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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.
By the providence of God, this past Sunday’s Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John, which includes Jesus’s so-called cleansing of the temple (John 2:13-25), complements tonight’s Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, which includes unique details about the false testimony made to the Sanhedrin, apparently about what Jesus said after that cleansing some three years earlier. Some Bible commentators think that St. Mark simply includes two different versions of the same tradition about the false testimony, one general and one more-detailed (Taylor, ad loc Mark 14:57-59, p.566; confer Mann, ad loc Mark 14:57, p.622), and there are admittedly questions about St. Mark’s additional details (for example, Brown, A Crucified Christ, 25), but we recognize the account’s inspiration by the Holy Spirit and so also its resulting inerrancy, and we feel the additional details’ effect of emphasizing the false character of the witnesses (confer Brown, Death, 433). So, tonight as we continue to consider St. Mark’s unique contributions to the whole narrative of our Lord’s Passion for us, we consider these “False‑testimony details”.
As we heard, at least many, if not all, of those on the Jewish ruling council were seeking testimony against Jesus in order to put Him to death, but they found none. The council’s members apparently feared losing the temple as a result of people’s believing in Jesus (John 11:47-48), and, with priests appointed by the Romans as members of the council (Brown, Death, 434), and perhaps their knowing that the Romans would frown upon violence against such sanctuaries as the temple (Voelz, ad loc Mark 14:57-58, p.1102, citing Josephus, Jewish War, 6.124-128), the members of the council seem to have colluded with false witnesses in order to make allegations against Jesus that would support their eventual claim that Jesus was an insurrectionist who threatened Roman rule. Presumably trying to meet the Old Testament requirement of two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15), and fulfilling Old Testament prophecy in the process (Psalm 27:12), many bore false witness against Jesus, but their testimony did not agree (or, was not equivalent testimony), nor did the false testimony agree of those who claimed personally to have heard Jesus say that He would destroy the temple made with hands and in three days build another not made with hands. Precisely what was false about their statements St. Mark does not say, but he does make clear that their testimony was false, a false‑testimony sin against God’s Commandment given through Moses (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20), as we also heard this past Sunday, a Commandment later reiterated by Jesus Himself (Mark 10:19).
At the meeting of the Plano Study Group last month, I led the pastors in a review of what Luther’s confessionally-binding Large and Small Catechisms say about the Eighth Commandment. With the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s Large Catechism, we believe, teach, and confess that the Eighth Commandment “in its first and simplest meaning” has to do with public courts of justice (LC I:257, Tappert, 399), it secondly applies to “spiritual jurisdiction or administration” (LC I:262, Tappert, 400), and it thirdly applies to “all sins of the tongue” (LC I:263, Tappert, 400). Those more‑general sins of the tongue are probably where we go against the Eighth Commandment: truly or falsely speaking evil of our neighbors without the right to judge and reprove them publicly, failing to speak the truth about our neighbors when by virtue of our vocations we have that right, or not acting in keeping with the steps for our neighbors’ improvement that are outlined in Matthew 18 (Matthew 18:15-20). Or, put in the simpler language of the Small Catechism, we tell lies about our neighbors, betray them, slander them, and hurt their reputations; we fail to defend them, to speak well of them, and to explain everything in the kindest‑possible way (SC I:16). Especially in our modern era, we may even label, demean, or bully our neighbors on social media (Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, 112-113).
For such false-testimony sins against the Eighth Commandment, we deserve not only to have done to us what we might have meant to do to the person against whom we sinned (Deuteronomy 19:19), but we also deserve what we deserve on account of our sinful nature and any one and all of our sins: both death here in time and torment in hell for eternity. Those who testified falsely against Jesus and might have judged Him based on that testimony eventually were judged for their sin (Marcus, Mark 14:57, p.1002), and so we will eventually be judged for our sin. But, when, called and so enabled by God, we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep sinning, then God forgives us: our sins against the Eighth Commandment, our sinful nature, and all of our sin, whatever our sin might be. In the words of tonight’s Penitential Psalm (Psalm 38; antiphon: v.15), we confess our iniquity, that we are sorry for our sin, and the Lord hears our penitential cry (Lutheran Service Book 419) and makes haste to help us with salvation, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
As we recalled on Sunday, the Lord’s anointed Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, in some ways was expected to restore the sacrificial system and the temple (confer Taylor, ad loc Mark 14:57-59, p.566), and so Jesus’s alleged claim about personally-building a temple not‑made‑with‑hands reasonably could have prompted the high priest’s question whether Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed (Taylor, ad loc Mark 14:53-63, pp.563-564; confer Marcus, ad loc Mark 14:55-61a, p.1015; compare Lenski, ad loc Mark 14:61, p.662). And, unlike the false witnesses, Jesus witnessed truly: I am! Out of God’s great love for us, Jesus stood ready to bear our sins of false witness, our sinful natures, and all of our other sins to the cross, in order to die there for us, in our place. Whether of alleged insurrection or of the seemingly-related charge of blasphemy, the Sanhedrin’s convicting Jesus was not easy, because He had done nothing wrong (Marcus, ad loc Mark 14:51-61a, p.1014). Yet, the Sanhedrin’s arguable mis‑carriage of justice served God’s “carriage” of justice by which Jesus died for us, the death that we deserved. While Jesus was hanging on the cross, those who passed by derided Him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross” (Mark 15:29). What they meant sarcastically had its grain of truth, as even did the witnesses’ false testimony (Marcus, ad loc Mark 14:58, p.1004), telling not only of cross but also of triumph (Voelz, ad loc Mark 14:57-58, p.1102), telling not only of Jesus’s death but also of His resurrection in three days.
Jesus arguably never said that He would destroy the temple made with hands, yet, even though the temple was not destroyed until decades later, its destruction nevertheless can be said to have begun with the tearing in two of the curtain of the temple, from top to bottom, after Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last (Mark 15:37-38; confer Brown, Death, for example, pp.439, 451). The old system of sacrifices was fulfilled in Christ’s sacrifice of Himself, and the old temple no longer housed the presence of God but the flesh of the man Jesus did (John 1:14). The Spirit, the water, and the blood testify of Him for us today (1 John 5:7-8). The Holy Spirit works through God’s Word, both read and preached to groups like this and applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar that are Christ’s Body and Blood, given and shed for us, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Having in faith received forgiveness through God’s Word and Sacraments, we at least try to keep His Commandments, including the Eighth Commandment, that Commandment prohibiting our giving false testimony against our neighbors. And, with daily contrition and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins for when we fail to keep His Commandments, as we will fail. By God’s grace we bear up under our neighbors’ giving false testimony against us, even if it comes to their falsely accusing us of insurrection or blasphemy because of our faithfulness to the Triune God (confer Acts 6:12-14). We recognize that the Holy Spirit inspired Holy Scripture, such as the Gospel accounts, through unique men, who made unique contributions, but that the accounts’ uniqueness does not undermine their truth or authority. We look forward to considering two more of St. Mark’s unique contributions to the whole narrative of our Lord’s Passion for us. And, until then, as always, we let God work through Holy Scripture to comfort us and give us peace and joy.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +