Sermon Tone Analysis

Theme: What kind of king is this?

Let us pray.

Most holy, Lord God, death makes us sad; the death of your son is particularly tragic, but we give thanks for his great love for us that he was willing to die for us – taking our sins upon himself so that we died to sin, once and for all, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

We began this liturgy proclaiming Jesus to be king and waving palms.

Slowly, Jesus’ disciples, Jesus’ friends, slip away from the scene.

Jesus becomes more and more isolated.

Only one remains and when confronted to take a stand, Peter runs off.

Jesus is left alone.

We have now crucified our king.

Mark says that Pilate wished to appease the crowd.

He released a known anarchist, one who killed Roman soldiers in seeking to free Judah from Roman rule.

In Barabbas’ place, he ordered Jesus, the King of the Jews, to be crucified.

Does anyone really believe that Pilate released a known rebel, an enemy of the empire, to crucify a religious fanatic?

It is more than interesting to find that the translation for Barabbas’ name is “Son of the Father.”

Was it a case of mistaken identity?

All we have are the gospels to fall back on.

As was Roman custom, the condemned prisoner was flogged before being crucified.

If the prisoner survives the flogging, an extreme, gruesome, whipping, the prisoner is taken to the site of crucifixion.

You know the details: the royal purple robe, the crown of thorns, the mocked king.

Maybe there is blood trickling down his face from his crown.

His body is a broken pile of bleeding flesh.

They are doing more than carrying out a state execution.

They are breaking the body, the spirit, the mind, the emotions, and the soul of the one to be crucified.

Jesus was in no physical shape to complete the journey to Golgotha carrying his own cross.

It was likely a cross bar.

The pole to receive the bar and his body is already in the ground waiting for him.

A man named Simon is ordered to carry the cross.

The soldiers gambled for his clothes.

Why, I have no idea.

They couldn’t have been worth that much.

He was nailed to the cross at about 9 AM.

There was a sign above his head, indicating the charge that warranted his execution by this torturous means: The King of Jews.

He was not alone.

There were two others executed that day.

Two strangers hung with Jesus after his friends deserted him.

Then there were people passing by mocking him.

A very understandable human reaction.

There would be many people today who would do the exact same thing if we still had public executions.

The equivalent of law enforcement, the temple priests and guards, also took their verbal shots at the condemned.

“You thought you were beyond the reach of the law?

Look at you now.”

It got dark at noon and stayed that way for three hours.

It was then that the depth of Jesus’ despair yielded his only reply.

They mocked, but Jesus did not respond.

To God, he does respond.

“Why have you left me out here to rot?

Why have you abandoned me?” Jesus felt alone.

We, too, have sometimes felt abandoned, whether it was by friends, family, and sometimes – God.

It is a black time.

It is full of despair.

No one loves us anymore.

Someone tried to give him something for the pain, but it was too late.

Jesus died.

At that moment, the curtain in the temple that kept all but the High Priest from God’s presence in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

That which separates us from God is torn in two.

All the barriers separating us from God were removed at that moment.

The Roman officer, the Centurion, saw all of this.

And then he understood.

Jesus was God’s son.

The Holy Spirit comes not to a disciple, not to an apostle, not to Jesus’ closest friends, but to a gentile, a soldier, who helped kill the Son of God.

There is supreme irony in Jesus being called several times, “The King of the Jews.”

He really doesn’t look much like a king, despite the sarcastic attempts of the Roman soldiers.

This is a king that does not seek dominion over the empire.

This is a king that rejects violence to get his way.

And he suffers for those choices.

Jesus, the Prince of Peace, offers a peace unlike the /Pax Romana/.

Jesus’ peace is not coerced.

It is not enforced by a military occupation.

Jesus challenges his disciples then and now to think of a radically different kind of political and religious power.

This week we accompany Jesus during his last fateful week.

We will recall sadness on Tuesday at Tenebrae.

But we will leave from that service confident that the darkness will not overcome the Light of Christ.

On Wednesday, we will note that one of our friends, Judas, will conspire against Jesus.

On Thursday, we will dine with Jesus one last time.

He will command us to love one another.

On Friday, we will walk with Jesus before we abandon him to death.

On Saturday night, we will go to the tomb in darkness and we will find it empty.

It was impossible for us to reconcile our rebellious and sinful selves to God.

Jesus took that burden on himself.

Jesus did not give in to the authorities.

Jesus did not give in to evil.

Jesus let evil do its work without a fight.

Jesus would not use violence to respond to violence.

Jesus knew that that would never work.

Jesus defeated evil by submitting to it.

Jesus responded to evil with love and Jesus prevailed.

Evil was vanquished.

We were reconciled to God.

The birth of our movement toward the kingdom of God was begun.

Jesus turned over the rest of that work to us.

In a Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown and Linus are standing next to each other, staring at a star-filled sky.

“Would you like to see a falling star?” Charlie Brown asks Linus.

“Sure...” Linus responds.

“Then again, I don't know,” he adds, after some thought.

“I’d hate to have it fall just on my account.”

\\ In the book /Parables of Peanuts/, Robert Short uses this cartoon to make the point that a star did fall on our account.

God came down to us as Jesus: like a lamb led to slaughter, he died on our account.

What humility.

What love and, oh, what he accomplished there.