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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight is the last of our five Midweek Lenten Vespers services, and so tonight, not surprisingly, we completed the reading of the combined Passion narrative as compiled and excerpted from the four divinely‑inspired Gospel accounts. Each of the preceding four weeks we have heard the events of primarily one place and focused our thoughts on one passage from the reading, in a sermon with essentially a quotation from that passage as its theme: first, the upper room, with the theme Jesus’s words “Longing to eat this Passover”; second, Gethsemane, with the theme Jesus’s words “Not what I will but what you will”; third, the Palace of the High Priest, with the theme Judas’s words “I have sinned”; and fourth, the Praetorium, with the theme Pilate’s words “What is truth?” Similarly, tonight we have heard the events of Calvary, and we focus our thoughts on one passage from the reading, Luke 23-33:
And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on His right and one on His left.
The quotation from that passage that serves as our theme tonight is “They crucified Him.”
Before we get to Whom they crucified and to that crucifixion itself, however, let us talk for a moment about the place. At least in part for the sake of “the historical reality of the crucifixion”, all four Gospel accounts document the place name. Unlike St. Luke, the other three Gospel-writers give us both the Hebrew or Aramaic name of the place in its Greek form, Golgotha, as well as the Greek word Kranion, which has the same meaning “skull”. Most English Bible versions translate the Greek word Kranion to “skull”, as we heard, though at least two versions use the English word “Calvary”, from the Latin word with the same meaning, “skull”. Though we are told the place was outside but still near the city, we today do not know for sure precisely where it was, nor do we know for sure whether the name was given because it was a small hill shaped like a skull or because of skulls’ being found in the place due to the crucifixions’ being done there.
There they crucified Jesus and the criminals. Only the most dishonorable of criminals, slaves, and other offenders who were not Roman citizens were so crucified. The criminals on Jesus’s right and left were no doubt among those who committed serious crimes and gross misdeeds. We might say those evil‑doers deserved to be crucified, but Jesus did not. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate objected to the crowds’ suggestion that Jesus be crucified because Pilate could find no evil in Jesus. Among all the reasons the Jewish leaders gave for Jesus’s crucifixion, we do not find God’s reason: your sins and mine. Your sins and mine, they crucified Him. Our corrupt human natures and the immoralities they produce put Jesus on the cross. Our sordid deeds warranted such a death sentence. Our closing hymn points to Jesus on the cross with this observation:
You who think of sin but lightly / Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly / Here its guilt may estimate.
Truly your sins and mine are great evils for which we should bear great guilt.
Yet, God calls us to repent of those sins and promises to forgive them for Jesus’s sake, when we do so repent—when we both turn in sorrow from our sins and trust God to forgive our sins for Jesus’s sake. Picturing Jesus hanging on the cross for our sin can move us to such repentance. Our opening hymn asked us the following question, though it put it to Jesus:
Do we pass that cross unheeding, / Breathing no repentant vow,
Though we see You wounded, bleeding, / See Your thorn‑encircled brow?
God willing, you and I do not “pass that cross unheeding”, but seeing Jesus wounded, bleeding, with a thorn‑encircled brow leads us to breathe a “repentant vow”. Our Psalm tonight reminded us that, when we from the depths of our sin cry for mercy, there is forgiveness with faith in the Lord. So, we wait in faith for Him and hope in His Word. And, the Lord will redeem us from all our sins.
The Lord redeems us from all our sins because “They crucified Him.” Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie “The Passion of the Christ” in many ways dramatized His crucifixion for us, in all its likely gory detail. Yet, while much of the gore of the movie may have been historically accurate, the Gospel accounts are not interested in the gory detail. One little Greek word suffices: estaúrosan, “they crucified” Him. While other “first-century authors vividly describe the agony and disgrace of being crucified”, the agony, at least, is not the focus of the Gospel accounts. In the Gospel accounts, for example, the nail holes do not even come up until after Jesus’s resurrection! Similar to how St. Luke reported God taking on human flesh—“she gave birth to her firstborn son”—so St. Luke reports His death—“they crucified Him”—and later also His resurrection—“He has risen”. The striking‑simplicity of the accounts of the most‑miraculous events, for some, is evidence of Scripture’s divine inspiration and, for others, serves to focus attention not on the detail but on the most‑important, general facts: Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection for us and for our salvation. Do not misunderstand the simplicity of the accounts, however: our redemption was not an easy thing! Almighty God humbled Himself to death on a cross, so that our sins can be forgiven.
Christians, especially those outside the Lutheran Church but sometimes even those inside the Lutheran Church, can easily get caught up in the person who ministers to them. St. Paul had to deal with that problem with the Christians in Corinth. Instead of focusing on the unity all Christians have in Christ, some Christians in Corinth thought of themselves more in terms of their past or present minister. St. Paul asked them (and asks us) rhetorically, “Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?” St. Paul thereby not only deals with any potential “cult of personality”, but he also at least implies the connection between Jesus’s crucifixion and Holy Baptism. And, we might also note the connection between Jesus’s crucifixion and both Holy Absolution and the Holy Communion, for the water, Spirit, and blood all issued forth from our Lord while hanging on the cross. In the Durer woodcut on the front of your service outline, see how the angels gather Jesus’s blood into communion chalices! In the Sacraments, Christ crucified is hidden behind humble forms, even as Christ Crucified is the true content and form of Christian preaching. St. Paul’s preaching apparently paled in comparison to the rhetorical style of other public speakers of his day in Corinth, but St. Paul made clear to the Corinthians that as Christ crucified is the content of preaching, so the form of preaching is not to be impressive words of wisdom but nevertheless still be the revelation of God’s wisdom, power, and salvation. Thus, we do well to look for Christ crucified where He promises to be found: in humble preaching, in the water of Baptism, in the words of Absolution, and in the bread and wine of Communion.
St. Paul later wrote of himself as being “bound with chains as a criminal”, making, it is thought, a reference to Jesus’s being crucified with the two criminals. As Jesus Christ was crucified, so crucifixion is, in some sense, a part of the lives of those of us who follow Him, even if we are not literally crucified as Jesus was. St. Paul writes that, in the cross of Christ, the world is crucified to us, in other words, we die to the kind of life that belongs to this world; as St. Paul writes elsewhere, we crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. And, bearing our crosses, we are afflicted in various ways that serve to strengthen our faith and purify our lives. Our Office Hymn put it this way:
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure / By the cross are sanctified;
Peace is there that knows no measure, / Joys that through all time abide.
We have such peace and joy ultimately because, as Christ was crucified in weakness but lives by the power of God, so also, St. Paul writes, we who are weak in Him will live by the power of God.
“[W]hen they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified Him”. There is a tradition that holds that Adam was buried under the exact location where Jesus was crucified. That tradition is problematic for a number of reasons. Nevertheless, images, such as the Durer woodcut on the front of your service outline, often picture a skull on the ground at the foot of the cross. If not representing Adam buried there, or the name of the place where Jesus was crucified, the skull at least represents death and is meant to remind us that Jesus’s death for us destroys the power of sin and death over us. Simple ways of communicating important truths. She gave birth to her firstborn Son; they crucified Him; He has risen—all for us. Thanks be to God!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +