned sin in the flesh when he required the death of his Son.  Pilate fulfilled his office as governor.  But the office is greater than the man.  It was God’s authority that was exercised.  And God’s accusations were not mere insults of sinful men.  God’s accusations were the truth.  God’s accusations were the accusations of the law against you.  And they were spot on.  And you know it, because the law reveals what you hide from the world.  But God sees.  Yet all his damning accusations were leveled against Jesus alone in your place.  And Jesus did not deny it.  Instead he answered, “It is as you say.”  “I am the one appointed by God from eternity to bear the sin of the world.  I am the one who is guilty in order that the world might be declared innocent.  I am the King of the Jews, as it is written.  And this is how I rule.” 

Where have you failed?  What sins does the law reveal in you?  Even since the first Sunday in Lent when your pastor preached to you about how Jesus resisted the devil with the word of God, what temptations have you given in to?  How well have you employed the word that is your defense?  How long have you lasted in the wilderness of this sinful world?  The devil roams around like a roaring lion in order to devour you.  He knows your weaknesses.  He knows your age, your sex, what annoys you, what distracts you; he knows what sins you have been struggling with for years, and he knows what guilt has plagued your conscience even though you have long been absolved of it.  He tempts you to sin.  And then he throws your sin in your face.  He tells you that you are displeasing to God and that God accuses you.  He wants you to be mad at God for condemning you.  He wants you to live as a sinner who hates God’s word.  He wants you to die alone in the wilderness covered in guilt that you can’t wash away. 

But the devil is a liar.  And his shouts are like the cries of the crowd that Jesus ignored: “Crucify him.  He blasphemes God.” – as though the devil cares about God’s honor!  Yes his taunting accusations hurt.  They pierce the soul, even as his temptations burn.  But the devil can do you no harm … if you know that he has no authority.  His accusations are nothing but cheap shots. 

If you want to know what God thinks, ignore the rabble of the crowd and the nagging of your sinful heart, and look to where God’s authority is exercised.  Look to where God’s lawful agent who does not bear the sword in vain condemns Christ to die.  Look to where Pilate posts his crime for the world to see, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” And when the mob objects, he exercises his office and insists, “What I have written I have written.”  So says God.  He will not go back on his word.  Look to where the Roman governor frees Barabbas and condemns the only begotten Son of the Father.  See God’s authority.  And so be certain that God condemned Jesus in order that he might set you free.  Jesus placed himself under the law in order that his own mouth may be stopped and so that he and he alone might become guilty before God.  This is what it means that he bore our sins.  He bore all of the Father’s wrath against us.  There is no more.  You are innocent in God’s sight.  You are set free from all blame. 

Pontius Pilate did what he did by God’s authority.  That is why Jesus submitted.  But then Pilate washed his hands of what he did.   He knew it was unjust.  And he wouldn’t be mixed up with any of that.  But thank God that the office is greater than the man.  Because God did not wash his hands of what he did.  He condemned sin in the flesh in order not to condemn you, in order to wash you clean in the blood of his Son.  He acted justly, because he condemned your sin, in order that he might act mercifully and take your sin away.  And by God’s grace, through faith in this word, we are mixed up with this.  Christ is ours and we are his. 

The Jews cried out, “His blood be on us and on our children.”  They meant Jesus’ death for evil.  But God meant it for good.  By his dying and rising, Jesus received all authority in heaven and on earth from his Father.  And with this authority he instituted Baptism that unites us to all he has done, and cleanses us from all our sin.  And as St. Peter preached on Pentecost to the same Jews who crucified the Lord of Glory, “This promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39). 

This is how Christ serves us as our King.  The office is greater than the man.  But not with Jesus.  Jesus defines what it means to be King because he rules us with mercy.  He rules us through his word and sacraments that give us peace with God.  He shows us what true authority does — first by submitting to it when he was condemned in our place, and second by exercising it when he forgives you all your sins and opens both God’s ears and the gates of heaven.  Amen.