Luke 23:35-43 The
Bible begins with God and man living in perfect fellowship in a beautiful
garden. The Bible ends with God and man
living in perfect fellowship in a beautiful garden. In between those beautiful bookends of life
and fellowship is the story of man’s sin and God’s salvation.
Standing directly in the middle is what we see tonight: the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and the
sin that brought him there and the sacrifice that has restored what we have
lost.
And if we are to journey from one end of the Bible’s story to
another—if we are to go from Paradise lost to Paradise found-- we must know and
believe what the repentant thief knew and believed: that the keys to heaven and a life with God are
held in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus Christ.
The Bible say that: the people stood by, watching.
Dear friends in Christ, we are in that crowd. We are those people watching these events
unfold in the pages of Holy Scripture.
We are those people hearing the accusation of the world against the man
of the cross.
And as we witness these events unfold—and as we hear the words that
are spoken on Golgotha—every one of us will depart from that place tonight in
one of two ways: believing the words of
Jesus that he is the one who holds the keys of heaven-- or rejecting that claim.
God grant us faith to turn a deaf ear to the lies of evil men and
believe the words of Jesus that when we breathe our last, we will enter with
him into Paradise—for there were many that days who rejected him-and his words-
out of hand. The Bible says that:
The rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He
saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen
One!”
When Jesus was baptized and began
his earthly ministry, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
and God the Father proclaimed him his beloved Son. John saw him and said: Behold,
the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In his hometown synagogue, Jesus opened the
Scriptures from Isaiah that had to do with the coming Messiah and said, Today these scriptures are fulfilled in
your hearing.
When
John the Baptist was confronted with the executioners sword and faced his own
death, Jesus assured him the signs of the Messiah (the deaf being able to hear
and the blind being able to see and the poor being helped and the lame walking)
had all been fulfilled.
For
anyone who had even the smallest grasp of the Old Testament, the evidence was
inescapable: This Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of all of God’s
promises to send a Savior for the world.
He was the Christ.
The
religious leaders of the people of Israel should have been the ones leading the
way to bring people to Jesus. But
instead, they were opposing him every step of the way. And what is so shocking about that rejection
of Jesus is that by their own testimony, they knew that Jesus had indeed saved
others: He saved others, they said. And he had!
He saved a sinful woman from being stoned to death by forgiving
her. He saved a widow from economic
disaster by raising her son from the dead.
He saved a broken woman bent from the waist and another with a flow of
blood from a lifetime of misery be healing them. How true the testimony of the religious
leaders at the cross: he saved others!
And yet THEY denied him and mocked him and convicted him
unjustly and demanded from him one sign after another even as he died because
no sign will even be enough for someone who does not believe the witness of
Holy Scripture about Jesus.
When John the Baptist faced his own death he believed the testimony
of Scripture about Jesus and entered into Paradise. The religious leaders who stood at the foot
of the cross rejected it and would remain outside forever. What about the others there that day? The Bible says that:
The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and
offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save
yourself!” There was also an inscription
over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
These men knew what a king was. They served one. They knew about power and strength and the
kind of peace that could prosper an empire.
At that moment in world history the Pax
Romana held sway over the greatest empire that had ever existed.
These
men knew about the glory and wealth and prestige that accompanied the Roman
emperor. But they did not know the King
of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords and they did not have a place in his
kingdom despite the fact that the emblems
of his reign were readily seen.
This
king that was being crucified didn’t rule over some earthly nation or empire
even one as great as Rome—he ruled the world.
He spoke to the wind and the waves and commanded them to be still and
they were.
This
humble king did not rule by force of arms for there was no need. With merely a word he caused a violent, armed
mob to fall helpless at his feet.
This
dying king did not send men to their death by his cold, calculating command--
but rather called men to come to him and have life.
His
royal power gave life where there was death and forgiveness where there was sin
and eternal riches where there was spiritual poverty and true and lasting peace
where there was conflict and hard feelings.
Most
importantly, this king ruled an eternal kingdom that even his death could not
end and he gave places in that kingdom to all who could see him for who he was
even in the face of great evil and death.
The Bible says that
One of the criminals who were hanged railed
at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
As we watch on with the bystanders
around the cross that dark Friday afternoon, perhaps it is these words of the
dying thief that pose the greatest obstacle to us confessing Jesus as the One
who holds the keys to heaven-- for this is the response of a broken and dying
world to our confession faith.
The
unbelieving world around us says, “Fine!
We are glad enough to believe that Jesus is the promised Savior and a
mighty king! We’d like to believe that
there is a heaven to come. But what
about our situation right here and right now!
We are broken! We are dying! We are in need! If Jesus is who he says he is—if he is who
you claim to be—let him change things for me right here and right now and then
I will believe.”
And it is this assault upon both the
goodness and power of Jesus that causes us so much difficulty as we confront a
world that is broken and dying and filled with misery.
But
here is the thing: it is ONLY at the
cross that we see the answer to mankind’s need!
It is only at the cross that we see the goodness of God on full display
as he sacrifices himself for the sins of the world. It is only at the cross that we see the power
of God on full display as he reconciles a world to himself and restores all
things broken by sin. The old Lenten hymn
says it this way:
Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
See Him dying on the tree! 'Tis the
Christ by man rejected; Yes, my soul, 'tis He! 'tis He! 'Tis the long-expected
Prophet, David's Son, yet David's Lord; Proofs I see sufficient of it: 'Tis the true and faithful Word.
There at the cross—in the One who
suffers and dies for the sins of the world—is the sufficient proof that Jesus is
the only one who can open the way back to God for us-- and that proof calls for
our for our confession and faith just like the repentant thief. The Bibles says:
The other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not
fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for
we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing
wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come
into your kingdom.”
Every little Lutheran grew up
confessing that he was a poor, miserable sinner and that he justly deserved
God’s temporal and eternal punishment and maybe we thought to ourselves that
this is just what Lutherans do. But that
confession of sin and that understanding that we deserve in time and eternity
is punishment, is not a Lutheran thing—it is a bible thing that goes all the
way back to what the repentant thief said on the cross!
He
understood that he was simply getting what his sins deserved. He recognized that this is the course that
sin always takes because the wages of
sin is death—not just for the thief—not just for the really terrible
sinners—but for all of us.
But
he also knew and confessed and believed that even in that dark moment of sin’s
consequence—even with death staring him in the face—there was still hope for
him because of Jesus. So it is for
us.
The
rest of our confession is this: “I pray Thee of Thy boundless mercy and for the
sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Thy beloved Son to
be gracious and merciful to me, a poor sinful being.”
Again,
that is not a Lutheran thing—that is a Bible thing—it is exactly what the
repentant thief said: This man has done nothing wrong! He is innocent! Jesus, remember me! And so he would! Jesus said:
“Truly, I say to
you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Those are the gracious, merciful words that Jesus speaks to every
repent sinner who turns to him in faith:
You will be with me in Paradise!
Here’s what those words mean to you and me. The Paradise that we have lost on account of
sin (our relationship with God, our purpose in life, even our very lives) has
been restored to us by Jesus Christ.
He is the blood covering provided by God that hides our guilt and
shame. He is the tree of life that we
can hold to and live forever. He is the
Savior King who holds in his hands the keys to heaven and opens it to us who
cast ourselves on his mercy and confess him as our king. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment