Everything to Do with Me

Texts: Isaiah 53; Luke 22-23

"DO YOU HAVE A MINUTE? I need to tell you what happened to me, only a few months ago.

"Oh! My name is Rivkah bas Yaakov, and I live with my husband and three children in Sepphoris, about five miles north of Nazareth.

"This is the first year I’ve been able to come up to Jerusalem for the Passover. My two eldest are finally big enough to make the journey, and my youngest, I left with her grandmother. And so, I came.

"It was very exciting travelling with the crowd of pilgrims along the road. We were all looking forward to going up to the Temple and eating the Passover lamb.

"We reached the outskirts of Jerusalem late on the first day of the week. Ahead of us was another crowd of pilgrims, singing and shouting even louder than we were. Something about 'Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!' I thought they were just being really enthusiastic with one of the going-up-to-Jerusalem psalms. But word drifted back that it was the rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, who was causing all the commotion. Seemed He was riding into Jerusalem, and people wanted to crown Him king.

"Well, that was interesting, but nothing I needed to get involved in. I had enough to do keeping my boys from getting lost somewhere. Whatever Jesus was up to, it had nothing to do with me!

"(You may not believe this, but up in Galilee I never got around to hearing Jesus preach. I was too busy with the house and the children and all. I was glad to hear that this Teacher could do miraculous cures. But I didn’t need healing. His miracles were nothing to do with me.)

"Anyway, that day coming into Jerusalem, the commotion over Jesus of Nazareth died down by the time we reached the City gate. The next few days went by quickly. There were old friends to visit and provisions to buy for our Passover meal-- I hardly had a minute to sit down.

"Which was why I was so annoyed, five nights later, to be awakened by the roar of a mob, a few streets over. My husband opened the lattice and saw a fellow running by outside. 'What’s all the noise about?' my Reuben asked. The fellow replies, 'Oh, they’ve arrested Jesus of Nazareth for sedition! They’re taking him to the high priest’s residence, to be tried!'

"Oh! That was really too bad. I’d always heard Jesus was a good man. But I supposed it was only to be expected, the way He kept running up against the authorities. I was sorry He’d been arrested, and I hoped they’d decide to let Him go. But I figured Jesus would have to take care of Himself. I wanted my sleep--- and anyway, it had nothing to do with me!

"The next morning, I needed to go to the market to buy the bitter herbs for the Passover meal. I was told I could find good produce at a stall near the palace of the Roman governor. But as I came nearer, I could hear shouting, angry voices from the palace courtyard. I was beginning to think that Jerusalem was nothing but mobs! I asked a passerby what was going on, and she replied, 'Oh, it’s terrible! They’ve taken Jesus of Nazareth before Pilate, and they want permission to have him crucified!'

"And as she spoke, the uproar rolled towards me like a wave and out of the confusion I could hear voice after voice screaming, 'Crucify him! Crucify him!'

"Oh, no. I’d seen a crucifixion once, and never wanted to look on one again. What a hideous, unjust fate to fall upon someone like Jesus! I felt totally sick about it, and hurried straight back to our lodgings. After all, what could I do about it? Nothing! Besides, if Jesus went to the cross, what did it have to do with me?

"But I still needed my bitter herbs. So later that morning, I set out again. I was heading along Market Street, thinking hard about everything I’d seen and heard in Jerusalem, when I came to the intersection with the street that leads to the western gate.

"A crowd lined the way. This crowd was not raging, or roaring. They were just standing in stunned silence, or weeping. I looked down the street and saw a Man, or what was left of a Man, lashed, torn, bleeding, struggling under the weight of a massive cross. I could hear the whispers: 'It’s Jesus, the prophet from Galilee. They’re taking Him to be crucified.' 'It’s Jesus-- He told the high priest He was the Son of Man spoken of by the prophet Daniel.' 'I hear He told Pilate He was our true king, the king of the Jews.'

"I looked, and there on His brow was a crown woven of thorns. Placed there as a joke, no doubt. But as I looked, I could see majesty and patience reflected on His face, struggling through the blood and the pain. And it went through me like a knife: What if it’s true? What if this Jesus really is the Messiah and our promised King? We have assassinated our prophets and kings before! What if we were about to crucify God’s Chosen One? What would become of Israel then?

Just then, He fell under the weight of the cross. The Roman guards yanked a sturdy-looking man from the crowd and put Jesus’ cross on him and made him carry it behind that bleeding, broken Figure. I found that I was standing with a group of other women, most of them from Jerusalem itself. They were mourning and wailing for Him. Me, I was too stunned to do anything but stare. Because it was as if Jesus had been reading my thoughts. He turned His blood-streaked face to us and said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, "Blessed are the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!"'

"There was no vindictiveness in His countenance, no spite; only love and grief for us, for what would someday happen to us. And the thought came into my head, 'Rivkah, you must get your Passover lamb.' Oh! How could I think of shopping at a time like this!? But then, another Voice was in me, saying, 'Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!'

"Yes, that’s what they said John the Baptizer had said about this Jesus. 'Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!'

"And I watched Jesus of Nazareth stumble towards the western gate, with the poor wondering countryman carrying the cross behind Him. Going to be crucified. No-- Going to be sacrificed. Like a Passover lamb-- For the sins of my people. For my sins. For me.

"All these years, I had thought Jesus and His doings had nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me? Oh, Lord God, forgive! Jesus and His doings had everything to do with me! It was my sins who put Him on this road! It was my sins that cut open those wounds on His chest and back! It was my sins that laid that cross upon Him, that cross He was now too lacerated and broken to bear!

"He was my Passover Lamb, whose blood could ward off the condemnation rightly coming on me. Destruction would come, Jesus had just said. But Scripture said the blood of the Lamb would keep the angel of death away.

"But how? How could the blood of this crushed and dying Jesus save me?

"I didn’t know how, that day in Jerusalem. I know now that the cross was not the end for Him. It’s a story you need to hear. But right now, I want you to accept in your heart the same truth the living God burned into my soul there in the street to the western gate: That Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. He is our Passover sacrifice, whose death will keep eternal damnation from us and those we love.

"And now I plead with you, feed on Him in your heart and be saved from the judgement your sins deserve. For His innocent death has everything to do with me. And it has everything to do with you."

Lord, have mercy upon us. Amen.

[Preached at the Tenebrae service, Maundy Thursday, A.D. 2007]

The Stone the Builders Rejected

Texts: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; Luke 19:28-44

ABOUT A THOUSAND YEARS BEFORE CHRIST, King Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem. All the stones for the Temple were precut at the quarry and delivered to the site. We can read about that in the Old Testament book of First Kings.

But elsewhere it’s recorded, that one day a shipment arrived that included a large stone with a very odd shape. The foreman, the construction administrator, the architect, the priest in charge of the work-- they all said, "What are we supposed to do with a botched-up stone like that? They must’ve made a mistake at the quarry!" So the builders had the unusual stone dragged over to the side of the jobsite, to be hauled away with the rest of the rubbish once the Temple was completed.

They went on with the work, until it was time to finish up the great lintel over the Holy Place. The work was all being supported by scaffolding up to then, but once that lintel was done, the scaffolding could be removed and the building would stand up by itself. The workmen looked and looked for the capstone, and they couldn’t find it anywhere. Till finally someone said, "What about that odd-shaped stone out in the rubbish pit? Would that fit there?"

So they went and looked at the rejected stone. They brought it back and lifted it up and sure enough, it was an exact fit! The stone the builders rejected turned out to be the capstone of the whole Temple!

And all the people, from King Solomon to the lowliest slave, marvelled at this. They recognised that the Lord had done this, to remind them that His foolishness was wiser than their wisdom, and His weakness better than their strength.

The builders had meant well. They wanted the Temple to be built. But they’d let their own ideas about how it should happen blind them to the way the Lord wanted things to be. They had to humble themselves and repent. And from what we read of the joy at the Temple’s dedication, I’d say they were happy to do so.

And a song was made, this Psalm 118 that we used part of for our Call to Worship, commemorating what the Lord had done. God’s people sang it every time they came up to the Temple in Jerusalem for the great feasts, especially when they came to celebrate the Feast of the Passover. "O Lord, save us!" the people sang; that is, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

Year after year they sang the song about the stone the builders rejected. Decade after decade, whenever God’s people Israel went up to celebrate the Passover, they sang of Him who would come in the name of the Lord. Century after century they sang, until one year, just before Passover time, a group of pilgrims came up to Jerusalem from Galilee. Their leader, a Rabbi known as Jesus of Nazareth, directed some of His disciples to bring Him a donkey colt from a nearby village, a colt no one had ever ridden, that He might ride it into Jerusalem.

The followers of this Jesus knew what that meant. He was fulfilling the prophecies of ancient Scripture and declaring Himself to be Israel’s King. So they spread their cloaks on the road before Him, to do Him homage and honor.

St. Luke records that Jesus approached the place where the Jerusalem Road goes down the Mount of Olives. As He did, the whole crowd of disciples began to shout and sing Psalm 118 as they never had before: "Hosanna! Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!" Because now they knew, by the Holy Spirit they were convinced that this Jesus was at last the King and Messiah who was to come! His miracles proved it! King Jesus was about to enter the Gate of the Lord, through which the righteous may enter the City and the Temple courts! God’s King was coming! God’s King was here!

But not everyone was happy about it. There were Pharisees in the crowd as well, religious leaders of the people. To be fair, they were looking forward to the coming of King Messiah, too. They really wanted God’s kingdom to be restored to Israel. But it couldn’t come like this! Not now! Why, Israel wasn’t ready! Common sinners were breaking God’s Law every day! Corrupt Temple priests and Sadducees were perverting the Law to profit themselves! And how could it be a King like Jesus? How could He stand against the cruel Romans and their almighty Caesar? "Jesus, Teacher," they plead, "tell your disciples to pipe down! Are You an idiot letting them proclaim You as King? Do you want the Romans to come and arrest and crucify every last one of us?"

But Jesus says, "I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out!"

We can rightly take that to mean that if human voices will not acknowledge Jesus to be King, then mute creation will take up the cry!

But over and over in the Old Testament, we read of stones being called as silent witnesses against perjury and faithlessness. "O Pharisees," Jesus declares, "My disciples must bear witness to Me as King. And if you yourselves do not proclaim that to be true, you lie, and the stones of this Temple will cry out what liars you are!"

And there on the road to the Beautiful Gate, the righteous King Jesus began to cry out Himself, to weep violently, in fact. The people are singing the song about "This is the stone the builders rejected; it is the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in our eyes!" Meanwhile, Jesus weeps over the City and its Temple. For He knows that He Himself is the rejected Stone. The builders were the leaders of the Jews, and oh, yes, they really and truly wanted King Messiah to come. But they wanted a king of their own imagining. A king of their own choosing. They probably could not have agreed among themselves what sort of king that should be-- but they definitely agreed that this Jesus could not be that king!

But Jesus is the King. And His sorrow is deep over Jerusalem and its people, for He knows what the consequences of rejecting Him will be. They could have had the peace of God; instead, they will suffer hideous war. They and their children could have been lifted up to the heavens; instead they will be literally cast down into a living hell. All because they refused to accept Him as God Himself come to be their Lord.

In 1st Corinthians, St. Paul writes, "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles." For the Jews, Jesus’ miracles meant nothing once He was crucified. And for the scientific Greeks, nothing could be more absurd than this story of a common Carpenter dying on a cross and being brought back to life again. They both rejected the Christ God had sent.

But now, woe to us if we think Jesus’ tears are only for the Jews of His day. Woe to us if we think Paul is talking only about Greeks and Jews of ancient times. No, we all fall into one of those categories. All of us are naturally prone to expect and worship a saviour of our own imagining.

What kind of false Christs do we Americans look for these days?

Oh, there’s the Christ of Social Activism. And the Christ of Family Values. The Christ of Pacifism and the Christ of Peace Through Strength. There’s the Christ of Enthusiastic Worship and the Christ of Curb-Your-Enthusiasm. The Christ of Capitalism and the Christ of Socialism. The list can go on and on, and yes, a lot of those things are good and important in their proper place.

But Jesus our King won’t let us limit and define Him! It’s not like we’re ordering a saviour over the Internet, and can send Him back when we get a King who doesn’t fit into our plans! The fact is, there is no saviour besides the God-Man who died on the cross. You must accept Jesus as your Lord as God presents Him to you-- or be guilty of worshipping a false Christ who is nothing but an idol. You must put yourself under the protection of King Jesus, or suffer the judgement your sins deserve.

But how can we see who He is? How can we accept Him?

Friends, our eyes are opened by the call and mercy of God. St. Paul says, "But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." The crucified Carpenter is the King of the Universe! The stone the builders rejected holds the entire Universe together! "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength."

It may sound foolish, but God gives you His Spirit-inspired Word, that you might read and hear what He has given you in Christ. It may sound weak, but He sends His Holy Spirit to your mind and heart, so you can shout "Hosanna!" to King Jesus and really mean it. By the power of His Spirit God builds Jesus into your life and makes you realize that without Him, you are nothing. By the wisdom of His Word, Christ builds you up with all other believers to become a holy Temple to your Lord and God.

But maybe you have never claimed Christ as your Lord. Friend, King Jesus comes to you in triumph today. Don’t put your fingers in your ears and tell His ministers to be silent! Let go of your private ideas of what Jesus should do and be for you! Why remain under God’s wrath? Accept your God and King just as He comes to you: humble, sorrowing over your sins, and crucified and risen again for your sake. Accept Him, and enter into the joy of His kingdom. Welcome Him, and be saved.

Brothers and sisters: Jesus is the stone the builders rejected, and He has become the capstone. He is the Lord’s doing, and He is marvellous in our eyes! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna, amen!

[Preached Palm Sunday, A.D. 2007. Image "Christ of the Boulders" by Paul Judson, reproduced from http://www.methodistretreatgroup.co.uk/interest/bricks.htm]