Good Friday (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

Behold, my Servant, declares the Lord! Behold Him as Pilate presents Him before the angry mob, behold Him as He bears the cross down the road of suffering, behold Him as He hangs upon the tree. “Behold, my Servant shall act wisely; He shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.” Behold, my Servant! He will be high and lifted up, He will be exalted; His throne is the cross. Behold my Servant, and shudder at His agony! “As many were astonished at you—His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and His form beyond that of the children of mankind.” My Servant is this bloody man hanging upon the cross, beaten, bruised, scourged, hardly recognizable by any who once knew Him. This is the One who is exalted, who will be exalted. There is glory there, O my people, there is glory hidden beneath the suffering, and there is glory yet to come. Do not look upon my servant only in pity, look upon Him in love, for He has abundant love for you. “So shall He spinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of Him; for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.” What you heard of this night will be told throughout the world, and my Servant will sprinkle the nations; His blood will cover them. The cross is not the end; remember this as you look upon my Servant in the valley of the shadow of death: I declare that my Servant shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted!

We have looked upon God’s Servant, as God calls on us to do this night, and we hardly know what to say. “Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Who will believe what we saw this night? Who can understand it? We hid our faces from His suffering, from His humility. We judged according to appearances, we judged by what our eyes saw. And what did we see? Not a noble, handsome Savior, but a suffering, dirt-poor country rabbi. “For He grew up before Him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.” He was not born as a king, but to a carpenter’s wife and was laid not in a palace, but a manger. His humility wasn’t worth our notice; His followers were tax collectors and prostitutes, and His disciples? Fishermen. Why did He suffer? Because He was cursed by men and by God, rejected in earth and heaven. “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised and we esteemed Him not.” Only those abandoned by God, cursed by Him, hang upon a tree. We covered our faces when He passed by, we shielded our eyes, because this man died completely and utterly alone.

We thought He suffered for His own sin, for offending our Lord more deeply than any man ever had. But we were wrong. “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” We thought He suffered for His sin; instead He suffered for ours. His suffering is our sin. We were unfaithful, we were rebellious, and we were under the curse. But He was cursed for us. Our sins were a burden upon us; the Servant took them up and bore them away. He becomes the sinner, for us, He suffered the consequences of those sins, in our place. Our penalty fell on His head. “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.” 

We couldn’t even look at Him, for we saw that He was cursed by God; but now we must watch Him, for the curse He bears is our curse, the stripes He receives are for our sins, we bear the hammer that drives in the nails, we placed Him upon that cross. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to His own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” O Lord, what have we done? We have been rebellious, we have spurned our Creator, and this is the result. My God, my God, why have you not forsaken me? It was our sins that caused this suffering, that made the Servant One from whom men hide their faces. But we must watch; we cannot turn our face; this is our penalty placed upon another. His chastisement will bring us peace; His stripes will heal us.

We watch Him give His life into death willingly, refusing to defend Himself, to call forth the legions of angels that are at His command. “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before His shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” When the soldiers come to arrest Him, He declares, “I AM He,” and gives Himself into their hands. We watch as He is spit upon, falsely accused, beaten with the rod and assaulted with the scourge. We watch Him carry His own cross; the instrument of His torture and death upon His back. The One with all power, who had healed the sick and calmed storms, refuses to fight, He refuses to struggle; like a lamb led to the slaughter He does not open His mouth.

In our sight justice is perverted; the very authorities that God set in place to punish evil and protect good put His Servant to death. “By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?” Pilate declares Him innocent yet sends Him to His death; a murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay. Justice is perverted; the righteous one dies as a criminal. And we watch Him die. We hear His cries of anguish, we see His clothing divided, His mother given away, His need to drink. Then we hear Him cry: “It is finished!” What is finished? His suffering, His torture, His agony. His life is finished. “As for His generation, who considered that He was cut off from the land of the living?” He has no generation, no offspring. His bloodline is ended; He has no progeny to carry forth His name. He is cut off from the land of the living; God’s Servant is dead.

But His body isn’t left to the ravages of animals, sun, wind, and rain, instead it is protected by those who loved Him. God’s Servant isn’t disgraced after His death; His humiliation is finally over. “And they made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth.” The innocent one dies and is buried among sinners. What more can we say? “Who has believed what they have heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” He did this for us, for our sin, in our place. All of this was for us; it was the plan of His Father for our salvation. “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief.” God did this to His Servant for us, in His great love for us; love that is driven by nails, marked with scars, and crowned with thorns. Love as fierce as death.

Behold my Servant, declares the Lord! See Him hanging on the tree, wounded for your transgressions, crushed for your iniquities. He suffers and dies for you. But suffering isn’t His end. “When His soul makes an offering for sin, He shall see His offspring; he shall prolong His days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” The One who had no generation will see His offspring; the One who was cut off from the land of the living will prolong His days. The dead one will rise, and my Servant “shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.” You who strayed like sheep will become His offspring, He will restore you back to me. He will produce countless offspring with His bride the Church, and He will see them all, for He lives, He will prolong His days to eternity. 

My Servant lives, and He lives to make you righteous. “Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the righteous One, my Servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities.” He makes you righteous because He died your death; He stood in your place and bore your curse. His righteousness is given in place of your sin, and you are now my beloved children. And as my children, you have everything, all that He won for you. “Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” The spoil is His, for He triumphed over sin, death, and Satan, but He doesn’t keep it for Himself. My Servant, the righteous One, gives the spoil to you; all that He won: forgiveness, life, and salvation. He gives you the very treasures of heaven, and on this Friday that you call ‘Good,’ He gives them into your mouth in the Holy Supper of His Body and Blood. It was my will to crush Him, for you; by His stripes you are healed. Go in peace, you have been sprinkled with His blood. Amen.

Maundy Thursday (Luke 22:7-20)

“And [Jesus] said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this Maundy Thursday comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the twenty-second chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Dear friends in Christ, what is the Lord’s Supper? What is this meal all about? Why did Christ give it, and what does He give us there? We are called upon to ponder such questions as we prepare ourselves to receive this Supper on the night when Christ first gave it, and for my money, Martin Luther gives us a pretty good answer: “It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.” What is the Lord’s Supper? Body and Blood, bread and wine. More specifically, the Body and Blood of Christ Himself. This meal of Body and Blood, bread and wine is instituted by Jesus, established on the night on which He was betrayed, and it is given not to look at, not to simply adore, but for Christians to eat and to drink. What is the Lord’s Supper? Body and Blood, bread and wine, eating and drinking; a feast given to Christians from Christ.

What is the Lord’s Supper? It certainly isn’t our meal. It belongs to the Lord, not us. He controls the action, He establishes the meal, He is Lord and Master over this feast. He sends His disciples into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover, but it is actually Christ who makes the arrangements. “Tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’” He chooses the place, He sets the guest list, He runs the show: “And they went and found it just as He had told them, and they prepared the Passover.” Some set the table and serve the meal, the rest eat, but Christ is the Lord of this Supper. We simply participate, giving and receiving, each in His vocation, each in reverence to our Lord who gave it.

Christ is in control; He has authority over even the most ancient of institutions. He takes the Passover, the feast of deliverance, the feast of salvation, and makes it His own. God gave the Passover; now, hundreds of years later, God transforms it. “And He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’” Israel had celebrated the Passover for almost fifteen hundred years, from the first night when the Angel of Death passed over blood splattered doors, but no celebration had ever been like this. Jesus makes the Passover His own meal, for this Passover is the last Passover; what it had pointed to for a millennium and a half had now come. This Passover is Christ’s Passover, and the lamb that was to be sacrificed is God in the flesh, as John the Baptist had so boldly declared with a powerful voice and a quivering finger: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

What is the Lord’s Supper? It is the meal of the sacrifice, the new Passover, the fulfillment of what God did for His people of old in the bondage of Egypt. On that night of nights, the eve of Egypt’s final plague, lambs were sacrificed, slaughtered, and their blood would save. For lamb’s blood would mark the doorposts and lintels of Hebrew homes in Goshen, and the Angel of Death would pass over, bringing death to Egypt but sparing God’s chosen people, as they gathered together to feast upon the lamb who had been sacrificed for their salvation. Jesus gathers with His disciples on the day of slaughter; Luke tells us, “Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.” On the day when the Passover lamb is given into slaughter, Christ, the Lamb of God, is betrayed into the hands of sinful men. He will be slaughtered, sacrificed upon the altar of the cross, and His blood will save. It will mark His people, the doorposts and lintels of their hearts will be painted with that blood, and death will pass over them. And then, as with God’s people of old, the sacrifice will be eaten by those who have been saved by it; the feast of salvation, once a lamb, now Body and Blood, bread and wine. Death passes over; it has no power over those marked with blood, who have eaten of that sacrifice, for they have a new relationship with their God.

What is the Lord’s Supper? It is the feast which establishes a covenant unlike any other, as God Himself says through Jeremiah: “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.” The Passover was the meal of God’s covenant with His people, His declaration that He had acted in salvation to deliver them, and He called on them in response to be obedient to His commands. God was faithful to His covenant; man wasn’t. Despite all the gifts that He gave to them, despite all the gifts that He daily gives to us, we are unfaithful, we are rebellious, we are sinful. We live for ourselves, separate from our loving creator; we abuse those gifts or refuse to give Him thanks. God doesn’t leave us, we break away from Him. And departure from the God of life means only death.

What is the Lord’s Supper? It is the feast of a new covenant, a new relationship between God and man. The time of the old covenant is over; it has been fulfilled, with all of its institutions. The sacrifices are no more; they have been fulfilled by Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice, as we hear in the Epistle: “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” The Passover is no more; it has been fulfilled by Christ’s Passover; the new feast of the covenant is the feast of His Body and His Blood. “This is my body, which is given for you.” The Body that is joined with the bread is the Body that hung upon the cross to reconcile God with man. The Body of Christ is given unto death “for you,” for your salvation, for your deliverance; His death in your place. “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” The Blood that is joined with the wine is the Blood that was poured out upon the cross as the price of your redemption. The Blood of Christ is shed “for you,” to establish a new covenant with you and your God, to mark your door so that the Angel of Death will pass over it forever.

What is the Lord’s Supper? It is a continual remembrance of Christ’s passion and death for you, for your salvation. As Christ Himself tells us, “Do this in remembrance of me.” But this remembrance is like no other in our world. In the Supper we aren’t playacting, we aren’t simply calling to mind Christ’s passion; Christ’s passion is coming to us, even touching our very lips. The same Body that hung upon the cross, the same Blood that was shed there are given to eat and to drink under the bread and the wine. And the Body and Blood of Christ cannot come without the benefits they won; forgiveness of sins, life and salvation, the fruits of our redemption, given to those who eat and drink. When we remember Christ’s death in the Supper the very fruits of that death, the very flesh and blood of the Lamb of God, are given to us. If we truly understood the great gift of the Lord’s Supper, we would demand that our pastors give it to us each and every Sunday; as an early church father said, “I always sin, so I always need the medicine.” 

What is the Lord’s Supper? The medicine of immortality. Those who feast here in faith will live forever, for here is given the flesh and blood of the One who won eternal life. Here the Passion of our Lord, which we will observe tomorrow, comes near to us. Here the Resurrection of our Lord, the light that dawns on Sunday morning, becomes our victory. Jesus said that He would not eat of this feast until the Kingdom of God comes. It has come, through the cross and empty tomb, and in that Kingdom He will dine with you now and forevermore. What is the Lord’s Supper? The feasting of the Kingdom of God, that will last forever, world without end. In the name of Jesus, who gives us His Body and His Blood to eat and to drink for our salvation, Amen.

Good Friday

What is the cross? It is an instrument of death, one of the cruelest ever devised by sinful men. What is the cross? It is an instrument of life, the most glorious ever given. What is the cross? It is two pieces of wood, hewn from some tree, discarded or used again to put another condemned man to death. What is the cross? It is the eternal declaration of salvation, standing forever to declare that sin has been paid for, death destroyed. What is the cross? It is a moment in time, when the sun was darkened, the earth shook, and the Son of God suffered for all, for you and me. What is the cross? It is the event on which history turns, it fills all history, reaching backwards and forwards to reconcile man with God. We don’t worship the cross on Good Friday, or any other day for that matter; we worship the one who hung on that cross. 

On the first three days of Holy Week, we meditated on the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, and Saint Luke. Today, on Good Friday, we turn to Saint John. In Saint John’s Passion, Jesus is clearly in command of His Passion, in fulfillment of His own words earlier in the gospel: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” Jesus exercises this authority, giving Himself into the hands of the soldiers after making them cower with fear from the thunder of His voice. He tells Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” He gives His mother into the hands of John, and then He is the one who gives up His own spirit. No one takes His life from Him, but He gives it up into the hands of death on His own accord. He does this willingly for you; at the end of the reading this night, as you hear the Passion in all of its excruciating details, remember these simple words: He did it all for you.

Holy Thursday

Holy Week isn’t a reenactment of the last days of Christ’s life. Holy Week isn’t a drama or a passion play. Instead, Holy Week is something much more. It is the gifts that Christ won on the cross coming near to us. Salvation was won and accomplished on the cross; in the worship services of Holy Week, salvation is delivered to us through the Word and the Sacraments. Our remembrance of Christ’s Passion isn’t us traveling to the cross, but the cross coming near to us, with all of its great gifts.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Jesus commanded, “Do this in remembrance of me,” but this remembrance isn’t simply a nice memory or a reenactment of what happened that night. In the Lord’s Supper Christ actually brings His Passion to us. He gives us His Body, the same Body that hung upon the cross for our salvation; He gives us His Blood, the same Blood that was poured out there to atone for our sin. On Maundy Thursday, we celebrate the institution of the Sacrament that brings the cross to our lips. Much happened on that night on which Christ was betrayed, and the action moved from the tension of the upper room to the anguish of the garden, and from there to the courtroom, but the focus of this night is on the great gift that Christ gave as they supped. This is the medicine of immortality, it is the antidote to death, because it brings to us forgiveness, life and salvation, all that Christ won given into our mouths and open hands. The miracle of the Lord’s Supper is the miracle of the Incarnation, it is the miracle of the cross, it is Christ Himself coming near to you with salvation. We remember Christ’s passion, and He remembers us, giving us every good gift, physical food for the journey that nourishes to eternity. What better way to remember Christ’s cross than to receive the gifts that He won for us there!

Wednesday of Holy Week

Someone once called the four gospels: “Passion narratives with long introductions.” There is much truth in those words. The rest of the Gospel narrative moves fairly quickly through the birth and three year ministry of Christ, but when we arrive at Palm Sunday, the narrative slows down, taking us day by day through that most holy of weeks. Then, when we come to Maundy Thursday, the events are described in even more detail, as the evangelists present us with an hour-by-hour account of the sufferings and death of our Lord. This use of time shows us that these events are the very fulcrum on which time itself turns, the culmination, climax, and center of all history. Today, on Wednesday, we look to Luke.

Luke presents Jesus as the holy and innocent martyr. He is shown as dying unjustly, but willingly; He doesn’t seek death, but when it comes, He accepts it as the Father’s will. Jesus is declared innocent by the civil authorities, as Pilate says, “I find no guilt in this man,” but yet He is still crucified, victim to the mob’s thirst for blood. Jesus goes bravely, honorably to His death. He is a prophet, speaking words of warning to the women who followed after Him. “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” He is gracious even to His persecutors, praying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus even gives forth everlasting life, declaring to the penitent thief, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Finally, Jesus gives Himself into the Father’s hands, declaring, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” before He breathes His last. Jesus nobly, honorably gives His life into death, the innocent in place of the guilty, the Son of God in your place and mine. His death wins what He bestowed even upon the cross: forgiveness, paradise, to you, me, and all who believe.

Tuesday of Holy Week

Some people think that the fact that we have four Gospels is a great problem. They compare the narratives with a fine-tooth comb, looking for contradictions, for problems that they can exploit. To them, the existence of four different Gospels is perhaps Christianity’s greatest weakness. I couldn’t disagree more. The four Gospels are a great gift from God to His Church. Together, they don’t give contradictions; they give a full picture of the work and teachings of Christ. Each evangelist brings a different perspective, they pick up on different details, giving each of their narratives a richness that deserves to be explored on their own terms. That is what we are doing this Holy Week, and today, we look at the Passion of our Lord according to Saint Mark.

Mark is concerned with identity, specifically the identity of this Jesus. His Gospel opens with these words, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark makes it quite clear where his allegiances lie. His narrative is about this Jesus, who Mark believes is the very Son of God. The only problem is, no one in his gospel agrees with him! At least, no human agrees with him. The Father’s voice at Christ’s baptism calls Him “my beloved Son,” and the demons call Him “Son of the Most High God,” but no human makes such a confession; that is, until the cross. Mark tells us, “And when the centurion, who stood facing Him, saw that in this way He breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” The only human in Mark’s Gospel to confess Jesus as the Son of God is a Roman centurion at the cross. In this way, Mark is teaching us a powerful lesson. It is only in the death of Christ that we can fully understand and confess Him to be the Son of God, and this death is for all. He is revealed at the cross; there is where we look to see our God, for there He is suffering, He is dying, in His great love and compassion for you and for me. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

Monday of Holy Week

Yesterday was Palm Sunday; we lined the streets of Jerusalem with the adoring crowds and acclaimed our coming Lord. “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” We waved the palms, we rejoiced that salvation had come, we rejoiced that Holy Week had come. Today is Monday, Holy Monday, the second day in this most holy of weeks. Christ is in Jerusalem, the lamb awaiting slaughter, and we wait with Him. We wait, and we pray, we meditate on God’s Word. In the three-year Lutheran lectionary, the first three days of Holy Week are dedicated to reading a passion narrative in its entirety. Today, on Monday, we read from Saint Matthew

Matthew is a catechist, a teacher. His Gospel is organized around five great discourses of Jesus, each intended to lead us to understand the truths of the faith. When it comes to the Passion of our Lord, the discourses are over, but Matthew ever remains the teacher. He gives us signposts, events and words from Jesus and from His enemies that teach us what this suffering and death means. The first is the most important: the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus wants us to view His suffering and death through the lens of the Lord’s Supper. Specifically, the Lord’s Supper teaches us why Christ died. “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” The next signpost is Barabbas, the murderer who is freed in Pilate’s attempt to placate the crowd. Barabbas is you and me; he was condemned to death, but Jesus dies in his place, just as He died in your place and mine. Finally, when Pilate declares himself innocent of Christ’s blood, the people cry out, “His blood be on us and on our children!” In their violent hate, they express a great truth; Christ’s blood does cover them, it covers you and me, forgiving all our sins and presenting us before His Father clothed in His righteousness. That is the gift of the cross; that is what Holy Week is all about.