April 10 2022
John 19:1-30
We arrive at last at Palm Sunday, the beginning of what is called Holy Week, the day when we celebrate the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, the shouts of “Hosanna” filling the air. In a very short amount of time though, this same crowd will be shouting, “Crucify him” as they reject Jesus because he was not the king they were looking for. So, while the majesty of Jesus is magnified as the week progresses, it happens against a backdrop of human fickleness and indecisiveness. One of my difficulties with this week, ever since I was a child, is that the Friday on which we observe the crucifixion of Jesus is called Good Friday. I don’t know if I have shared this with you before but every year I am confronted with this puzzling name of Good Friday, I mean, for heavens sake, what is so good about it? Yes, it is good for us for there upon the cross the Lamb of God was slain not just for the sins of the world but for my sins as well, yes, this is good but it is just oh, so difficult, for me to speak of goodness in the shadow of the cross. As I meditated on the cross once again, as I do every season of Lent, I have come to believe that instead of being Good Friday it should be instead called Holy Friday. Holy denotes something that is not common, something that is so obviously not ordinary, and this is so very evident there when we look upon the one who is nailed to the tree.
To call the day when Jesus was crucified, Holy Friday, would help us to see this act in light of what was first spoken by God to his people as we find in the first verse of the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, where we hear God’s command to his people that they were to be holy as God is holy. The very holiness of God displayed in the very earthiness of humanity. When we know that Jesus is perfectly human, and perfectly God how can we not believe that, yes, there upon the cross, in his finest hour, we see holiness. Even so, we are left wondering just how can we define this holiness, this otherness of God. How can we put shape and form to such an ambiguous term such as holiness. It is Jesus, the very light of the world who brings the holiness of God into sharp resolution. We hear him define holiness in terms of love when after he had washed his disciples feet, Jesus told them that they were to love one another just as he had loved them, this is the way that they were to love one another. Here is the same structure of words, you be love as I am love, just like you be holy as I am holy. Here are eyes are opened to see what makes God so other than us, so very holy, it is his self-sacrificing love, a love that comes to earth and puts on our flesh like a dirty pair of overalls, ready to be of service to us. Here is God who spoke all creation into being who is the Word who took on flesh and tabernacles among us.
So, yes, to be holy is to be in the possession of a love that drives us to give all of our self away for the sake of others just as God has done in the life of Jesus. When we know this, then we begin to understand the lone command of God, found in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, that we are to love him with all of our heart, with all of our life, with all that we have, we are to love God with all of who we are. If we loved God with all that we have, with all of our heart and with our very lives, there really would not be much else left over would there be? What God is commanding us then is to be people of self-giving love toward him just as he was a God of self-giving love toward us. Yet, even so, can such love actually be commanded? Can such a love be forced, given with a grimace upon our faces? No, what must be understood is that in giving this command, God was stating that this was his purpose for our lives, this was the goal, the perfection for which we were created. God knew that on our own we simply would never be able to fulfill this command. We discover this in the thirtieth chapter of Deuteronomy, where Moses tells the people of Israel, that one day God would circumcise their hearts and the hearts of their offspring, so that they would love their God with all of their hearts and all of their lives so that they would live. God, in his mercy knew our weakness, the weakness of our flesh, the poverty of our spirit, that kept our good intentions from becoming holy actions. God knew that he would have to intervene, to take away our reliance upon our own strength so that we might trust and rely upon his Spirit, the Spirit of holiness.
Are you beginning to see how Jesus is the “Yes” to the promise of God that he would be the one who would act so that we might at last be those who reflect the holiness of God by being people possessed by his self-giving love? This promise of God is the very foreshadowing of the cross. John, in writing his gospel, knew that Jesus came from the highest heaven, from the peace and security found in the very bosom of his Father, to be the one to give us his life of self-giving love so that we at last might fulfill the commandment of God.This is what Jesus reveals to us in the tenth chapter of John’s gospel, where Jesus tells us that he is the righteous one that his Father will open the door to his Temple and allow him to enter. The Temple is another name for our Father’s house so that those who follow him will be able to find their home in their Father’s house. Those who follow Jesus there into that most holy place will be those who love God with all of their hearts. They will not be those who love God with one part of their hearts and then turn and hurt, harm and hate those they encounter in their life. They will be those who love God with all of their life. They will understand that the life they have is a life that has been given to them by God, a life that is an abundant life, a life capable of bearing much fruit. So, they will not have to be people who are anxious about life, people who steal, kill, and destroy in order to keep their life for they will know that their life is kept safe in God. And they will be people who will love with all of what God has given to them. They will never be people who value their treasures above the value of the life of others. Their treasure will be the treasure in heaven, the God who treasures them. As they know of how they are treasures to God so they too will see in others that they too are treasures in the hands of God. So, here in the tenth chapter of John, Jesus unveils the plan of God, to bring all people into the holiness of God, into his life of self-giving love through his work of self-giving love. Through his act of self-giving love Jesus was going to create a new people who could at last reflect back to God his holiness, his self-giving love. They at last would be people who loved God with all of their heart, loving others as they loved God; they would love God with all of their life, knowing that their life is held safe in the arms of God; and, they would love God with all that God had given to them, treasuring God by treasuring the lives of others. Jesus is here setting the stage for what he will do upon the cross, his holy work that is done to make us holy people.
You see, all of this has to be kept front and center as we read of the account of the crucifixion of Jesus. We must not forget that when we witness this series of events in John’s gospel, Jesus was being delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, as Peter spoke of on the Day of Pentecost. When we understand this, then we must consider just who it is that is really on trial here as Jesus awaits his judgment. In this opening scene from the nineteenth chapter of John we discover the underlying motivation of both the Jewish leaders and Pilate, who represents Rome. When the chief priests and the Jewish officers come before Pilate, they do so with shouts of “Crucify him, crucify him”, on their lips. Pilate tells them to go and crucify him themselves because Pilate has found that Jesus has done no wrong. The Jewish authorities though keep pushing Pilate for a verdict because they want nothing to do with this Jesus who continually made himself one with the Father. Then we are told something very interesting. Pilate, at hearing that what enraged these Jewish authorities was that Jesus made himself the Son of God, became even more afraid. Here was a man who had the full weight of the authority of Rome behind him and yet, here he is a man with a fear that is gnawing away at him. Yet he was not the only one entrapped in their fear that day because when we look at the eleventh chapter of John we learn the underlying motive of the Jewish leaders who were insistent on the death of Jesus. There at the end of the eleventh chapter we are told that after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together to decide what to do about this man Jesus.Their fear was that if they allowed Jesus to go on performing miracles then everyone in all of Judaea would believe in him, and the Romans would take away their place and their nation. All those who surrounded Jesus on the day of his crucifixion were running scared, allowing their anxiety and worry to lash out at what they perceived to be the source of their fear this one named Jesus. What they did not understand is that Jesus was not the source of their fear; no, he was only the one who had become the focus of their attention because of their fear. The true cause of the fear that surrounded Jesus that day was, as he has earlier taught, as found in the eighth chapter of John, was the devil. The Pharisees sought to kill Jesus because it was the devil that they were listening to. Here Jesus is pointing out what had been known from the very beginning, at the temptation of our fore parents, the devil questioning the very word of God. Jesus teaches that the devil was a murderer from the beginning and he has nothing to do with the truth for the truth is not in him. When the devil lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Caught up in all the untruth about Jesus that had ensnared their hearts, Pilate and the Jewish leaders, were acting out of the fear that comes when one’s life loses its foundation in the truth. The tragedy of this situation before Jesus is seen in the judgment passed upon him. When Pilate asks the chief priests if he should crucify their king, they shout back at him that they have no king but Caesar! The central faith of Israel, that Yahweh, the one true living God is Lord over all, is gone in a moment replaced with blasphemy on the very lips of those who were to uphold the sanctity of their faith. Pilate, who represented the system of justice called upon to defend the innocent and punish evil, the very reason for any political system is turned into a travesty as the innocent Jesus is punished as one who had done evil. Here before Jesus we witness the terrible truth of the reality of this earthly realm in which we live. As the devil showed Jesus when he tested Jesus in the wilderness, all of the kingdoms of this world lie under the influence of the lies of the evil one.
Yet all is not lost, because as Jesus proclaims in the twelfth chapter of John, he had come to judge the world and when he does the ruler of this world, the devil, will be cast out. How could such a marvelous event happen, we wonder, at hearing this? The answer is that this is what will happen when Jesus is lifted up from the earth, when Jesus will be nailed to the tree. This is when, Jesus adds, that he will draw all people unto himself. This drawing people to himself through what Jesus will do upon the cross gives us a clue that unravels this mystery that Jesus is speaking about. We know from the sixth chapter of John that what draws people to the Father is his great love for them. It is this love of the Father, this is what will come to light when Jesus is hoisted up upon the cross. There Jesus displays in his very human life, the very holy love of God. There the one who had been given all judgment by his Father, the true judge of all, stood in the place of those who deserved his judgment. This is what we saw displayed before Pilate, Jesus, the true judge being judged by those who represented the world, and in self-giving love, accepting the judgment of death that has always been ours because of the lies of the devil which controlled our hearts. Yet, this is what Jesus had to do because the love within the heart of Jesus is a self-giving love, a love that treasured us because we are a treasure of our Heavenly Father, a love that offered us grace, mercy and forgiveness because this is the Father’s will, a love which loved his Heavenly Father more than life itself knowing that when he gave his life up to death for his Heavenly Father, his life would bear much fruit.
Through Jesus taking up his cross and dying for us we have witnessed the glory of God. The glory of God is his victory over the ruler of this world, a victory won through his holy love. Seeing Jesus upon the cross we now know that the Father has indeed sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. There upon the cross we beheld the holy love of God for us in the very human form of Jesus. Jesus out of love for us has taken our punishment all the way to death so that now our fear of judgment is gone. Jesus has cast out the ruler of this world because the fear which used to hold sway over our lives has been cast out by the holy love of God which has entered into our hearts. Now, instead of fear we have faith, faith that Jesus is the Christ, and through this faith we live out the victory Jesus has secured for us upon the cross. Through Jesus we can say that we are people who have overcome the world. Now, just as Jesus displayed the holy love of God upon the cross, we too can display that same love in our lives. Through the holy love of Jesus we now can love God with all of our heart, with all of our life, with all that God has provided for us. No longer are we bound to a life of fear, anxiousness and worry; we have been set free to seek the kingdom.
All during Lent we have been walking with Jesus, and here we have arrived at Calvary. During our journey we have been attempting to see Jesus in a new light, with new eyes, to behold him in all of his wonder and glory. So, as you see that cross, out there on Skull Hill, as you gaze upon the one called Jesus, just who is it that you see? There, with nails pounded through his flesh, there exposed to the world, a man so weak and vulnerable, through all these earthly elements, can you see that this is the very Son of God who has come from the Father to be the Savior of the world? Can you see his glory, can you sense his victory? Are you able to know him as your king, the one whose rule you obey? Yes, it is difficult to look upon the beaten and bloody Jesus and say that such a scene is good but I do believe that what we see when we look there upon him we can call it holy. Such a scene is holy because such a love as this can only be holy because it is a love that is anything but common, it is a love that is far from ordinary. There as we gaze upon our Savior do you now know of his self-giving love for you? Do you now believe the holy love that God has for you? As Jesus lived and loved and died in this world are you ready to live and love like him, with a holy love that witnesses that you like Jesus have overcome the world? Amen!
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