Sermon: Suprising Vignettes
Text: Matt 27:1-54
Occasion: Palm Sunday
Who: Mark Woolsey
Where: Arbor House
When: Sunday, Mar 20, 2005
Where: TI Morning Prayer
When: Friday, April 8, 2005
Where: Providence REC
When: Sunday, April 9, 2006
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I. Intro
Palm Sunday is normally a day of pagentry and celebration. We reinact yet again the fickle crowd’s adulation of our Lord as He enters Jerusalem on that animal of peace, a donkey. Yet the Scripture passages our lectionary lead us to are much darker than that. The adoring crowd is replaced by angry hate-filled faces that lust for blood. Instead of palm branches being laid in His path, we see bone-encrusted flails laying open His back. Jubilation gives way to jeers. The payment for our salvation is exacted, strip by strip from His flesh. The fate of every last person on the face of the earth hangs in the balance. The Bible, as it were, cracks open the door and allows us to view this central event in the history of the universe. The facts it presents are straightforward, but each participant puts a different "spin" on them. Let’s examine this week from their perspectives and see what we can draw from them.
II. Priests & Elders
First, we have the priests and elders who strained at the gnat and swallowed the camel. In their jealousy to rid themselves of a rival, they convinced themselves that they saw a malefactor getting his just desserts. As a Sabbath-breaker and blasphemer He was guilty of the biggest crimes in the book, and they were going to make sure that the Law was executed to the fullest extent. Yet their great zeal was also a great irony. The only way to convict Him of breaking the Law was to break it themselves. They hired false witnesses (Luke 26:59), held a trial at night, and predetermined the outcome regardless of the merits of the case. Most ironic of all, however, was that in disobeying God by sacrificing Jesus, they were actually fulfilling their most important job. A priest sacrifices innocent victims in the place of the guilty to satisfy the wrath of God. In killing Jesus, this is exactly what they did. Yet this does not excuse their deed. Truly, the Jews were guilty of murdering our Lord.
III. Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate had the acumen to see thru the Jewish leaders’ duplicity. He knew #1, that Jesus was innocent, and that #2, He was being delivered to him out of jealousy. He wanted to let Jesus go. Yet Pilate was no angel. Here was the innocent judge, Jesus, standing on trial before the guilty criminal Pilate. For you see, Pilate had stained his hands with blood in murdering Galileans as they sacrificed. Pilate then rules three times that Jesus was innocent (Mat 27:24, Luke 23:4, and John 18:38). Jesus’ own people find Him guilty while a foreigner declares His innocence. However, in spite of his own findings, Pilate eventually condemns Jesus to a most cruel death. Had he let Jesus go as he ought to have, the rest of mankind would be found guilty. As one commentator puts it:
"We could not stand before God because of our sins, if Christ had not been thus made sin for us. He was arraigned that we might be discharged." (Matthew Henry on Mat 27:1-10)
Pilate’s cowardness was our salvation. As a Roman, he points to the Gentiles’ complicity in murdering their Saviour.
IV. Judas
Next we are confronted with Judas. Here is a life that stands as a very sobering warning to us today. He knew Jesus was innocent. He had attended for three years the most highly rated seminary of all time - taught by Professor Jesus Himself. As events around him began spinning out of control - events that he helped put in motion - he saw that he had done wrong. He took the very dangerous step of confronting those seeking to kill Jesus and confessed Him before them. He repented of his sin. Yet it was not enough. He left out one crucial component - he didn’t trust in the mercy of God. Instead of his self-loathing leading to hope, it led to hanging and hell. Instead of trusting, he tripped. For God’s mercy he substituted self-murder. You see, repentance, while always necessary, is never enough. True faith which proceeds from regeneration leads to both turning and trusting.
V. Strangers
Strangers are named as a group even though they never said a word in this whole story. In fact, they are all dead. Yet they give us reason to hope. You see, it is for them that the blood money was spent to purchase a grave yard. Whose blood? Why Jesus’, of course. One theologian said:
"The buying of the potter’s field took place to signify the favour intended by the blood of Christ to strangers, and sinners of the Gentiles. Through the price of his blood, a resting place is provided for them after death. The grave is the potter’s field, but Christ by his blood purchased it. He has altered the property of it (as a purchaser doth), so that now death is ours, the grave is ours, a bed of rest for us." (Mat Henry on Mat 27:1-10).
VI. Others
Others in this parade of people include Barabbas the murderer who was released while Jesus the innocent was condemned in his stead. What a beautiful and clear picture of exactly what Jesus has done for each of His elect! We also see that turncoat multitude passing judgement on rather than praising their King. We see common soldiers, Simon of Cyrene, passers-by, that very curious lot of the resurrected saints, and the robbers between which Jesus was crucified.
VII. Centurion.
The very last man in our Gospel passage occupies quite a special place. While almost all the others should or did know better, they all in one way or another ended up in some kind of denial. This man, a hated foreigner and member of the ruling oppressors, made the highest confession, one that culminates this whole passage, puts it in perspective and gives it its proper meaning. If you are old enough you can hear John Wayne himself as he quotes the centurion:
"Truly this was the Son of God!" (v54).
VIII. God the Father.
Over all events God’s sovereign hand guided even the most minute details. Most of the afore-mentioned people tried their hardest to frustrate God’s plan, yet in their free will they performed exactly as God had decreed. As Matthew Henry says:
"When His friends were afraid to appear in defence of him, God made even those that were stangers and enemies, to speak in his favour; when Peter denied him, Judas confessed him; when the chief priests pronounced him guilty of death, Pilate declared he found no fault in him; when the women that loved him stood afar off, Pilate’s wife, who knew little of him, showed a concern for him."
Although many of these people fought it, yet in their very act of fighting they helped to establish that Christ is truly Lord and Saviour of mankind.
IX. The Invitation
Christ’s blood was poured out of His veins, and His flesh was torn from His body that His death would become our life. Through faith this bread and wine become the vehicle for us to eat His life-sustaining body and blood. His body is true food and His blood is true drink. Come to this most expensive of all feasts that you will ever attend and eat freely. He’s giving it to you.
This is the word of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Soli Deo Gloria!
