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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. (Amen.)

At the beginning of tonight’s Reading, the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke tells how the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders, who had come out against Jesus (Luke 22:52), Who had already gone from the Upper Room (Luke 22:12) to the Mount of Olives (Luke 22:39), seized Him and led him away, bringing Him into the High Priest’s House. So, as we tonight continue this Lent’s Special Sermon Series themed “Places of the Passion according to St. Luke”, this third sermon focuses on “The High Priest’s House”.

The High Priest’s House itself no longer exists, although, according to an Armenian tradition, the remains of the High Priest’s house are beneath an unfinished Armenian church, which church is pictured on the front of tonight’s service outline. Arguably all that we heard in tonight’s Reading—Peter’s denial, the captors’ mocking, and Jesus’s appearance before the Jewish leaders who make up the ruling council of the Sanhedrin—all that took place either outside, in an exterior or interior courtyard of the High Priest’s House, or somewhere inside the High Priest’s House itself, in different parts of which House both the former High Priest Annas and the then‑current High Priest, Annas’ son‑in‑law Caiaphas, are both thought to have lived (confer/compare Matthew 26:3, 58, 59, 69; Mark 14:53, 54, 66; 15:1; and John 18:15, 24, 28).

As we heard in tonight’s Reading, Peter was following Jesus at a distance, perhaps with diminishing boldness and loyalty, as far as the courtyard of the High Priest’s House. There, over the course of about an hour, as St. Luke uniquely reports, three statements about Peter by a woman (confer John 18:16-17) and two men (confer Matthew 26:73): “This man was also with Him”; “Woman, I do not know Him”; You also are one of them”; “Man, I am not”; “Certainly this man also was with Him, for he too is a Galilean”; “Man, I do not know what you are talking about”. Despite Peter’s love of the Lord and the Lord’s prophecy about the denials, Peter knowingly lied, apparently fearing for the safety of his own life, though unclear is how much of a threat the servant girl and the two men really were to Peter. Whether servants or soldiers, the men who were holding Jesus in custody, apparently somewhere else on the premises, were repeatedly mocking Jesus as they beat Him, as Jesus once had also prophesied (Luke 18:32‑33). There may have been an earlier verdict against Jesus that might make their actions seem more legitimate (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Luke 22:54-65, p.80), but, regardless, they seem to have known His reputation as a prophet and played a sort of “blind man’s buff” and otherwise blasphemed Him, whether speaking evil of Him in general or as God. And, soon after, Jesus’s identity as God was an issue elsewhere in the High Priest’s House. For, as it became day, Jesus appeared before the Sanhedrin, seemingly still there at the High Priest’s House, where, as St. Luke tells it, in a series of three questions and two answers, Jesus essentially confessed to being both the Savior and the Son of God, and so they essentially sentenced Him to death.

Perhaps the greatest contrast at this “Place of the Passion” is that contrast between Peter’s not really being threatened but nevertheless denying Jesus and Jesus’s really being threatened but still confessing Who He is. St. Luke’s Gospel account does not use the denying‑confessing pair of opposite words in tonight’s Reading (but see Luke 22:34, 61; confer John 1:20), but elsewhere his account records Jesus’s statement both that whoever confesses Him before people He will confess before God, but that the one who denies Jesus before people He will deny before God (Luke 12:8-9, for example, NASB). Yet, like Peter, we likely multiple times every single day of our lives in one way or another fail to confess Jesus and so deny Him. Like with Peter, there may not be a real threat to our earthly lives, though we may nevertheless fear what people might think, say, or do about us, whether to our face, behind our backs, or, perhaps worst of all, on social media. So acting in what we might think is temporal self‑preservation actually is eternal self‑destruction!

In tonight’s Reading, St. Luke uniquely reports both that while Peter was still speaking the rooster crowed and that the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered the saying of the Lord and went out and wept bitterly. The Lord can be understood as calling Peter to repentance, and Peter can be understood as repenting and so being forgiven. Likewise, we should understand that the Lord is calling us to repent and that, when we repent, then we are forgiven. God forgives our sinful nature, our failing to confess Jesus and so instead denying Him, and all of our other sin, whatever our other sin might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.

As we heard in tonight’s Reading, the Sanhedrin commanded Jesus to tell them if He was the Christ, the Messiah, the One anointed to be the Savior. While Jesus did not give them a direct “yes” or “no” answer, Jesus’s answer did refer to Himself in Messianic terms, and the Sanhedrin seemed to understand that. For, next they asked if Jesus is the Son of God, and He confessed that He is, arguably even using the Divine Name given to Moses, “I am” (Exodus 3:13-14), and they seemed to understand that, too, asking rhetorically what further testimony they needed, and deciding to take Jesus before Pilate to be crucified. Interestingly, the Sanhedrin did not seem to question that God had a “Son”, as we understand the revelation of the Holy Trinity. And, those taking in St. Luke’s Gospel account from its beginning would know that the Virgin Mary’s Son was also the Son of God (Luke 1:32, 35). When Jesus told the Sanhedrin that “from now on” He in the future would “be seated at the right hand of the power of God”, He spoke both as if His glorification was already underway (confer John 12:20-36) and of a future session at God’s right hand after His crucifixion and resurrection. Accounts like this one tonight of Jesus’s trial help us understand the meaning of His death on the cross (Plummer, ad loc Luke 22:54, p.515): true God in human flesh, Jesus died on the cross in order to be the Savior of the world. Out of God’s great love for even fallen humankind, Jesus died in our place, for our sin, taking on Himself the temporal and eternal punishments that we deserve. Even as He was talking with the stubbornly unbelieving Jewish leaders, He was still trying to get them to repent and believe, for, through faith in Jesus, God forgives us who repent by grace for Jesus’s sake. God forgives us through His Word and Sacraments.

Jesus arguably used His words prophesying of Peter’s denial with the sign of the rooster’s crowing in order to bring Peter to repent. God similarly uses His Word read and preached and with the signs of water, touch, bread and wine in order to bring us to repent and believe. Brought into the Church by the water and word of Holy Baptism, we who confess our sins to our pastor are forgiven by the touch and word of Holy Absolution, and then we are admitted to the Holy Supper, in which we receive bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In all these ways God also transforms us, so that we have His peace and joy and at least want to and begin to live as He would have us live, for example, not denying but confessing Jesus in the things that we think, say, and do, and with daily contrition and faith living in His forgiveness of sins for when we fail, as we will fail, until He finally glorifies our bodies and souls in His presence on the Last Day.

This evening we have considered the third of five “Places of the Passion according to St. Luke”. In what happened at the High Priest’s House, we noted especially the contrast between Peter’s denial of Jesus and Jesus’s confession of Himself. So, we considered our denials of Jesus and, by His working in us, His forgiveness of our denials through His Means of Grace and His leading us to confess Him in what we think, say, and do. At the end of tonight’s Reading, Jesus is about to be brought before Pilate, where next week we will go by Reading and reflection, as God wills, and with God’s grace and blessing.

Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +