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Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear baptized believers in Christ’s church, today is the last Sunday of the church year. In the various seasons through this past 12 months, we have focused on the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, true God and true man—the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world, as well as His presence, His power, and His peace in and through His people, His church, that is in this world, but not of this world.
Now on this last Sunday, the gospel lesson draws us, it draws us to the climax of the story with a capital S. And it also reminds me of one of my classes at the seminary. On exam days, after reading numerous assigned sections of large books for several weeks, the professor would pass out five blank pieces of paper to each student. And after we had our five sheets of paper, he would then reveal to us five questions on the whiteboard. It was there, one question per page, writing on the front and the back of each page as much as we could, conveying a well-thought-out, systematically constructed answer. Oh yeah, and the smaller the letters, the better, because he also graded it based on quantity and quality. All of this he required for us to do in 50 minutes or less, because we knew what he was going to do.
At the end, he was going to say to the class, when that 50-minute point came, he would say, “Gentlemen, it’s time to put down the pencils.” For this time to preach, he was referencing our future—our future sermon writing and rewriting and rewriting the message during the week over and over again, only to discard it and to start the process all over again. There will come a time on Sunday morning when it is time to deliver God’s Word to God’s people. So with cramped hands, we turned in our exams.
In our text this morning, Jesus is on the road. He’s exiting the west side of Jerusalem, just outside the walled city, and He is being led to a place known as Calvary. On that mount is a place called the Skull. For three years, Jesus has been preaching and teaching. He has been delivering God’s Word to the people, but now, in these last hours, He was literally arrested, falsely accused, unlawfully sentenced to death, ruthlessly beaten and flogged, and with more humiliation, He is now being forced to carry the instrument of His death on His shoulders. After numerous times of falling and collapsing to the weight of the cross, due to His weakness and depleted condition, Simon of Cyrene was brought in by force to carry His cross to the apex of Calvary.
But if you think about it, it was just a few days earlier that a large crowd welcomed Jesus’ processional into Jerusalem with joy and celebration, with the words, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.”
But now, on this day, the multitudes follow Him in His recessional from the city, mixed with tears of some, satisfaction of others, and then others still with curiosity. Even with Mount Calvary in His sight, as the end drew nearer and nearer, He had the strength to express His concern, not for Himself, but for others—the inhabitants of Jerusalem—with the words to those women who were mourning for Him. Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that have never borne, and the breasts that have never nursed,’ for they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
In other words, if Rome can do this to an innocent man, the man of God, what will they do to the capital city of the rebellious people of Israel in the future? Before the collapse of the besieged city, conditions will be so bad that the people will be forced to eat human flesh to stay alive. Jesus is telling them of Jerusalem’s upcoming destruction in 70 AD. But the time has come. The time has come for Jesus to put down their preaching, and it’s time for Jesus to be crucified. The sermon of all sermons, the climax of His mission for coming into the world, is now upon Him. He is being delivered up to be that sacrificial lamb without blemish, without sin, to pay for the sins of the world. He is now at the place called the Skull.
So much has already happened, and it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. The text gives us a glimpse of that drama that will play out on that day. Elevated between heaven and earth on a wooden cross, suspended by the spikes pounded with hammers through His hands and His feet, He will struggle and suffer for six more hours. This instrument of suffering and death, invented by Rome, called crucifixion, is still known today as one of the most hideous forms of pain and torture, with the final goal of death. In other words, Rome made sure that no one would ever come off that cross alive. Hanging there between the two criminals, surrounded by all those people—with some of them being close enough to the cross that they could hear His words as He struggled with each breath—during His ministry, many heard Him teaching about who He is and why He came into the world.
He is the promised Messiah who would save God’s people from their enemies. He and the Father who sent Him are one. His kingdom is not of this world; it is forever. He made it clear that He is God in the flesh because of His Father’s love for His creation. He sent Him into it to be the means of salvation from sin, death, and the power of the devil. It would be through Him there is the forgiveness of sins, salvation, and life now and into eternity.
The Word—the Word—the Word that was present at the creation of all things, as proclaimed in John 1 and 1 and 2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” The Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, as described in verse 14, is now hanging upon the cross in the midst of people. We see unconditional, selfless love spoken as Jesus continues to intercede for all people lost in their sin, desiring for them all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, as He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
It’s the text that reveals to us that man’s corrupted nature, blinded by reasoning, was rejecting Jesus’s words and works for them and for their salvation. The religious leaders of Israel, who saw Jesus as a threat to their lifestyle of power, prestige, and prosperity, mocked Him. The Roman soldiers saw Jesus as just another man that they were assigned to punish and kill because of His crimes, and their focus was on self-gain and profit by the accusation of His garments. People stood there as their reasoning whispered in their ears. “He said He was the Messiah, that He would save us, but now He’s on the cross and He’s not coming down alive. So He must be a false Messiah. He must be a liar.” In doing so, rejecting Him and His words, and according to the gospel of Saint Mark, both those criminals crucified with Jesus mocked Him for self-interest.
Is this mocking? Is this rejecting any different today? Many in our communities, in our country, and in our world are saying, “I don’t believe that the infinite can be contained in the finite. I don’t believe that one man can die on a cross 2,000 plus years ago and do anything for me today. I don’t want Jesus to interfere in my lifestyle, my plans, my pleasures, my possessions. I don’t believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation from the troubles in this world. I don’t believe the Bible is God’s inspired inerrant Word, but only the creation of man for self-glorification.”
Reasoning is to be the servant to the Word, but the temptation is always for it to be the master over the Word of God. God moved Paul to write to the church in Corinth, “For Jews demand signs, Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
While on the cross, one of the criminals was converted. The power of the Word in His presence that reached his ear and the working of the Holy Spirit saved him from spiritual death. He was made spiritually alive; he was transferred from the devil’s camp into Jesus’s kingdom. There was nothing at that point he could do to make himself right before the Word, Jesus, before God. It was all about Jesus and what He has done for me. The criminal tells Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” His reasoning, as he hung there upon the cross, couldn’t figure it out. But through the words and the works of Jesus, he believed. There was the presence of faith, which Hebrews 11 describes: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.” The criminal knew that he was not going to live; he knew that he was going to physically die on the cross, but through Jesus, he was going to live forever.
Jesus tells this new believer without any hesitation, “Truly, I say to you.” In other words, when He says that, He’s telling His hearers, “Listen very carefully to my next words.” And He says to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
Repentance. Moved by the proclamation and power of the law and the gospel, his confession in faith, by God’s grace. Is this criminal not you? Is this criminal not me?
This morning we confessed, “Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we’ve done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, forgive us, renew us, lead us, so that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways to the glory of Your holy name.”
And through your pastor, the servant of Christ, Jesus spoke into your ears this morning: “I forgive you.” We too are members of His kingdom and future residents in His paradise. What do you have to do to be saved? Nothing. You live in a world with the gifts that God has given to you of faith, for you are under His grace, won for you through Jesus on the cross, and you now bask in the glory of His resurrection on Easter morn.
This is the peace. This is the peace that passes all understanding, which keeps your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ your Lord. Dear people of God, in Christ Jesus, your sins are forgiven. Amen.
