“BLESSED”
Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 6, 2016
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is
covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
Psalm 32:1, 2 (ESV)
When you think about someone you know who you would describe as being
“blessed,” what is it about that person that makes you think of him or
her in that way? Is it because they are relatively wealthy and have a
lot of the comforts of life that ordinary folks like you and I have to
do without? No, if we were to say that I think that we would come
across as being a bit too materialistic and greedy. Do you judge how
“blessed” a person is on the basis of how loving and loyal that
person’s family and friends are? I suppose that could be a
possibility. Or perhaps you would consider a person to be “blessed”
if he or she has a lot of talent and is willing to share all of that
talent with the world in general and particularly with people nearby
who are in need. When you get right down to it, I guess we each have
our own unique standards by which we measure a person’s “blessedness.”
In Psalm 32 King David presents to us an entirely different way of
looking at blessings. Writing under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, he tells us that the greatest blessing that can come to a
person is the forgiveness of his or her sins. I’m sure that that’s a
big joke to most people in our day and age. I say that because it
seems to me that the majority of people in our day don’t even
recognize sin as something that’s real, so how could they possibly
have any interest in or appreciation for the forgiveness of sins? So
that we might be able to grasp more fully what David is telling us in
these verses, let’s spend a few minutes this morning focusing on what
they have to say to us about the greatness of our sin and about the
even greater love of God that He has revealed to us in His Son Jesus
Christ.
To say that our sin is great is so much of an understatement as to be
almost laughable. We don’t often think of ourselves as being very
sinful because more often than not we examine ourselves in comparison
to other people and on that basis we conclude that we’re not quite as
bad as a lot of them are. Even if that were true (which is certainly
debatable) it’s not the right comparison to make. If we really want
to honestly examine ourselves with an eye for our sin, we need to
compare ourselves to the perfect Law of God and the perfect example of
Jesus Christ. That will give us a true picture of just how sinful we
are. You see, God does not “grade on a curve,” so to speak. Neither
is He impressed with percentages--the ratio of our good deeds over
against our sins. Since He is a God of perfect justice, His standard
is perfection, and anything short of that is failure. And not a
single one of us is able to meet that standard. “There is no
distinction,” God’s Word tells us, “for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22, 23). No matter what the current
mode of thought in our world might be, sin is real. It is a deadly
disease that has infected each and every one of us, and we display its
symptoms every day of our lives.
How serious is our sin? I’m afraid that this is something else that
the majority of our contemporaries fail to grasp. Most people these
days, if they acknowledge it at all, consider sin to be a relatively
harmless thing--nothing more than good material for sitcoms. I would
imagine that it is desirable for people to keep laughing at it,
because that’s the only way that they can protect themselves from
seeing the ugly reality of their sin. The truth is that the harsh
consequences of sin are all around us every day. Every time that you
see a funeral procession or ride past a cemetery, you are looking at
the consequences of sin. Every time that you witness illness or
injury or conflict or guilt (or experience these things yourself), you
are looking at the consequences of sin. Whenever and wherever people
are hurting or troubled in any way, they are experiencing the
consequences of sin, because everything that is less than perfect in
this broken world of ours is there as a result of human sin. It all
goes back to our very first parents, as Paul writes in his letter to
the Church at Rome: “Sin came into the world through one man, and
death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned”
(Romans 5:12). Once sin was introduced into the perfect world that
God created, that world was changed forever--and not for the good
either.
But there is Good News in the face of all of this. God’s Good News
for us is that no matter how strong our sin is and no matter how
terrible its consequences may be, His love for us is even stronger.
The blessings that we receive as a result of the love that He has
shown toward us in the life and ministry of His Son are even more
powerful than our sin and its consequences. In the text before us the
psalmist tells us that the “blessed” man is the one “whose
transgressions are forgiven.” But because our world doesn’t recognize
sin, it can’t recognize forgiveness either. It prefers to deal with
guilt by explaining it away or deflecting it elsewhere or excusing it
or dulling the sinner’s senses to the reality of sin. But God doesn’t
do any of those things. Instead, He deals with the source of our
guilt once and for all and He lays it to rest forever. Guilt that is
ignored or pushed aside or excused or in any other way “swept under
the rug” always has a way of building up and surfacing again. God, on
the other hand, exposes us for the sinners that we are with His Law
and He forgives us in the Gospel of His Son. And, unlike humans, when
God forgives, He forgets. It’s a “done deal,” as they say.
While the blessing of God’s forgiveness is free for us, it cost Him
dearly, because our sin is, as the Psalm tells us, “covered.” And
what is it covered with? It is covered with something else that the
world can’t appreciate--the innocent blood of Jesus Christ, shed on
the cross to make atonement for the sin of the whole world. Because
God’s forgiveness is real, so is the sacrifice that our Savior made
for us in order to win the forgiveness of our sins. But most people
don’t want to think about the suffering and death of Christ. They
don’t mind the Christmas story or the miracles, but they don’t want to
hear about the cross. It is exactly as Paul describes it: “The word
of the cross,” he writes, “is folly to those who are perishing, but to
us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).
It is through this offensive spectacle of Christ’s crucifixion that
God has brought about reconciliation between Himself and His wayward
children.
Whether it realizes it or not, the world that we live in is riddled
with guilts and hurts of every kind. Unfortunately most people prefer
to deal with this by seeing themselves as victims rather than
culprits. The saddest part of all this is that as long as people take
that attitude, they will never find relief for their guilts or hurts.
Help comes only in the cross of Jesus Christ, where we see at the same
time both the seriousness of our sin (for this is the kind of
punishment our sin deserves) and the depths of God’s redeeming love
for sinners (for this is how far He was willing to go to save us). By
the power of the Holy Spirit we know this and, knowing it, we are the
ones “in whose spirit[s] there is no deceit.” We live daily in His
forgiveness and we respond to it by forgiving others as well so that
He may glorified in us and His salvation may be proclaimed in our
words and deeds. It is His Spirit, working through the Gospel, that
makes this happen.
Amen.
May the One who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
making us kings and priests before His God and Father, lead you to a
life of repentance and trust. May He also be glorified in the lives
of you, His people. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.
Amen.
“SCENES OF HIS SUFFERING: THE HIGH PRIEST'S HOUSE” - Text: Luke 22:54
“SCENES OF HIS SUFFERING: THE HIGH PRIEST'S HOUSE”
Midweek Lenten Worship III
March 2, 2016
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Then they seized [Jesus] and led Him away, taking Him into the High
Priest’s house.
Luke 22:54 (ESV)
On the past two Wednesday evenings we accompanied our Savior to the
upper room and to the garden. Tonight we observe His first trial as
He stands before the religious authorities of His people. Tonight
Jesus is on trial before the church, so to speak. The Sanhedrin was
the “supreme court” for religious matters among the Jews. It was made
up of seventy respected and prominent men: priests, rabbis, and
laymen. We know that among those seventy there were at least two who
were secret followers of Jesus: Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who
later buried Jesus in Joseph’s tomb. Tonight Jesus faces those who
are charged with carrying out the Law of God among the Jewish people
of His time and place. In order to truly appreciate what is going on
here, we first must understand what Jesus is up against. If ever a
trial were one-sided, this is the one. If ever the deck were stacked
against a defendant in a court of law, it is here. Jesus is first
taken to Annas, who had no business passing judgment on Him or even
questioning Him. Annas was nothing more than a former High Priest who
happened to be the father-in-law of the current High Priest. Finally
Jesus is taken to Caiaphas, the legitimate High Priest. But Caiaphas
holds court with just a few hand-picked members of the Sanhedrin,
waiting until morning to get the whole council to “rubber stamp” the
judgment that he has already made. Caiaphas’ secret meeting takes
place in the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness, as does
all evil work. Everything is done privately, behind the scenes. The
agenda for this meeting is pre-determined: Jesus must be put to death
as a public criminal. It doesn’t really matter what the charge
against Him is. Any charge that works will do. There’s no need to
have an honest hearing of the case or a review of the evidence.
Caiaphas and his cohorts have already decided that the verdict will be
guilty and the sentence will be death, no matter what the charge is or
what the evidence indicates. What we have before us this evening is
nothing more than a legal sham.
Before this kind of court and these kinds of judges the Savior goes
on trial. And what is the verdict? No surprise here. Jesus is
convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death (even though the
Sanhedrin, as a religious body, had no authority to pass judgment and
sentence offenders in capital cases). But there is more than this
going on here. The believing eye of the Christian looks deeper and
sees in this trial what the Savior proves concerning Himself. In His
silence and in His words Jesus proves Himself to be the Fulfillment of
the past and the Hope of the future.
Our Lord proves Himself to be the Fulfillment of the past in that He
is everything that God had promised in a Savior for the world. The
Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah are pretty detailed.
One of these, in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, deals with the
suffering and death of the Messiah. These words seem to take on a new
significance as they are fulfilled in Jesus. As we behold His
majestic silence before this kangaroo court, we see the fulfillment of
Isaiah’s words: “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 its shearers is silent, so He opened not His
mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Jesus proves Himself to be the despised Servant
of the Lord, who suffers humiliation, pain, and even death--all to
atone for the sin of the world.
Jesus proves Himself to be the Fulfillment of the past not only in
His silence but in His words as well, because He openly identifies
Himself as the Messiah of God. Caiaphas had put Him under the oath of
the testimony and asked Him: “Are You the Christ, the Son of the
Blessed?” (Mark 14:61). To this Jesus replied: “I am, and you will
see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with
the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). There is much more in this answer
than what immediately meets the ear of the twenty-first century
hearer, because Jesus is here identifying Himself not only as the
promised Messiah, but as God Himself. He applies to Himself the
divine name, I AM--the name revealed by God to Moses from the burning
bush in the book of Exodus. This response of Jesus becomes even more
interesting when you consider the fact that earlier, when Jesus had
miraculously fed the five thousand and the crowd tried to make Him
king by force, He would have no part of it. But now, on trial for His
life and being questioned by one who is looking for any excuse to
condemn Him, Jesus doesn’t deny His divinity, even though His
statement will result in certain condemnation.
In this trial before the religious authorities Jesus shows Himself to
be not only the Fulfillment of the past, but also the Hope of the
future. This is clear from the rest of Jesus’ response to the
questioning of the High Priest. Jesus goes on to say, “You will see
the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the
clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). He certainly doesn’t mince any words
here. He speaks very clearly and boldly of His future glory. The
story of our Lord and Savior is not something that is confined to a
library of sixty-six books, all written over two thousand years ago.
The story isn’t over yet. In His words to the High Priest He tells us
that He’s coming again with power and glory and warns the High Priest
that He will come again as Judge to make all things right.
This future glory--this second coming of Christ--is our future hope.
It is our future hope because when He comes in majesty, He will summon
to Himself all those who believe in Him. This is our only hope for
deliverance from the difficulties of this world--this “vale of tears,”
or “valley of sorrow” as Luther calls it in his catechism (Small
Catechism, explanation of the Seventh Petition of the Lord’s Prayer).
When the Lord comes back to take us home, nothing will ever come
between the Redeemer and the redeemed. He will take them to Himself,
comforting them and caring for them forever, as John the evangelist
describes it in his Revelation: “The Lamb in the midst of the throne
will be their Shepherd,” he writes, “and He will guide them to springs
of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”
(Revelation 7:17). He who has fulfilled all of God’s promises of the
past will also fulfill all of His promises of the future--the promises
that He makes even now to those who put their trust in Him.
In this trial of our Lord and Savior we hear His silence and His
words. He is silent on His own behalf but He speaks up for us. He
does not deny the charges raised against Him, false though they are.
He is silent before His accusers, His tormentors, His murderers. But
for our sake He breaks His silence, even though the words that He
speaks are sure to seal His fate. The words that He speaks, while
they may be upsetting to Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, are welcome words
for us because they give us the comfort of knowing who He is and what
He is all about: the Fulfillment of the past and the Hope of the
future for us.
Amen.
May the One who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
making us kings and priests before His God and Father, lead you to a
life of repentance and trust. May He also be glorified in the lives
of you, His people. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.
Amen.