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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight with the fifth and final “scene” of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ Drawn from the Four Gospel Accounts, the “scene” at Calvary, we have come to the “end” of that Passion. We have come to the “end” not only in the sense of the final part and its completion, but we have come to the “end” also in the sense of its goal and its accomplishment. As in earlier “scenes”, so at Calvary, various passages of Holy Scripture were fulfilled. In fact, in tonight’s “scene” we heard five times that something happened and the Scripture was fulfilled, or that something happened in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled (in one case that statement was expressed with a different Greek verb that could be translated as completed or perfected). Tonight we consider this final “scene” of the Lord’s Passion under the theme “Scripture Fulfilled”.
Listed on your service outline, tonight’s passages about the Scripture being fulfilled are drawn mostly from St. John’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account; one seems to be taken from a passage sometimes found in St. Mark’s account that probably actually came from an earlier part of the Passion narrative in St. Luke’s account. The passages that themselves are being fulfilled come from a wider range of Old Testament books from Exodus to Zechariah. The Scripture and fulfillment specifically have to do with Jesus’s being numbered with the transgressors, His clothing’s being divided and distributed by casting lots, Jesus’s speaking about thirsting, His bones’ not being broken, and His body’s being pierced.
Those five fulfillments can seem sort of random, almost insignificant in the big scheme of things. But, thinking that is sort of like not being able to see the forest because of all the trees. God cared about the big scheme of things so much that He directly and indirectly prophesied about a number of seemingly otherwise random, insignificant aspects of it. Moreover, the Scripture and other “authors” can refer to one small part of a larger passage when they mean to refer to the whole of that larger passage, both in quoting it and surely also in fulfilling it. So, we can say that God was not doing a whole bunch of little things in order to check them off a list of prophecy that He had to fulfill because He said He would, but rather God was doing the big thing that He always intended to do, and so along the way He not only had foretold all sorts of aspects of it, but He now also was accomplishing them. That big thing God always intended to do was to save us sinners from both the temporal death and the eternal torment that, apart from faith in Jesus Christ, we deserve on account of our sinful nature and actual sin, both the things that we do that we should not do and the things that we should not do that we do do. We by nature and by thought, word, and deed rightly are numbered among the transgressors, but sinless Jesus is only so numbered among the transgressors because He took on our sin for us and for our salvation. There on the cross Jesus Himself triumphantly cried out that His work of redeeming us was finished. Focusing on that statement (Pollack, #170, 134), our Office Hymn (LSB 452) had us sing: “No work is left undone / Of all the Father willed; / His toil, His sorrows, one by one, / The Scriptures have fulfilled.”
So God had said that His Servant would suffer for us, for our transgressions. So God had said that His forsaken Servant would be naked and thirsty (confer Psalm 22:15). As the true Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36) would not suffer broken bones (confer Numbers 9:12; 1 Corinthians 5:7). And, even though He was pierced in death, He is resurrected as the once-slain but now-living Lamb Who will come a final time in glory with the clouds, causing those who do not now repent of their sin and believe in Him to wail on account of Him (confer Revelation 1:7; Daniel 7:13; also Revelation 5:6, 12; 13:8).
When, enabled by God, we do repent of our sin and trust Him to forgive our sin, then God does just that: God forgives our sinful nature and our actual sin, for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, crucified on Calvary’s cross for us. Tonight’s Opening Hymn (Lutheran Service Book 435), by a popular hymn-writer yet apparently found almost exclusively in Lutheran hymnals (Precht, #96, 103), invites us to come in sorrow and contrition to Calvary’s holy mountain. Now, if you and I were literally to go to modern‑day Israel, there we would find a number of places that different traditions say are the sites of Jesus’s crucifixion, but such a pilgrimage would not help us, for we would not literally find Jesus there.
To be sure, the Opening Hymn is singing more about a figurative pilgrimage to Calvary, and, to the extent that such a figurative pilgrimage leads us to God’s Word and Sacraments, there we do literally find Jesus. The Baptismal Font is a pure and healing fountain that flows for you, for me, for all, in a full, perpetual tide, Opened when our Savior died. Because in it we are connected to Christ, to His death and resurrection prophesied and fulfilled for us, Holy Baptism works forgiveness of sins, rescues us from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. Likewise, the forgiveness of sins won for us by Christ’s death and resurrection prophesied and fulfilled for us, is given to us through individual Holy Absolution from the pastor as from God Himself. And, in the Sacrament of the Altar, we do not receive sour wine, as Jesus did (Matthew 27:48; Luke 23:36), but wine that is Christ’s Blood and bread that is Christ’s Body—again Christ’s death and resurrection prophesied and fulfilled for us means forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation can be given to us through this Sacrament. In God’s Word and all His Sacraments we literally find both Jesus and so also the benefits He won for us on Calvary’s cross.
The Scripture about Jesus’s death and resurrection for us have been fulfilled, and so we can be sure that the Scripture about us, including our death and resurrection, will also be fulfilled. Our Almighty God through His Word and Sacraments enables us to repent of our sin and trust Him to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and He enables us to persevere through this life to the next. Like St. Paul, we can be certain that God, Who began such a good work in us, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). As we repent and believe, no sin seemingly great or small and no affliction seemingly great or small can keep us from that heavenly goal. Just as God completed and accomplished all that He said He would do about Jesus—the “Scripture Fulfilled” that we have considered in connection with the “scene” of our Lord’s Passion at Calvary—so God will complete and accomplish all that He has said He will do about perfecting us.
The author of tonight’s Closing Hymn (LSB 420), Ernst Homburg, who lived in Germany in the seventeenth century, was regarded by his contemporaries as a poet of the first rank. At first he wrote poems about secular things, such as love and drinking, until, he said the “heavy cross” of “anxious and sore domestic afflictions” induced and compelled him to write Christian hymns. Homburg primarily intended the hymns for his own private use, but, they were shared with the world, and so we can join him and countless Christians who have followed him in praising God for “Scripture Fulfilled” with these words (Pollack #151, 118-119, 523-524; Precht, #94, 101, 651-652):
Then, for all that wrought my pardon, / For Thy sorrows deep and sore,
For Thine anguish in the Garden, / I will thank Thee evermore,
Thank Thee for Thy groaning, sighing, / For Thy bleeding and Thy dying,
For that last triumphant cry, / And shall praise Thee, Lord, on high.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +