|
||
Sermon
Summary Please press the play button below to hear the sermon (mp3 file).
SERMON TRANSCRIPT: Going toward Easter, looking toward the cross and the last twenty four hours of his earthly life -- at each of those events and seeing what they say to us. We started off by looking at the weeks teachings that culminated in Thursday afternoon and we looked at the way that Jesus taught through those four chapters on Thursday afternoon. How in each of those he systematically, as he taught about the upcoming kingdom, he upset the kingdoms here. How each of these different groups, including his disciples, including the people who welcomed him into Jerusalem were all eventually turning away from him. So, if you weren’t here for that sermon I would encourage you to go back and listen to or read it on the web site. A couple weeks ago we talked about the last supper. We discussed that phrase where he said, "I will not eat this supper again until I eat it with you in your father’s kingdom." We talked about Messianic banquet and we had a wonderful Lords supper banquet and celebrated communion around that. Last week Pastor Sherri talked about the events that happened right after the Lords supper. The arrest, the betrayal, how all the disciples scattered. And today’s scripture is about the trials of Jesus. I thought when I built the sermons series that we would focus on the trials of Jesus not realizing that it is is kind of a hard one to say what does this have to do with us. But I struggled a little bit with how does this relate to us? I am going to share my struggle with you. I have done that. There are four different gospels, they each tell the story of Jesus, looking from a different angle. Not all the gospels have everything in it. That is why we have four different ones. There are only two gospels that talk about the birth of Jesus: Matthew and Luke. Mark and John don’t deal with Christmas at all. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells lots of parables. In the gospel of John he doesn’t tell one, instead he speaks in word pictures. I am the good shepherd, I am the door. I am the resurrection and life. I am the light of the world. Not even all the gospels tell the last supper. The gospel of John gives hints of it, but he calls himself the bread of life and doesn’t explain the breaking of the bread. Not even all the gospels talk about Easter much. Matthew, Luke, and John give quite a bit of narrative about Easter, but the gospel of Mark just has an angel announcing it and then it ends. They all talk about this core part, the life of Jesus. His arrest, his betrayal, his trial, his crucifiction, his death, his burial. They all tell an aspect of that story. They don’t all tell it the same way, not all the gospel writers were present when this happened, remember they scattered. It says, remember, Peter was looking on from a distance to see how the story ended. One of the creeds said when it got right down to it, this is what we believe about Jesus, and he was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate. Wow. That shows up even in the creed. The trial and the suffering of Jesus. Why did the gospels all focus on this when there are so many other things? They all focus on this. Let’s take a look at Pontius Pilate. Now, if you read the gospels they all tell it a slightly different way. They all tell the story and blame Pontius Pilate, he was a Roman appointed by Ceasar to govern this whole region. The Romans were the only ones who could sentence a person to death. He had a role to play in this. He was the judge, he was the jury, and he was the lawyer. It was a very streamlined system of justice. This whole narrative happens Thursday night. Twelve hours later, the judgment is being carried out. No lawyers, no appeals, no waiting for evidence to assemble. It is whatever Pontius Pilate said-ruled. I found out one odd thing this past week researching for this sermon. Pontius Pilate shows up in the creed, "he suffered under Pontius Pilate" and you wouldn’t think that would make him a hero. The way the gospels tell it, some of them put a sympathetic twist on it. His wife had nightmares and dreamt about it and warned him about it. But some of the other gospels just have him saying, Jesus comes in, he chews him out and hands him over. There is group called the Coptic Church, an Eastern orthodox tradition type church and in their list of the saints is Pontius Pilate. Saint Pontius Pilate and his wife Claudia. Saints? What is that about? Later tradition told it that he was haunted by what he had done and became a Christian. The bible doesn’t say that. But tradition says that his wife became a Christian and through her influence he became a Christian and he is listed as a saint in the Coptic Church. That’s strange. Is that why they tell the story that he is redeemed for his role here? I don’t think so. Are they telling us the story to show that you can’t ever really trust a civil justice system to arrive at truth? Or to really call it justice? It seems like our civil justice system weighs competing interests to see who wins and loses, but sometimes truth is a causality of it. Well I don’t think that’s it. Some of the gospels mention Herod, that he had a role in this. When Pontius Pilate heard that Jesus was from Galilee, he said you have to go off to their court and this is not true of all the gospels having Herods in them. This is not the same Herods from when Jesus is born, that was Herod the great, he did a lot of great things and was also a crazy man. Remember when Jesus was born, it was said that Herod was so threatened earlier in the gospel it says in Matthew that Herod killed all the little male children two years and younger. Trying to get at this one. Harrod the so called great was so paranoid that he killed any of his own sons who he thought would be a rival for power. Any sons who had gifts of leadership he killed. He just left the sons that were Herod the lesser and this is one of them. In fact they were so inept at governing that Rome carved up the areas into separate areas and gave each of these sons of Herod a place to rule over. So, why did they tell the story, the trial of Jesus? Maybe we ought to look at this, not that I like this part very well, but it’s a lot easier to talk about the Romans of back then to bring it closer. There was another aspect of the trial, that’s what today’s scripture is about. That when Jesus was brought before the religious leaders. I like to say it that way because the Christian church has done some pretty awful things with this story saying the Jews did this. It’s always easier to say “those people did it” but when we express it like this, “the religious leaders brought Jesus to trial within the temple” that strikes closer to home. Who are they? The bible calls them the Sanhedrin; they were a group of 70 people. They were partially appointed by Rome and partially appointed by different interest groups in the church so each of the denominations had representatives there in the Sanhedrin, there were Sadducees, Pharisees, priests and lay people. Two of the followers were in the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Aramatheia and Nicodemus. They were Jesus followers; they were part of the Sanhedrin. Now the thing the religious people did, while the civil courts followed their own rules which is whatever Pilate wanted to do, the Sanhedrin, the religious court, had rules. They weren’t to meet at night. They were to meet during the day in public. Here they gathered together late Thursday night and the wee hours of Friday morning and the religious people tried Jesus. This comes a little closer to stepping on my toes as a religious leader. Now as I get ready for a new position as District Superintendant and work with the bishop, that starts to sound a lot like it. Now realize as I prepare for the next step in ministry I have been sitting in on some of the meetings of the cabinet, I am finding out that I can’t vote, but they let me talk and listen. This group has to kind of stand in judgment. When there is a moral failure in a pastor this is one of two groups that deals with it. There are also lesser ways. Where a pastor comes before us and says that his church wants him to move and this pastor wants to move and they have leadership and they have gifts and is a Godly good person but they can’t really handle this but maybe we will put them over here where they won’t do too much damage. Then the group says here is a church that beats up every pastor we put in there. So we need to put someone in there with the hide of a rhinoceros. That can teach these folks how to act with the heart of a child. That is hard to find. You know you can’t help but establish rules and guidelines to how you live. But the story is telling us to do that with fear and trembling because that religious group didn’t do such a good job in rendering judgment. There were really three trials, the roman trial, the religious leaders and the trial of public opinion. The person in the street. The person in the pew. Because this story also tells us that this crowd who filled Jerusalem on Sunday welcomed him with shouts of "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." By this scripture, Thursday night they were saying this man, Jesus, needs put to death and later this night they were shouting crucify him. Maybe this story is here to teach us about the fickle nature of the human heart. Maybe it is to point out the democracy and that taking a poll doesn’t always arrive at the truth. Every time a poll of vote was taken in the bible it ended up bad. Democracy is not really lifted up in the bible. Other forms of government are a lot worse, but it’s not blessed in the bible either. Because religious people turned on him. Is that why this story is here? I thought maybe, what this is doing here, is like the cross. Jesus died so we wouldn’t have to. Maybe Jesus went through this trial and the injustices of this world so we wouldn’t have to. I thought about that and realized pretty quickly that isn’t right because there is scripture that says while you live in this world you will have trials and tribulations. While we don’t get put on trial very often there are others in the world that for their faith they are on trial. There are countries on this earth where to say you are a Jesus follower puts your life, your reputation, your job and in jeopardy. We might get snickered at but it’s not like that here. As a matter a fact, the gospel of Matthew is written and just shortly after that some of the followers of Jesus in Rome, moms and dads, wife’s and husbands and their children were given a chance to renounce Jesus or face the wild animals in the coliseum. I’m sure there were groups that did both. So it isn’t that Jesus went through this so we won’t have to. If you live long enough you will have a time of trial and testing. So why is this story here? One thing you do in scripture when you're studying the bible and you get stuck, you keep the context in mind and since this scripture is in the 26th Chapter of Matthew maybe it would help to read the 25th Chapter. Then the 27th chapter. There is a hint of it in this scripture of what happens in the 25th chapter in one of Jesus teachings when he said “when the son of man comes in glory and all his angels with him, he will gather the nations together and he will judge”. The rest of the creed goes like that. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. The third day he rose and ascended into heaven and he shall come to judge the living and the dead. That should include just about everybody. Maybe this is here to remind us that the judges of this world and the kingdoms of this world are going to be all turned upside down and become the kingdoms of our God and of Christ and he shall reign forever. There is a judge who will come and he will be judge, jury and advocate and we will stand in front of him. While the world did this to Jesus, he is going to judge us in a way that turns the world upside down. I hope it is not a jury trial when we go and face him. I hope not for me. I want one of those little quiet private rooms where it is one on one with him. Because the bible says when we are understood fully then we will understand fully and when all the evidence is laid out there before the judge, the jury and our advocate I know just the things I can remember will be so embarrassing and there is going to be a lot of other stuff that I have forgotten or didn’t realize and I hope it is a private conference, a locked door. Jesus is going to judge each one of us. The amazing thing is that he is not going to use our system of judgment or government. He is going to do it in ways that we can’t even fathom. It will be with God's justice and with God’s mercy and grace. We will be judged. That is the whole context of this I think. That the one we presumed to judge will in the end judge us. The holiness and justice, mixed with mercy and grace. The bible tell us we are sinners and we have all fallen short and we have all betrayed him as Pastor Sherri talked about last week. But we can give thanks we won’t face a Pilate, a Herod, or us. So we are going to sing an old expression of the faith about how he judges us. It was written by a man who had really messed up his life, 250 years ago he was engaged in something, his name is John Newton and he was engaged in one of the darkest, evil chapters of human existence, he was in the slave trade, he broke up families, he transported prisoners, he sold off people, he killed a bunch of them shoved down in the holds of the ship and they died there. He sold people who were born free into slavery until God somehow convicted him and touched him and turned him around. There is a movie out about the absolution of the slave trade and it’s based on the story of John Newton. He recognized that though he was a wretch and totally blown it, there is amazing grace that captures us. Even when you lay our sins out and the list goes on and on we will stand before a judge of grace, a jury of grace and a graceful advocate. We will be judged with what we have done with our life. Amazing Grace…
|
||
|
March 19-23, 2007
|
|
|
