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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from that gospel reading, but we will also be referring to the psalm. You may be seated.
There are basically two kinds of folks who revile the Christian faith. The first kind is the ignorant folks who just don’t know any better. They don’t know any better. They’re typically the ones who are ignorant because they’ve never been taught the Christian faith. They have very skewed points of view. They are not grounded in Scripture. And they’re a little less likely to be difficult for the Holy Spirit to work upon.
The other ones, they’re the ones that frighten me as they frighten you. These are the very well-informed people. They know a lot about Scripture. They may have even grown up in the faith, but have abandoned it long ago. And they’re vitriolic in their attacks on the faith, just like the people in our text.
The text begins about these people that were passing by, those who passed by. They were Jews. They had grown up with all of this scripture, Sabbath in and Sabbath out. All of the promises of God about the coming anointed one, the Messiah. They’re the ones that had found out the news that came from Caiaphas’ lips in the Sanhedrin, where Caiaphas that night in the Sanhedrin had accused Christ of blasphemy because Christ said he is the Son of God.
They wag their heads in rejection, and they wag their fingers and point to Christ. And they say the two things that Caiaphas got into a conversation with Jesus over with the Sanhedrin. The first was about this concept of destroying the temple and raising it in three days. And from the context, it is obvious. It is not about a physical stone upon stone temple. But Jesus was referring to his body, which would be destroyed by your sin and their sin and be raised in three days brand new.
The other one that they wagged their fingers and shook their heads at Jesus as they walked by… Mocking him and deriding him was that he claimed to be the son of God. And here he is hanging on the cross because he’s accused of blasphemy. Yet from their lips in that text, they blaspheme the holy name of God. They deny by their words and their thoughts and belief that Jesus really is the son of God. Or worse yet, they know him to be the son of God, just like Satan, and they deny him. Just like Satan.
Hell is full of people like this second type of folks that you have encountered in your life. You know, it’s not so bad when you encounter these kind of folks and they’re on the periphery of your relationships, acquaintances, co-workers. It is truly another story when that relationship is seen at family reunions and family get-togethers. And it becomes even harder when it’s your own flesh and blood, or your parents, or your siblings.
Anger can well up in you. Hatred can well up in you. Or complete crumbling of the truth can well up within you. And instead of speaking the word in love and gentleness, it’s spoken as a bat, a baseball bat to beat them into submission.
The other folks that were also at the foot of the cross were a much more seasoned group. These were the very well-learned. These were, as the text said, the high priests, the scribes, and the elders, the religious leaders of the day. And these learned men who know the scriptures, who know Jesus has fulfilled those prophecies, deny it.
Hell is full of such learned men. It’s interesting in the text. Did you hear what they said? They said, he saved others. They admit. They admit and know that Jesus did those miracles. Raising of Lazarus. Raising of the widow’s son at Nain. Raising of Jairus’ daughter. They know he brought sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Strength and life back to the lame. Amen.
They know it and they still turn their back on it and cry out, if he can save others, why don’t you not save yourself? Because they are unimpressed with their sin hanging on the tree for them. That is what Jesus is. Their sin hanging on that tree for them.
When these people are in your household, when these people are at your family reunions, It is a different matter indeed and even more difficult. The temptation is to completely write them off. The temptation is to wash your hands of them. And God calls us to love. And God calls us to stand up for the truth. God calls us to speak that truth and live that truth. And do not bend that truth. Because it will be still what saves them someday, if that is God’s will.
It’s even a bigger problem than that. The bigger problem in these men’s minds is that they do not know grace and mercy. They only know right living, right doing, right speaking. They only know if they have the outward and exterior seeming sign of rightness, truth, and all that goes along with it, then they are right in God’s eyes.
Because grace and mercy sees failure. Grace and mercy sees fear. Grace and mercy covers all of those things that they abhor in themselves and in others. And grace and mercy… It’s what covers you in those same areas that you don’t like about you. The part of you that you have constantly thrown in your face by Satan. The part of you that your flesh never lets you really forget and has been forgiven. The part of you that has been scarred and you’ll never forget who scarred you.
That’s what law does without gospel. They cannot see the great need for their grace and their mercy to be given them from Jesus on that cross because it does not appear as if he is in control and has any power. He looks as helpless as helpless can be and he looks as controlled as anyone could be and yet he is all-powerful, fully in control of his own suffering even. And he willingly submits to it that you may have such grace and mercy cover you and cover those men who walk by wagging their heads and shaking their fingers and crying out blasphemy in their words.
So if Jesus is that one who only thinks of others and not of himself, if Jesus is that one who only thinks of your salvation and the grace and mercy you need, what does that look like? And it looks like him hanging on that tree. That’s what it looks like. And as we read in that psalm, it looks like abandonment is what it looks like.
When you are in a relationship with someone, your parent, your spouse, your child, the thing that hurts you the most is when they do this and they don’t talk. And all you see is the back. That’s abandonment. And that is exactly what the Father showed the Son on the cross. And if these men persist in their unbelief, that is what they see all eternity in hell.
But not you, not you. You see the Father of the prodigal son always with outstretched arms welcoming you home, not bringing before your face the laundry list of what you failed to do, should have done and could have but didn’t. Open arms, because it was Christ who was abandoned on that tree.
He said, More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause. Without cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. And then in verse 5 is a most remarkable statement that Jesus makes. Verse 5. He cries out, Oh God, you know my folly. The wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.
Now you can’t get around that text and say, Oh, it applies to David and not to Christ. Oh, it applies to Christ fully. For your folly is whose folly? Christ’s folly. Your wrongs are whose wrongs? Christ’s wrongs. So when he speaks and says that, David wrote that by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he is saying there is folly on that tree. There is wrong on that tree. And if it rests on Christ’s shoulders, it doesn’t rest on yours anymore.
There are only two repositories for your shame, your guilt, your folly, and your wrong. And that is only on your shoulders or your Jesus’ shoulders. Jesus took everyone’s. Sadly, these men, as they walked by and reviled Jesus, they were really asking and begging him to put back upon him themselves their wrongs.
That finally came to pass, didn’t it, at the end? Let his blood be upon us and upon our children, the crowd shouted. And then one of Jesus’ prayers for you that applies to this situation is this, verse 6. Verse 6. Let not those, referring to you, let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts. Let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.
He prays for you. He prays for you because he knows you will be brought dishonor. You will be brought shame because of your connection to him. And he prays for you. Not just in this psalm, but always does he pray for you. The price of being connected to such a sinner as Christ Jesus. Full of my folly, full of my wrongs.
You and I, in our great love for the faith, have wrung our hands… And lost sleep over thinking we have offended someone and that would keep them from the Christian faith because of us. That’s a sin. It’s a sin to think that because that is concerning that sin. You’re assuming that your sin is so great in offending that person that God could never fix it. And why did he die yet? For that kind of sin.
He wishes to give you grace and mercy. Satan wishes you to hold on to that and use it as a club to beat yourself. God wishes to take it from your shoulders, take it from your memories, take it from your experience and say it was buried in that tomb by him. That’s why Jesus prayed this prayer.
And finally, he reminds us, it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. And if Jesus has borne reproach and dishonor, you will never bear that in the Father’s eyes. If Jesus’ face hung from that tree in disgrace, your face will never hang that way, for the Father’s love and forgiveness will always enlighten you, enlighten you at the self-same time through that great message.
This morning I told the kids in our parochial school, Jesus is praying for you as you grow up. Because there will be many people in your life that you will meet that hate the faith and hate you because you are one of God’s baptized children. And Jesus has borne it for you. And Jesus takes it to the grave for you. And Jesus prays for you that you would never be taken from him.
The same Jesus in John’s Gospel said, I shall lose none of those you have given to me. He’s talking about you. He’s not going to let go. Come to the Father to receive grace and mercy, not judgment, not dishonor, but exaltation in his time when he calls us home and as we receive him tonight in the name of Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
