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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 we heard the last portion of St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired account of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so tonight we reflect on what may be considered the “fifth” and final of St. Luke’s unique contributions to that whole picture of our Lord’s suffering and death for us. That final unique contribution? St. Luke’s reporting “Different Responses to the Spectacle”. While our English word “spectacle” might make us think of a blunder or otherwise embarrassing event, the Greek word, which is used only in this verse in the New Testament, suggests more a public sight that is unusual, exciting, or impressive. Although the Greek word is used outside of the Bible for a theatrical show (Lenski, ad loc Luke 23:48, p.1156), the crowds in this case need not necessarily have been seeking entertainment (TLSB, ad loc Luke, 23:48, p.1770). Regardless, after St. Luke tells about the centurion’s praising God for what he had seen take place, St. Luke uniquely mentions other different responses to the spectacle: the crowds’ beating their breasts and all Jesus’s acquaintances’ standing at a distance, as well as the women who had followed Jesus from Galillee’s watching these things, though the women are not only mentioned but also even named at this point in the parallel Gospel accounts (Matthew 27:55; Mark 15:40; John 19:25).
Listen again to verses 48 and 49 of Luke chapter 23:
48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things. (ESV)
Tens of thousands of people are thought to have been in Jerusalem that week for the Passover; but we do not know how many people were in all the crowds that had assembled for this “spectacle” and were beating their breasts. Perhaps those who had mocked Jesus had left before the rest of the crowds (Arndt, ad loc Luke 23:48, p.474), but such would not have to have been the case, since when St. Luke refers to “the crowds”, they were not the ones clamoring for Jesus’s crucifixion but were a perceived threat to those who did (Luke 22:6; 23:4). Although St. Luke refers to all of Jesus’s acquaintances’ standing there (compare Luke 2:44) we need not think of everyone whom Jesus had ever met, nor do we need to think even of many of His Twelve disciples-turned-apostles, but perhaps we should think only of those like Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Council, who is mentioned next, in connection with taking and wrapping the body of Jesus and laying Him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid (Luke 23:50‑53; for example, Lagrange, 594, cited by Marshall, ad loc Luke 23:49, p.877). Unlike whoever the acquaintances were (Just, ad loc Luke 23:49, p.927), St. Luke reports that the women were “watching” these things at the Place that is called the Skull (compare Mark 15:40) and followed and also saw the tomb and how Jesus’s body was laid (Luke 23:55). They especially figure prominently in the resurrection account that follows next in St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account.
The acquaintances stood at a distance, the women were watching, but the crowds, when they saw what had taken place, were beating their breasts. The women watched with their eyes and discerned with their minds what was happening, and it surely broke their hearts. But, the crowds’ seeing and perceiving are expressed differently in the Greek. They were interested and saw with a purpose, like a general reviewing or inspecting his or her army. As a result, they were beating their breasts, like in Jesus’s parable, the only other time the New Testament uses that “beating the breast” expression, for the tax collector who beat his breast, while confessing his sin and pleading for God’s mercy (Luke 18:9-14). And, what the English Standard Version translated as the crowd’s “returning home” might be better translated as the crowd’s “repenting” (Just, ad loc Luke 23:48, p.927). So, the crowd not only confirms the centurion’s declaration (not to mention Pilate’s and Herod’s declarations) that Jesus was innocent but, perhaps fulfilling prophecy God spoke through Zechariah (Zechariah 12:10-14; see Marshall), the crowd seems to add a penitential confession of their own sin (Stählin, TDNT 8:8:266; but compare Marshall, ad loc Luke 23:48, p.877). Some manuscripts of Luke’s Gospel account even put words on the crowds’ lips confessing their sin (confer Metzger, ad loc Luke 23:48, p.182)!
What is our reaction to the spectacle? As we hear what took place, are we disinterested? Or, do we hear with interest? Do our resulting words and deeds confirm both Jesus’s innocence and our own guilt? Surely, God in human flesh, He had no sin of His own but took upon Himself our sin and guilt, dying in our place, the death that we deserved, for us! Somewhat like the base‑es for the obsecrations in the Litany (the things asked on account of the events of Jesus’s life), tonight’s Office Hymn attributed to Thomas à Kempis (pared down to seven from his 23 stanzas!) reminds us of all of the things that the Son of God did for us as part of His deep, broad, and high love for us, including those things listed in this stanza (Lutheran Service Book 544:5):
For us by wickedness betrayed,
For us in crown of thorns arrayed, / He bore the shameful cross and death;
For us He gave His dying breath.
Zechariah’s prophecy was fulfilled not only for the crowds but also for us! By God’s Spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, we look on Him Whom they have pierced, and we mourn and weep not for Him but for ourselves, but we also can rejoice, for on that day a fountain was opened for us to be cleansed from sin and all our uncleanness (Zechariah 12:10-13:1). As we sang in the antiphon of tonight’s Psalm (Psalm 143:1), our pleas for mercy God has answered in His faithfulness and righteousness given to us on account of the perfect life and sacrificial death of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Tonight’s Opening Hymn (LSB 435) developed that fountain theme from Zechariah, and we think of the water and the blood that flowed from Jesus’s pierced side while He was still hanging on the cross (John 19:34-37). To Holy Baptism we come in our poverty and meanness, defiled outside and in, and, there at the Font, water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word washes us from infection and uncleanness, from the leprosy of sin. God is faithful, God will never break His covenant of blood, the benefits of which we receive as we partake in the covenantal meal, the true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink. The benefits of the cross are given to us through God’s Means of Grace, such as the Water of Life (John 4:10-14; 7:37-38) and Bread from Heaven, His flesh and blood, which we who believe eat and drink and so live forever (John 6:27-58).
Depending on who they were, Jesus’s acquaintances may have stood at a distance because they arguably “severed the bond of discipleship” by fleeing from Him on the night on which He was betrayed (Roehrs‑Franzmann, ad loc Luke 23:49, p.82; confer/compare Marshall, ad loc Luke 9:49, p.877, rejecting Rengstorf’s suggestion), or they may have a stood at a distance because that’s where the Romans kept them. To be sure, neither the crowds, nor the acquaintances, nor the women “embraced the cross” (Just, ad loc Luke 23:48-49, p.948) until after Jesus’s resurrection. The sorrow over sin that the crowd expressed by beating their breasts may not have been accompanied by faith in Jesus until the Day of Pentecost, when St. Peter’s preaching called the crowds and their whole families to repentance and baptism (Acts 2:22-24, 37-39; so Lenski, ad loc Luke 23:48, p.1157). We do not have to wait! To us, God’s Gospel is preached in its purity and His Sacraments are rightly administered. They lead us to Christ crucified and give us the benefits of His death on the cross for us, and then they lead us to serve Christ, not like of Joseph of Arimathea by burying His crucified body but in caring for the members of His living Body, the Church.
Tonight, as the last of St. Luke’s unique contributions to the Passion of Our Lord, we have considered “Different Responses to the Spectacle”—the “spectacle” not an embarrassing event or theatrical show but God’s “unusual” acts in time to save us. Girolamo Savonarola was a forerunner of the Lutheran Reformation, an Italian reformer whose efforts two decades earlier resulted in his excommunication, arrest, cruel torture, hanging, and burning. No doubt Savonarola could endure all that only by God’s grace’s fixing His eyes on Jesus Who endured the cross for the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2). We conclude now as we will in our Closing Hymn, with Savonarola’s fervent prayer imploring Jesus to help us Christians so consider the “spectacle” that we gain a deeper measure of love for Him. (Pollack, 573; Precht, 99, 753.)
Jesus, may our hearts be burning / With more fervent love for You;
May our eyes be ever turning / To behold Your cross anew
Till in glory, parted never / From the blessed Savior’s side
Graven in our hearts forever, / Dwell the cross, the Crucified. (LSB 423:3.)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +