Tonight
we receive a cross of ashes on our foreheads. The ashes remind us of
God's Word of judgment against sin: “Dust you are. And to dust you
shall return.” It becomes a special call to repentance in Lent.
But a cross of ashes? A Christian becomes used to seeing crosses all
around. We lose the initial shock of what it is. It's a death
sentence. And we get used to seeing empty crosses, not a cross with
a man hanging on it, probably to keep from offending somebody. But
the cross of Jesus Christ is shocking, does offend. Yet today is Ash
Wednesday, the day we begin this season of repentance, where we
remember that Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross, suffered, and died,
and was buried. And we remember why.
Lord Jesus,
Be thou my consolation, my shield, when
I must die;
Remind me of thy passion, when my last
hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold thee, upon
thy cross shall dwell,
my heart by faith enfold
thee, who dieth thus dies well.
Behold Jesus on the
cross!; but behold your sentence – death.
Why
doesn't Pilate [the Roman governor of Judea] why doesn't he want to
put Jesus to death? He says it again and again: I find no guilt in
him. Pilate finds no charge for a case against Jesus – no reason
why he deserves to die. Jesus is innocent 1) of all wrongdoing of
which he's charged. Pilate figures this out. Jesus is innocent 2)
of all sin, though Pilate doesn't know that. There is no case
against him. Pilate tries to persuade the Jewish chief priests and
Pharisees (who handed Jesus over to him in order to exercise the
right of execution which only the governor had), tries to persuade
them of all of Jesus' innocence, so he has the soldiers punish Jesus
and dress him up in a royal purple robe, with a crown of thorns, to
show them how silly their request to find him guilty is. He says,
“behold the man!”, and sarcastically, “behold your King!”.
Even though Pilate has declared Jesus innocent, yet the people began
to riot, so he delivered Jesus to be crucified, nailed to a cross
until he died. But he was still innocent, there was no guilt in him.
A much
better case could be made against those who handed Jesus over –
they handed over an innocent man to death. That's not good. But if
we're building a case, and laying charges, why stop there? Are we
guilty? Is there a charge against us? Is Jesus' death the result of
us? Each of us, yes. That's not good. With God, you're either
guilty or you're not. And deep down we all know that before God, to
say that we are without sin, that we are completely innocent in all
that we have done, would be lying. That's the case against us. Our
own heart accuses us. And the sentence is death. Behold your
sentence. | Behold your sentence – yet in your place Jesus
received it. His death sentence is your death sentence. He is
innocent, you are guilty, and he dies, that you may be set free.
What thou, my Lord, has suffered, was
all for sinners' gain;
mine, mine was the transgression, but
thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall my Savior! 'Tis I
deserve thy place;
look on me with thy favor,
and grant to me thy grace.
Behold
he who stood before Pilate, Jesus, and behold the truth Pilate said
to the crowd and us without even knowing it. Pilate said two things:
Behold the man! And Behold your King! Is he wrong? But how is he
right? John the evangelist wants you to know. Lent is also a period
of instruction for the Church. Christ is the teacher and the
subject, and tonight John is our text. The inspired Word of God was
given to the apostle John. John wants to subtly imply what we find
in his Gospel, that we might tease good things out (It's like
brushing knotted hair. You have to go slow, have patience, slowly
work from different angles. John
wants to subtly imply all sorts of Old Testament sections that you
the reader have to tease out, fully dive in to (to see Jesus'
identity in his crucifixion). He does this subtly, so the language
and style he uses is very simple, but what he writes is very deep.
Because of that John has been suggested to be the first Gospel
someone reads all the way through, but also because of that to be the
last of the 4 Gospels you read all the way through.).
On the
one hand, Pilate wants to convince the people that Jesus should not
be put to death, so he says, “behold the man”, and he means,
“look at this poor fellow!”, but that's not what he said. He
didn't even know he was saying “behold the man” - the man who
will carry the sins of all humanity, the man who stands in your
place. John points us by these words from this man (who is the Son
of God) to the first man – Adam (which in Hebrew means 'man').
John doesn't just want to bring up Adam's name, but the whole of his
life, from his creation to his fall into sin and death. So behold
another Adam, the first one in the Garden of Eden fell into sin, and
all fell with him. This man Jesus, however, is the man, and
will take away all sins by his death on the cross.
Our
sermon series this Lent includes various objects of the Passion. The
first is a crown of thorns. On my vicarage, in a lovely act of
devotion, one member wove hundreds of tiny crowns out of a weed that
wasn't sharp but looked like thorns. This went on a small Lenten
cross display. Simple as it was, it was still a crown. Pilate says,
“behold your King!” He means that he doesn't see a threat to
anybody in this Jesus, but is he wrong? He is the King! John has a
few sections here he invites you to see. One of them is from the
book of Daniel, chapter 7, “I
saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there
came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and
was presented before him. 14
And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all
peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an
everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed. (ESV)
” What did Jesus say to Pilate earlier? “My
kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my
servants would have been fighting.” The glory of this king, you're
seeing it. Don't think of glory like having riches and sitting
around in splendor, think of Jesus' glory as receiving honor from the
Father by the disclosure of his own identity as the Son. That,
incredibly, is exactly what is happening when Pilate shows the
bruised and bloody Jesus to the crowd, exactly what is happening when
he is put to death on the cross. The cross is Jesus' glory.
Jesus
is taking the wrath for sin – in the place of Adam and all who
inherited something bad from Adam! Taking it in a way that reveals
his glory! - bruised and bloody, wearing royal robes over bruises and
cuts, and a crown
of thorns.
The proper
observing of Lent, therefore, is to see our great problem: the sin
that sentences us to death, but also that Jesus takes away our cross
as his cross, our death as his death, and that there is no other
place where our heart and life must rest than in Christ's blood and
righteousness. To observe Lent is to be instructed by Christ
concerning Christ. It is to be instructed of our sin, which leads
him to die out of love for us, to be instructed of his person and
work, that he can do this. It leads us to be instructed of his Word
that calls us to repent, of his Baptism in which we daily live in
repentance, and of his Holy Supper that gives forgiveness, life, and
salvation.
Conclusion: So
behold Jesus on the cross!; but behold your sentence – death [the
sentence he served in your place!] Behold your new sentence – life
from the cross of Jesus Christ. If the cross of Christ is his glory,
then there is no other glory for the Christian than this blessed
cross.
O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief
and shame weighed down.
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns
thy only crown.
O sacred head, what glory, what bliss
til now was thine!
Yet,
though despised and gory, I joy to call you mine.
God
grant it. Amen.
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