Bible Text: St Luke 22-23 | Preacher: Rev. John Hill
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
In the opening chorus of his St. Matthew’s Passion, Johann Sebastian Bach bids us to see. “Behold! Whom? The Bridegroom.” Behold. See. Look. And what follows is not a painting or a sculpture, but a musical feast, a meditation, not with the eyes, but with the ears. For this is how Christians see Christ and His forgiveness.
Upon the cross extended
See, world, your Lord suspended.
Your Savior yields His breath. (LSB 453.1)
For, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.” And, “Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.”
Come, then, and see. Know and understand what our Lord has done for us. Here is the One in whom we believe. It is by faith in Him that we are justified before the Father and have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.
The Holy Spirit wants this Passion of our Lord to be written forever upon our hearts, to be seen with our mind’s eye in all that we say and do, to sink down into our soul, and be the very source of life and joy, righteousness, and holiness, peace and eternal salvation. All four Gospels come to the same, lengthy conclusion in the Passion and resurrection of our dear Lord Jesus—four memorable days. There is perhaps no more fully and carefully documented history of one man in all the ancient world then we find in these four days from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday.
And why? Why such detail? Why four times, not to speak of Christ’s Passion in the Psalms of David, or the Prophet Isaiah, or the Apostles Peter and Paul? Here in our Lord’s Passion is both the source and pattern of our life. Here is our creed and our catechism and our hymn of praise. In the words of the great hymn:
From morn till eve my theme shall be
Thy mercy’s wondrous measure;
To sacrifice myself for Thee
Shall be my aim and pleasure.
My stream of life shall ever be
A current flowing ceaselessly,
Thy constant praise outpouring.
I’ll treasure in my memory,
O Lord, all Thou has done for me,
Thy gracious love adoring. (TLH 142.4)
So let us pause and meditate and treasure in our hearts all that our Lord has done for us here in His holy Passion, that we may ever sing His praise. For here, indeed is not only the culmination and fulfillment of all that our Lord has promised and of all His love to us, but here also is the fullness of the Christian life.
Life begins with baptism. So we are reminded by the mockery of the rulers of the people, “He saved others; let Him save Himself, if He is the Christ of God, His Chosen One!” But what is mockery and scorn in the mouth of his enemies is sweetest gospel to us. He is the Christ, the Anointed One, there upon the cross. He was anointed by God the Holy Spirit at His baptism. He is indeed the Chosen One, chosen by God to be His Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the Son of God, as the angel announced to Mary and to the shepherds, as the Father Himself preached at His baptism, “You are My beloved Son. In You I am well-pleased.”
It was for this death and this resurrection that our Lord was baptized, that He might win for us our baptism into His death and into His resurrection. So now, the Passion and resurrection of our Lord, the telling of our Lord‘s Passion, is the telling of our own baptism and life as the children of God, that we may see with our ears and understand. “On my heart imprint Thine image, blessed Jesus, King of grace.”
Consider the catechism of our Lord’s Passion: Here is our Lord Jesus Christ instituting His last will and testament, His body given into death and into our mouth to eat, His blood shed to satisfy the Father‘s wrath and given into our mouths to drink for the forgiveness of our sins. He gives us His life and love and peace.
Here also in the Passion reading our Lord teaches us to love and serve one another, teaching His disciples to follow His example, “I am among you as the One who serves.”
Here our Lord teaches us the Christian life of prayer: “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.” And when we pray, we pray, “Thy will be done,” as He prayed.
Here also the Holy Spirit teaches us the Christian confession. As the Apostles Paul and Peter remind us, Christ is Himself the pattern of a bold and faithful Confessor standing before the high priest, and before Pilate the governor. The Malefactor, guilty of robbery and insurrection and murder, likewise confesses Jesus with his prayer, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And the pagan, the Centurion, who beholds the death of God upon the cross, makes our confession, “Truly this was a righteous man.” “Truly, this was the Son of God.”
It is in our Lord‘s Passion that we Christians especially see and learn to find help in time of temptation. Judas, the Betrayer, was tempted. The Scripture says that Satan entered him, which is that stern and awful warning that deliberate and willful sin is indeed the admission of Satan into our hearts and lives. So we pray earnestly, “Lead us not into temptation,” that we not, like Judas, “trample under foot the Son of God, and profane the blood of the covenant by which we are sanctified, and outrage the Spirit of grace.” (Hebrews 10:29) “O Lord, have mercy upon us.”
But in Peter the Denier we see the pride of our own boasting and the weakness of our own flesh, driving us daily and hour by hour to cry out, “Lord, have mercy.” For he who said he would go to prison and even die with Jesus rather than deny him, in the hour of temptation, refused to be a disciple of Jesus. “I am not one of them.” “I do not know him.” Jesus had warned him, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.” But our Lord had prayed for Peter, that his faith not fail, that he turn again in repentance. So our Lord constantly prays for us. And when Peter saw our Lord‘s keen and piercing glance, by that look he remembered the words which our Lord had spoken to him, and he was filled with remorse and repentance and wept bitterly. And trusting the Word of Jesus, Peter awaited and received the peace-giving absolution at his Lord’s resurrection. Forgive us our trespasses, dear Lord.
But our greatest help in the hour of temptation is our Lord Jesus Himself. We began the Sundays of Lent by seeing our Lord Jesus, newly baptized, led forth by the Spirit of God to be tempted by the devil 40 days and 40 nights. One might say that that was the lesser temptation and this one is the greater temptation. Or rather, what was begun for Jesus in that first temptation now comes to its climax here in our Lord‘s Passion. He keeps His own Word, “Watch and pray, that you not enter into temptation.” In His agony He watches, and He prays. For in Gethsemane, our Lord already bears the sin of the world, to be carried to the cross and there to bear the wrath of God upon all sinners. The torment of our guilt is beyond measure. He prays, “Let this cup pass from Me, yet not My will, but Thine be done.” And so great is the agony of His temptation that His sweat became as great drops of blood.
Yet our dear Jesus did not fall to Satan’s temptation, but did the will of God. “Yea, Father, yea, most willingly I’ll bear what Thou commandest; My will conforms to Thy decree. I do what Thou demandest.” “Willing all this I suffer.” As the Scripture says,
Then said I, Lo, I come, in the Volume of the Book it is written of Me. I delight to do Thy will, O my God, yea, Thy Law is within My heart.” Psalm 40
God grant that His Law also be written in our hearts, together with the fulfillment of that Law here in our Lord Jesus Christ, that we too may do His will, and not fall into temptation, but be delivered from evil.
But now, behold, see and understand that the great evil, our greatest evil, is our sin and the death and eternal wrath of God which we have earned by our sin. In St. Luke’s Passion, Jesus quotes from Isaiah, chapter 53, “And He was numbered with the transgressors.” Here in our Lord‘s Passion His atonement for our sin is written into our hearts and treasured in our memory, cleansing and healing our soiled and weary conscience.
He satisfied the wrath of God by His death. And what shall we say of the Lord‘s wrath against sin? Some of you have perhaps read this Holy Week the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet. In the destruction of Jerusalem, the virgin daughter of Zion, we hear and see such awful things, sword and pestilence and famine. It was the wrath of God. The prophet Jeremiah spoke,
Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending them. (Jeremiah 25:15–16)
This is the cup of wrath, as Jesus prayed, “Take this cup from Me.” And again,
Behold the storm of the Lord! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intentions of his mind. In the latter days, you will understand this. (Jeremiah 30:23–24)
But, thanks, be to God, these are the latter days. We do see and understand. For we see that the wrath of God, stored up against man, gathered from the sin of Adam and Eve until the end of the ages when our Lord comes in glory, is poured out here upon His beloved Son. “And He was numbered with the transgressors.” He drank the whole cup of God’s wrath.
Here is the wondrous measure of our Lord‘s mercy. His wrath, his judgment and condemnation, are placed upon the innocent Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. “The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, but by Thy Passion men shall share the fruit of Thy salvation.”
He was smitten by God…. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes, we are healed…. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53
And so, it is here in our Lord‘s Passion that we find the forgiveness of all our sins. And in that forgiveness, we learn how to live, and how to die. Peter the Denier, who repented of his awful sin, was forgiven and restored according to our Lord‘s grace and mercy. So also, Jesus prayed from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And the Malefactor, whose life, whose evil deeds, whose black heart, deserved nothing good from God, yet in his dying sorrow, he repented and was forgiven, for our Lord spoke forgiveness to him at the end.
Lord, as you teach us to live in the Passion of our Lord Jesus, so teach us to die and live forever in Him. For here in this Passion are two blessed deaths. The Malefactor receives the word of grace, forgiveness, and life eternal from the lips of his dying Lord and King, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” By His holy, precious blood and by His innocent suffering and death, and by the Word which He spoke that delivered the fruit of His Passion to the dying man, Jesus forgave him, removed all guilt and shame, made him a saint, made him clean and holy before God and the angels and the whole church in heaven and on earth. And Jesus opened heaven to him. Here is a truly blessed death.
So also, O Lord, grant, that we learn in your own death how we may die in peace. For when You completed the sacrifice and work of our salvation, You committed Yourself, Your body and soul and all things, to God, and prayed, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” God grant us such a blessed death.
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. Amen. (LSB 450.7)