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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. (Amen.)
In the Gospel Reading that we just completed, in both of its two chapters, in all 82 of their total verses of St. John’s Divinely-inspired Gospel account, the clearest single statement about what we believe about Jesus and about what He did in the whole of the Reading on that original Good Friday arguably is the high priest Caiaphas’s statement that it was expedient that one man should die for the people. For, that is exactly what the whole of the Reading reports, how “One Man dies for the people”, how Jesus accomplished our redemption, our salvation. Never mind that Caiaphas did not believe in Jesus, for Jesus Himself said that Jewish leaders such as the scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses’s seat (Matthew 23:2)—that is to say, they were Moses’s successors and taught with his authority (TLSB, ad loc Matthew 23:2, p.1633)—and, at the time of Moses, God prophesied through the non-Israelite prophet Balaam, and God even enabled Balaam’s donkey to speak (Numbers 22:28-30 and, for example, 23:12; confer Luther, AE 36:138; Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc John 11:51, p.96; TLSB, ad loc John 11:51, p.1805). Earlier in his Gospel account, St. John had uniquely narrated Caiaphas’s giving his “advice”—that one man should die for the people—to the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin (John 11:47-53), and, in today’s Gospel Reading, that “advice” from Caiaphas seems to be what matters most to St. John about Caiaphas, with St. John’s perhaps suggesting that Jesus could not get a fair hearing either from Caiaphas or from his predecessor and father‑in‑law Annas (Lenski, ad loc John 18:14, p.1192; Morris, ad loc John 18:14, p.664; CSSB, ad loc Jn 18:14, pp.1641‑1642), and St. John’s saying only indirectly that Jesus did appear before Caiaphas, as we heard (John 18:24, 28; compare Matthew 26:57‑68; Mark 14:53-65; Luke 22:66-71; see also Brown, ad loc John 18:13-27, p.835).
Today some have no difficulty thinking that a national leader might miscarry justice for political purposes, and that sort of politically-motivated miscarriage of justice seems to be what happened in Jesus’s case. When earlier in his Gospel account St. John narrated Caiaphas’s giving his “advice”, a passage we hear once every three years on the Fifth Sunday in Lent (Lutheran Service Book three‑year series A), after Lazarus was raised from the dead but before Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the Sanhedrin already was concerned both about everyone’s believing in Jesus and about the Romans’ taking away their place and nation, but Caiaphas said it was better for them that one man die for the people and not that the whole nation should perish. St. John goes on to explain that Caiaphas did not say that of his own accord but that, being high priest that year, Caiaphas prophesied, presumably by the power of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus would die not only for the nation but also to gather into one the children of God scattered abroad. Caiaphas may have meant only that Jesus would die instead of the nation’s perishing, but God intended Caiaphas’s statement to mean, and so we rightly hear, that Jesus died on behalf of all people, including you and me (Weinrich, ad loc John 11:49b-50, p.659; confer ad loc John 11:49-53, pp.666-667).
That Jesus did die for us means that we needed Jesus to die for us. In our case, the expediency is weighing two options to see which is more profitable or advantageous to us: Jesus’s dying for us, or our perishing in a way worse than the Romans’ taking away our place and nation. In His so-called Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had said that if our right eye causes us to sin, we should tear it out and throw it away, for it is better (more “profitable” or “expedient”) that we lose one of our members than that our whole body be thrown into hell, and, He continued, if our right hand causes us to sin, then we should cut it off and throw it away, for it is better that we lose one of our members than that our whole body go into hell (Matthew 5:29-30; confer 18:8-9 and K. Weiss, TDNT 9:76)—and hell is what we deserve. Of course, even if we literally tore out our eye and cut off our hand, even if we eliminated all of our members, we would not undo the sin that we had committed already, and we would still keep sinning, for we are sinful by nature. Our only deliverance from our wretched bodies of death is through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:24‑25).
“One man dies for the people”, but Jesus is no ordinary man: Jesus is the eternal Son of God in human flesh. Jesus confessed to Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin Who He was, but they had Him crucified anyway, bringing about His death that they thought would spare their nation destruction by the Romans. Fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 2, they took counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, His Christ (Psalm 2:2). As we heard, Jesus was betrayed, arrested, denied, tried, struck, flogged, mocked, crucified, died, and was buried—all for us, in our place, as our substitute. The one God-man takes away the sins of the whole world (John 1:29, 36; confer 1 John 2:2)! In the words of today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed; all we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. When we are sorry for our sin and trust God to forgive us, then God does forgive us, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ! St. John’s repeatedly mentioning that Caiaphas was the high priest and his mentioning the particular year can remind us of the high priest’s responsibility once each year to make a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the people (Leviticus 16:34; confer and compare Weinrich, ad loc John 11:49-53, pp.673-674 n.78, citing Heil, 732, 733). Similarly, today’s Epistle Reading refers to Jesus as our great High Priest Who sympathizes with our weakness, and so the Divinely-inspired author of Hebrews encourages us with confidence to draw near to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14‑16; 5:7-9).
Resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven, Jesus according to His priestly Office Himself pleads for us with our Heavenly Father (1 John 2:1), and, according to His prophetic Office, through those He calls and sends, Jesus still proclaims Himself to be the Son of God and Redeemer of the world (for example, Luke 10:16). Jesus’s read and preached Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). And, Jesus’s Gospel is applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in the Holy Supper that are His Body and Blood. In all of these ways Jesus’s death gathers into one the children of God who are scattered abroad (confer John 10:15‑16; 12:32-33)! We children of God are born of God of water and the Spirit (John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5; confer Weinrich, ad loc John 11:49-53, p.669), and distinctions of ethnicity and social standing no longer matter as we are all one baptized into Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:27-29; confer Weinrich, ad loc John 11:49-53, pp.672-673). When we who are baptized privately confess to our pastor the sin that we know and feel in our heart, then we are absolved and receive Christ’s Body and His Blood poured out for “many”, that is to say, poured out for “all” (for example, Mark 14:22-24). And, so we, in repentance and faith, receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
The Jewish leaders of Jesus’s day at least knew, if not saw, the many signs that Jesus did, and they knew that those signs were intended to create faith in Him (confer John 2:11), and they saw that in others those signs did create faith, but they themselves did not believe in Him and acted against Him. Later, in their unrepentance and unbelief they similarly acted, or at least tried to act, against His apostles (for example, Acts 4:1-22; 6:8-15). The Jewish leaders had tried to keep the Romans from destroying their place and their nation, but they failed: the Romans destroyed their place and their nation, and we should not expect any sort of return of such a Jewish Temple or nation at any point. In our day, other unrepentant unbelievers may similarly try to act against us who confess faith in Jesus by our words and deeds, but no matter. We remain faithful to Him. One Man has died for the people. God finished His work of redeeming us, and, in His time and way, He also will finish His work of sanctifying us.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +