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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.)
In our five Midweek Lenten Vespers Services this year, we are hearing St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’s Passion, and we are reflecting on an arguable example of prophecy’s being fulfilled in each of the five “location” portions of the Passion that we hear in the five Services. Of course, in the end, each example of prophecy and its fulfillment reiterates for us God’s will and work to save us sinners who are sorry for our sins and trust God to forgive us by grace for Jesus’s sake. Last week, we considered how, in the Upper Room, Jesus seemed to speak about His, in some sense, actively fulfilling Psalm 41 verse 9, about the one who ate His bread’s lifting his heel against Him. This week, we consider how, on the way to Gethsemane, Jesus speaks about His and His disciples in some sense passively fulfilling Zechariah 13 verse 7, about the Lord of Hosts’s striking the shepherd and thereby scattering the sheep of the flock.
As we heard at the beginning of the Reading, after Jesus and His disciples concluded their Passover fellowship meal by singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives, eventually to a walled garden on its western slope called “Gethsemane”, which name means “oil press”, which suggests that the garden had an olive‑oil press within its confines. The group may have passed from the darkness of deep shadows cast by the olive trees along the path to the brightness of the spring full moon (Kretzmann, ad loc Matthew 26:30-35, p.147), perhaps corresponding to the darkness and brightness of what Jesus told them along the way. Jesus emphasized that His disciples all would fall away from faith because of what was about to happen to Him that night (confer Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 26:31, p.1417), for, He said, it is written, in Zechariah 13 verse 7, that God would strike the Shepherd and the sheep of the flock would be scattered, but Jesus also fore‑told His disciples that, after He was raised up, He would go before them to Galilee (confer and compare John 16:32). And, fulfilling Jesus’s prophecy, and thus also Zechariah’s prophecy, at the end of the Reading, all the disciples left Jesus and fled, but not before Jesus spoke both to Peter (confer John 18:10) and to the crowds about the fulfilling of the Scriptures, that is, the writings, specifically the writings of the prophets (see Davies and Allison, 573-577), prophets such as Zechariah.
As Zechariah prophesied, the Lord of Hosts would awaken His sword to strike His Shepherd, the Man Who stands next to Him, Who is closely associated with Him (confer Isaiah 53:4), with the result that the sheep would be scattered, or at least winnowed, as the Lord would turn against the little ones, cutting off two-thirds that would perish and leaving one‑third alive to be refined and tested, so that they would call upon His Name and confess Him as their God (Zechariah 13:7-9), and all of that was connected with the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4; confer Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 26:31, p.486 n.26). As the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew reports Jesus’s speaking about Zechariah’s prophecy en route to the Mount of Olives, there is a greater emphasis on God’s active role striking the Shepherd and causing the sheep to be scattered, meaning that God was in control and not the Jewish leaders. “Striking” the Shepherd refers at least to Jesus’s arrest but likely also refers to His crucifixion that would follow that same day, which reference is clear from Peter’s speaking about his dying with Jesus.
As we heard in the Reading, when the arrest happened, Peter drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, Malchus (John 18:10), and cut off his ear, which ear Jesus then healed (Luke 22:51). Jesus did not need Peter with his one sword that barely hit what was likely a defenseless man in order to prevent the arrest; if Jesus had wanted to prevent the arrest and all that would go along with it, Jesus could have appealed to God the Father for more than twelve legions of angels—probably well more than 72‑thousand angels, but the idea is that of a countless number of angels—with their countless number of swords (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 26:53, p.513). But, as Jesus rhetorically asked Peter, if the arrest was prevented, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so? Jesus refers to “Scriptures” in the plural, and commentators differ as to whether the reference is to a single specific passage, such as Zechariah chapter 13 verse 7, to a series of specific passages, or to the Old Testament Scriptures in general. Regardless, Jesus similarly said to the crowds that all that had taken place, at least the arrest and its ongoing results, had taken place for the purpose of the Scriptures of the prophets’ being fulfilled and with the result that the Scriptures were fulfilled, as St. Matthew immediately seems to indicate by reporting that the disciples left Jesus and fled, “bookending” or “bracketing” or “framing” the Reading with the matter of the fulfillment of Zechariah chapter 13 verse 7, regarding God’s striking the Shepherd and the sheep of the flock’s being scattered (compare Luke 22:52-53).
In St. Mark’s Divinely‑inspired parallel account, Jesus is recorded as essentially giving the command to “let the Scriptures be fulfilled” before the disciples left Him and fled (Mark 14:49). I wonder if Peter thought that he was preventing the Scriptures from being fulfilled; he seems to be well‑meaning, maybe even acting out of love for his Lord but in a misguided way. He and the other disciples are said not to be able to reconcile their ideas of Jesus’s Divinity with evidence of His greatest humiliation (Kretzmann, ad loc Matthew 26:30-35, p.147). They fell into sin and away from faith. No “once saved, always saved” there, or here! We likewise can be well‑meaning but get in the way of God’s work. We might prefer what would seem to be a glorious idea of more than twelve legions of angels fighting for Jesus to the shameful idea of Jesus’s arrest. We likewise can fall into sin and away from faith. But, the Holy Spirit calls and so enables us both to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake.
In Zechariah’s prophecy, the sword’s striking the Lord of Host’s Shepherd is a deliberate judicial act. The sins of the world, including your sins and my sins, were put upon Jesus, so that He died on the cross for our sins, in our place, and then He was raised, as in tonight’s Reading we heard Him say that He would be raised. That the Son of God should die for us defies our rational explanation but instead is revealed to us as an act of God’s great love (TLSB, ad loc Matthew 26:7‑9, p.1540). Truly, elsewhere Jesus identified Himself as the Good Shepherd, Who cares for the sheep and so lays down His life for the sheep (John 10:11, 13). Jesus said that no one takes His life from Him but He lays it down and takes it up again of His own accord, on the authority and charge from the Father (John 10:17-18). Jesus’s passive suffering and death conform to God’s will as expressed both by the prophets and by Jesus’s own statements. Jesus’s passive suffering and death were Divinely necessary for our salvation. When we are sorry for our sins and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God does just that. God forgives our getting in His way, our not reconciling our ideas of His Divinity with His humility, or whatever our sin might be, along with our sinful nature. God forgives us all our sin in His Holy Church, through His Word and Sacraments, received in contrition and faith.
As we heard in tonight’s Reading, Peter and the other disciples seemed to miss Jesus’s prophecy of His resurrection and His “going before them”, or “leading them forth”, to Galilee (confer Matthew 28:7, 10, 16). As in Zechariah’s prophecy, the remnant called upon the Lord’s Name and confessed Him as their God, so in Galilee the restored disciples worshipped Jesus and were sent to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that Jesus had commanded them, including Holy Absolution and the Holy Supper of Christ’s Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins, in which ways Jesus promised always to be with His Church (Matthew 1:23; 28:19-20; 16:19; 18:18; 26:26-29). Thus also we are gathered into Christ’s Church, forgiven, and strengthened for the afflictions that refine our faith, helping lead us to call upon His Name and confess Him as our God and so experience His peace and joy.
Interestingly, in St. John’s Divinely‑inspired account of Jesus’s arrest, before Peter struck Malchus’s ear, Jesus told the band of soldiers to let the disciples go, which St. John says that Jesus said in order to fulfill the “word”, or “saying”, that Jesus had spoken to God the Father when He said “of those whom You gave me I have lost not one” (John 18:8-9). Apparently, that “word” was part of Jesus’s so‑called “High‑Priestly Prayer” earlier on the night when He was betrayed (John 17:12), at which time Jesus noted both the loss of Judas as an exception and that the exception itself fulfilled Scripture, apparently a Psalm verse that refers to Judas’s days’ being few and another’s taking his office (Psalm 109:8; confer Acts 1:20). Unless, like Judas, we reject, Jesus says that no one will snatch us sheep out of His hand (John 10:28), and Jesus promises to raise us up on the Last Day (John 6:39).
Tonight, we have considered St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’s Passion’s fulfilling specifically the prophecy of Zechariah 13 verse 7. Three other examples of prophecy fulfilled will come in turn the next three weeks. As Jesus generalized elsewhere, what is written in the Scriptures that must be fulfilled is both that He should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name to all nations (Luke 24:44-47). So repentance and forgiveness has been proclaimed to us; may God use us likewise to proclaim to others.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +