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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The centurion saw it all, from the beginning to the very, very end. The centurion was there when they mocked and scourged him and called him king of the Jews in sarcasm and spit upon him. And the centurion noticed that Jesus was silent during all of this. The centurion watched as Christ barely could carry the cross to Golgotha. He saw Simon of Cyrene come in and help for a time. The centurion saw the disciples at a distance watching. The centurion saw them nail his hands and feet into that wooden beam, pull it upright and let it set in that hole with the body shaking as it fell. The centurion watched and listened as Jesus spoke words from the cross. And one phrase did stick in the centurion’s mind: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
How curious a statement to be made from a man who was dying. Because he also heard two other conversations from the two thieves that were on his right and on his left. One railing at the one in the center, Jesus. The other asking for forgiveness, seeking to be remembered in his kingdom when he comes. The centurion thought about those words as well. He saw the sun vanish. Darkness over the entire world. From noon until three. Creation turned up on its head and completely reversed from what he was accustomed to seeing. He saw the color flow from darkness, the face of Christ becoming more ashen with each passing moment. He heard him breathe his last and shout, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.
And then he and all those around him, the disciples included, the crowd that had gathered as well, felt and experienced the earthquake that occurred when Christ breathed his last. Out of the lips of this pagan, this man who had no church background, no exposure to Christianity other than with this movement that had occurred over the last three years with this prophet named Jesus, he was a weathered soldier. He was a centurion, meaning he was the commander over a hundred soldiers. You know he had to have seen many horrible things. You know he had to have inflicted many horrible things.
And yet, what came from the lips of this dying man, the conversations with these thieves, the words that flowed from his lips, caught his attention in a way that nothing else had. He made a great confession about who Jesus is when he cried out, “‘Truly, he is the Son of God.'” Truly, this man is innocent.
For us to have waved around our faces a hangman’s noose, a hypodermic needle filled with poison, an electric chair, to have those symbols of death for the most detestable of criminals waved in our faces would have more of an effect on us than a cross in our modern era. Because those forms of punishment—the hangman’s noose, the injection of lethal drug, the electric chair—were all reserved for the most heinous of criminals. And the innocent one, whom this centurion proclaimed as such, dies from such a death-giving punishment.
Innocence, injustice. Boy, we are all about injustice in our great nation, aren’t we? Injustice in our workplace, injustice in our marriage, injustice in our family relationships, injustice within the church. Oh, we’re all about injustice. And yet we will never see and experience what the centurion saw with his own naked eyes. He saw the innocent one wracked with your and my sins of injustices—the things that we get all wrapped up around the axle, the things that cause us to wake up in the middle of the night and think and not go back to sleep. We’re more concerned about our justice rather than the justice or the lack thereof given to Jesus on that cross that the centurion witnessed.
We have no idea whether or not the centurion believed, but the words that came out of his lips are for you and for me. But they were also spoken not just for you and for me recorded by the gospel writers. They were also spoken for the sake of the crowd and the apostles and disciples who followed, at a distance, mind you. Because for them, as for you and me, to be reminded that this one who died—the death undeserving of such an innocent and pure person—was our death, as we sang in that hymn. And that this one who died was not just a man, but, as we sang in that hymn, Our God is dead. Hence why when the centurion says, truly this one is the Son of God, truly this man is innocent, has meaning to you and me. It had meaning to this centurion, or he would never have spoken such words.
If a pagan can look upon this act and see injustice, you can see how hardened of hearts the rest of this world is in this day and age as well, who hear this story, believe, and it flows into one ear and out the other. And how easy it is for you and me to denigrate that as if it is some beautiful reminder of God’s love and forgetting that we’ll never face such a heinous death. We live in faith confident of our resurrection. We live in faith confident that we will close our eyes forgiven.
When Jesus died and the centurion witnessed this death, he saw innocence being slaughtered for the guilty. Oh, the injustice of it all. When the crowd walks away, they don’t just walk away as if the show’s over, time to go home. They walked away contemplating this reality that they had witnessed and the words that they heard from the centurion’s lips.
For what they did was to beat their breast. In Scripture, you remember the tax collector in the temple who beat his breast over in the corner saying, Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner. And the Pharisee in the middle of the synagogue shouting, I’m so glad I’m not like others, whomever they may be. The crowd went away, contemplating and meditating on the very thing that they had witnessed: innocence slaughtered for the guilty. Oh, the injustice of it all, indeed.
The centurion’s words for you and for me are our meditation this final midweek before Holy Week next week, as we prepare for the climactic death of our Lord on Friday, Good Friday. We have seen many of the people near the crucifixion. We’ve heard about Mary, the woman who anointed Jesus’ head and feet, being anointed for what purpose but for death. We heard about Simon from Cyrene. We heard about the thief on the cross who knew what he had done and embraced the punishment that justly was given to him and completely was mystified by the injustice done to the one who sat in the middle of them. And he died a believer.
We heard about the beloved Apostle John, upper left-hand corner, top of the window, the only one of the twelve that was close, not at a distance, along with Mary, the mother of our Lord, watching the breaths shallow and shallow become until finally there were no more breathing motions or sounds coming from the corpse that hung in front of them.
And so we end this evening hearing the words from a Gentile, from an unbeliever who spoke words of truth for your heart and my heart, that we may find comfort in the innocence slaughtered for the guilty, and that we may find hope in the Son of God slain for the creature, that the creature may be made righteous in the Father’s sight. In the name of the one proclaimed as the Son of God and the innocent one by the centurion, Jesus himself, amen.
