Göttinger Predigten im Internet hg. von U. Nembach
Good Friday, 04/10/2009
Sermon on John 18:1-19; 42, by Walter Harms
One Man Should Die! Don't you think we should do what is politically expedient? I mean doesn't it make sense that instead of all the trouble this new "king" was brining about that he should die? That is, rather than have the whole nation be slaughtered? Thus thought Caiaphas the high priest at the grand temple in Jerusalem. He thought that about the upstart meandering teacher/rabbi called Jesus who now had come to Jerusalem. This untrained man was stirring up the people; great crowds began to be noticed by the civilian authorities and that was bad. Get rid of this one, like so many before, and the nation, the people, the temple, the age-old practice of the faith would continue without interruption. Should one man die instead of all the evil that might come? Of course! That's the way God saw it also. One man should die in place of all the people who would die now and forever. After all who wants to die? Oh, yes, I know people with many infirmities and disabling diseases wish to die, but not really. They simply wish to be rid of all that which is so burdensome that the quality of life has deteriorated to a large minus-little if anything on the plus side anymore. So who wants to die? The overwhelming innate given is that we should live! Death is an intruder, a robber, a villain who ruins, destroys, and devastates. Our very physical bodies have a built in mechanism to live, even after the brain ceases to function, the body wants to carry on and it frequently does, causing lots of troubles to the loved ones who must make decisions they do not wish to make. So we are here to somehow, in just a miniscule way, perhaps in an inadequate way give a very small display of our gratitude that this One Man dies, and dies in our place and for us. Well, at least we believe that at times. It is the truth, part of the truth who is Jesus, that the person who sins dies. We would rather like to think that death is the result of accidents, diseases, or simply the parts of the body wearing out and quitting. We would like to believe that the cause of death lies outside of us. Out there, somewhere, somehow, a mystery of insolvable depth which humans are unable to decipher. Not do! The cause of death is sin. Sin is not the naughty acts we do on the internet; the peevish words we utter to those we say we love, the perverse thoughts of the wished for destruction and death and suffering of those who cross us or are evidently evil. All of that is simply the evidence of a malady which has captured our inner self. Sin is always believing as it was from the start of sin in the Garden of Eden that we are in charge of all; that our knowledge is at least as good as whoever this god we name might be; and that we do not need him to live. In doing so, Adam and Eve and all the rest of mankind, which by the way, includes you and me, sever, yes, we sever ourselves from the source of life-God. This rabbi Jesus put it this way: A branch separated from the vine can do nothing. "Apart from me you can do nothing." Without a connection with the source of life, we are dead. Oh, we may be like a wonderful rose we admire in a vase, but the rose is death. All too soon it is a hideous mess which needs to be disposed of. It would be nice, no, wonderful to believe that One should die rather than all of us. But who will die in your place? In my place? And is that even possible? No! No! No! Another person, another human being like us could not die to keep us from death now and after death, eternal and everlasting separation from the source of life. But One could die. And who is this itinerant rabbi who claims to die for us anyway? In the Blessed and Holy Word of God read on this day, he is called a number of names: "Jesus of Nazareth." "King of the Jews." But who is he anyway? He is the One whom God gave so that whoever believes in him would not die. He is the on e who took the curse of sin (yes, sin is a curse) and died on the accursed tree called a cross. He is the One who dies so that sin might be forever taken away from us. Yes, sin, sin of every kind deserves punishment. Death is both the result and the punishment for sin. Who can take away the sin of the world? More importantly who can peel sin from this thing I call self, so that it can live, forever free from sorrow and desperation that sin causes? It can only be the One who has the power to give life, and thus also restore life. But the curse, sin, its punishment cannot be escaped. It must be experienced; it must be done; it must be carried out. That is why we are here: to hear again, hear again that our sin of despising God, rebelling against him, and going our own way which leads only to destruction has been taken from us by the God/Man, Jesus, God's Son, t he only possible person would could die for the sins of the whole world, once and for all. The whole process of sin being removed from us is complete. We were captured by sin and its consequences and now we are freed, once and for all time by the death of Jesus. His words, "it is finished" mean simply that. The whole process of bringing us back from the death of sin has been accomplished, done, paid for, finished. The result is hideous-Jesus dies. But the truth that Pilate mocked is there, in the person of Jesus. "Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice," says Jesus. His voice is the voice which tells us that "although we die, yet shall we live. And the person who lives and believes in me will never die." Do you believe this is truth? The world today, our world, the one we live in says there is nothing that is absolute. No=0 Aabsolute truth. The only truth is what I believe to be true, or what you believe to be true. Jesus may be truth for you but that is only for you. Truth to someone else may be something entirely different We will all come to that time when we will no longer have the life we have now. We will die. What truth will you believe? Will you believe that your death and the death of all who trust Jesus as the way, the truth and life itself is a step through a gate to eternity, a sleep from which you will not wake to weep but to rejoice, a blessing which will soon turn our tears and sorrows into everlasting joy of being restored to life and the blessed relationship with our Creator again? Or will you think some other way gives life? Or will you believe death is the end, the termination of existence forever? Believe the words of Jesus: "It is finished." Believe that One has died and that all the people do not have to experience f orever being forsaken by God, as Jesus did. Believe that the death of Jesus is good for us and for our salvation. And then, please remember what Jesus told his disciples, which I shall not say and complete them as we await what is coming: Jesus began to teach that the Son of Man must suffer many things and rejected by the elders of the children priest and the scribes and be killed, and . . ." The One who has died for all of us is the Truth, istruly our king, as he is buried like a king-in a new grave, with so many spices, only used for a king. The King is dead! Long live the King!
