This year's Lenten midweek sermons are from a series prepared by Pastor Brent Kuhlman, of Murdock, NE.
High treason! Charged with perverting the nation, forbidding people from paying their taxes, and claiming to be a king! Paint the preacher as a radical! An agitator! A menace! Against all law and order! He’s a threat to society!
False charges of course. Jesus was innocent. Completely. But the hatred against Him was so heated. So immense. Let’s see if the governor will fall for it. Especially the charge that the preacher claims to be a king. Make the preacher out to be a danger to the Roman government. The governor will have no choice. And then we’ll eliminate that Jesus fellow once and for all!
But Jesus is innocent! And Pilate knows it. Five times the governor says it. “I find no fault in this man. You don’t have a case against this man.” “I have examined him … and have found nothing in this man guilty of any of your charges against and neither did Herod.” The splendid white robe, although done in jest by Herod, was what Romans put on a man elected to the office of mayor. Even the governor’s wife knew the truth. “Don’t have anything to do with this preacher! I’ve had a horrible dream about shedding innocent blood!”
Governor Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent. And he knows that there are absolutely no legal grounds to sentence the preacher to death! So he plays another card. All right then, bring out Barabbas. You know, the Benedict Arnold. Yes, criminal Barabbas notorious for his treason and murder in the rebellion. The governor will play the odds. Surely the chances are in Jesus’ favor. These Jews, given the choice, will certainly pick the
preacher and send the real Benedict Arnold Barabbas packing to his solitary cell on death row. After all, the real criminal is Barabbas, not the preacher! So, “which of the two do you want me to release for you?”
The governor’s gamble doesn’t pay off. He played the wrong card. Outrageously the chief priests and elders shout: “Put the preacher to death! Let Barabbas off the hook! We’re willing to let Barabbas walk our streets! But not this Jesus! He’s an absolute peril to our children and society!”
Shocked, the governor tries to reason with them. “Look folks. Calm down for a second! Take a deep breath. The preacher may be a little weird. I’ll grant you that. But legally He’s done nothing wrong. He doesn’t deserve the death penalty at all. How many times do I have to tell you?” But the shouts grow louder and louder: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
The governor tries another approach. Maybe a flogging will satisfy the crowds. Surely when they see such a brutal and bloody beating, the intense humiliation and mockery at the hands of the soldiers, they will have had enough, drop all the false charges, and go home. Not hardly! They’re at the point of rioting. “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!
And then Jesus’ enemies pull out the biggest trump card of all – the religious one! “We have a law. And that law is from the Bible. Moses, the greatest prophet of God says this Jesus must die because He claims to be God’s Son!” If you can’t get rid of Jesus through the civil statutes, then pull off a clincher: divine law! It certainly gives Pilate pause. Even frightens him. “Where are you from Jesus? Why won’t you speak to me? Don’t you know who I am? I have the power of life and death over you!” Jesus finally speaks up: “The power that you have over me comes from above. And he who has trumped up all these charges against me and handed me over to you has the greater sin.” And Pilate keeps on trying to have Jesus released. But to no avail.
“If you let this preacher go, you’ll be asking for trouble with a capital T. Caesar won’t like it one bit that you allow a pretender king to walk freely on the streets! So get rid of Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him! We have no king but Caesar!”
And then the unthinkable! The governor shirks his duty to set the completely innocent Jesus free. He washes his hands of the whole affair. He sets Barabbas free and orders Jesus to be crucified! In order to satisfy the riotous crowd the governor buckles. The innocent of everything Jesus is sentenced to death by crucifixion!
“Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” You said it too! You too desperately wanted the preacher dead. You didn’t want Him. He was a threat to your sovereignty. Just like our first parents Adam and Eve that wanted to kill God and make themselves into little deities! “His blood be on us and our children! We’ll take full responsibility! Hand me those nails! Give me that hammer!” Our last-ditch attempt to dethrone God and install and crown ourselves as His replacement! What evil! What treachery! What villainy! What monstrous sin!
And Jesus suffers all of it innocently! Takes it all! Completely! Totally! For you! For your salvation! Scripture puts it this way in Psalm 118: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord made this happen and it is a miracle before our eyes.”
Yes, this is God’s plan. His magnificent, miraculous way of saving the lost -- those offended by Stone Jesus – those that put Him to death so calculatingly, cunningly, and coolly! That’s you. That’s me.
The Small Catechism puts is this way: Lord Jesus, true God and true man, has redeemed me a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, death, and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver BUT WITH HIS HOLY PRECIOUS BLOOD AND HIS INNOCENT SUFFERING AND DEATH!
Innocent Jesus suffers. Not because He has sinned. He suffers on account of all our sins. Yes, our sins. All of them. Every last one of them. He leaves none out. And He bears them in His body all the way to the cross. “The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” (Isaiah 53:6). “He was crushed for our iniquities,” (Isaiah 53:5). “Numbered [counted] with sinners,” (Isaiah 53:12). He who knew no sin became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21)!
Jesus was flogged to set you free from the whipping of God’s eternal wrath and damnation. Jesus endured the crushing fists and stinging reed to His face so that you will never have to experience the forevermore beatings of Satan’s angels in hell. Jesus was crowned with thorns for you in order to crown you in heaven. Jesus was wounded for you in order to heal you. Jesus died for you so that death is now changed to the doorway to heaven. Your sins are His. They don’t belong to you. All your sin was counted against Jesus. God doesn’t count them against you anymore. All is forgiven! Because of Jesus’ innocent suffering and death on your behalf!
“Behold the man!” He has redeemed you. Purchased and won you from all sins, from death, from the power of the devil. How? Not with gold or silver but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. His innocent blood is on you and on your children. In this way: to purify and cleanse you from all sin. You are no longer guilty. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are covered with the Good Friday blood of Jesus. That is the absolute truth!
In the Name of Jesus.
