Behold the Lamb of God

Good Friday Sermon 2024 | The Rev. Susan Astarita

• Audio Transcript

  [00:00:00] In the name of the powerful triune God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer.

  
  We celebrate this evening, honor the greatest act of God's sacrificial love for us. It is Good Friday and that is why it is good in this story that we've read together context within context within context. The passion in the voice of John's passion narrative.

  
  Layer upon layer of story. A portion of which we have just heard. If you are like me, you have been horrified, you have been shocked, you have been in disbelief, you have been sad.

  [00:01:00] And a bunch of other emotions. That you have experienced either this night or another night in the past.

  
  What I'd like to do is invite you to take a moment to reflect with me on my walk through this story, and to live into the climate and the circumstances and the actors, in which God's most loving act as Jesus gives his life for us, that we might have eternal life. There's a political context. Can't avoid it. An insight into the behavior leading up to the crucifixion.

  
  The Roman province of Judea is in bondage to Rome. The province is self governing, but only to a degree. It is Rome [00:02:00] that possesses power over life and death. Rome's interests are self serving because Rome's goal is self preservation, preservation of empire, and all about the maintenance of power. Many events scattered for reporting in John's gospel in and around the Crucifixion take place in Jerusalem, as you know, and that's the heart, the heart of the empire and the regional.
  Here's the hierarchy. It's interesting to remember this. The governor of Judea is Pontius Pilate, appointed by Rome. Pilate appoints the high priest.

  Complicated. Relationship of church and state, but Pilate’s power is [00:03:00] not absolute. It depended on cooperation of local and temple leaders to maintain stability in the region.

  
  These complex relationships play out in the word exchanges. You've just heard between Pilate and temple leaders, Pilate and Jesus and conversations with the crowds. All in the heat of the moment.

  
  The atmosphere in Jerusalem is always explosive, but in preparation for and doing Passover, it is dynamite. Romans plan to draft more troops.

  Pilate probably had 3000 troops at his command, but they were spread all over Samaria and Caesarea. And so there were probably only a few hundred left in Jerusalem. If Jesus wanted to [00:04:00] incite a rebellion, he probably could have very easily.
  

  The actors Pilate with his haunting past and belligerent behavior, Emperor-appointed procurator of the smaller province of Palestine, a province full of problems requiring a strong hand. His power, as I've said, is limited, but he could control the military. He could supervise tax collection, but he could not increase taxes. He was paid a salary from the Treasury. But if he, if if he exceeded his duties, the people had the power to report him to the Emperor. In other words, he could be deposed.

  
  He apparently had the reputation of being a good administrator for the place to keep [00:05:00] order in Palestine on that bridge between Egypt and Syria. But there is a, but he has been a failure. He's been a failure. We have been told that he had complete contempt and lack of sympathy for the Judeans. He has made several bad choices.

  
  In one incident, he failed to follow precedent of a previous governor to remove an image of the Emperor, which was abhorrent to the Judeans.

  He had soldiers surround the petitioners and ordered them to strike and reps of the Jewish community would not give up. Pilate lost. And the image was removed.

  
  In an incident about improving the water supply in Jerusalem, Pilate took money from the [00:06:00] temple coffers. The act benefited the people. That's true. Even the temple. But the people, as you might imagine, resented it.

  
  Contrast with Jesus. Jesus. Never so regal as when the Roman authorities, at Pilate's behest, were trying to humiliate him. Ordered to place a crown of pointy thorns on his head, and a ragged purple robe, and to flog him, and don't just think a few whips, we're talking whips laced with bone and stone.

  
  And in a voice and tone we in this time at best would call snarky in tone, "Hail king of the Jews." [00:07:00]

  
  Calm and silent or even patient as he stood before Pilate answering the most insulting, patronizing, sarcastic questions about his identity. Calm. I am a king. But not the kind of king that resides. I am the kind of king that resides in people's hearts. Not what you think about. I came into the world to testify to the truth. And everyone who belongs to the truth listens to me. Listens to my voice.

  
  Manipulation and counter manipulation from Pilate: "I find no case against Jesus. Take him and judge him according to your law. Don't you know I have power? I can release you or crucify you, Jesus."

  
  And Jesus, "You [00:08:00] have no power over me unless it has been given to you from above." In fear, Pilate, if you reread it, kept on trying to release Jesus. And the Jews countering everyone who came to be a king, saying that if they claim that they set themselves against the Emperor.

  
  We're not permitted to put anyone to death. We have a law, and according to our law, Jesus should die because he claims to be the Son of God.

  
  Today, in politics, we would say that Pilate was looking for an off ramp passing the buck of decision making to the crowds. You judge Jesus or Barabus. Have you ever wondered why [00:09:00] Pilate was afraid? Why he kept the conversation going for so long? Why he hedged on making a final decision? It was not only because he had a poor track record managing Palestine.

  
  Because I think it was he had been interacting with Jesus and the thought entered his head. What? What if? What if Jesus is the Son of God?
  Why were the temple leaders afraid? Why were leaders afraid? I think, I think they were afraid to lose power in the complex political climate that was Palestine, in temple and ritual management.

  
  But it is my belief that both felt a power beyond themselves, a power beyond [00:10:00] existing structures, religious and political, a truth that would subsume all others in the loving act of God's Son, and a better way to live in community.

  
  Because my brothers and sisters, if we drilled down deep in this gospel of pain and violence, frenzied crowds, and the most mean spirited human interactions between and among Pilate and Jesus, soldiers and Jesus, leaders of the Hebrew community, and the excited crowds. When we look at all of this with new lives, new eyes, I mean, we already see God's grace beginning for the wavering Pilate, having been in the presence of Jesus and in confirmation and conversation asking, "What is the truth?"
  Sadly, he did not recognize it. He was seeing [00:11:00] truth face to face in God's Son, willing to endure anything, even death to redeem God's people.

  God is already at work here in God's transforming power. Remember the words in the mouth of John the Baptist in John's first chapter. "Behold this lamb of God, who will take away the sin of the world," who takes it away.
  All is being readied in the temple on the day of preparation for Passover. So as it turns out, Jesus' crucifixion will coincide with offering the Passover lamb. Another word, another layer.

  And here it comes to us. If we hear the words, the world in John's gospel. Then the sin of the world [00:12:00] is another layer of bondage. Under the power of sin, the world rejects God's love. Rejects love for the world.

  
  Condemning one God sent to the world to love. In relationships, political, social, and individual, we also reject God's love for the world when we fail to love one another. Fail to heed the love, the love command we heard repeated last evening. "Love one another as I have loved you." Where Rome and the world are self-serving, God was not.

  
  Jesus never speaks of crucifixion in terms of death. He only speaks of the kind of death. For John, Jesus' crucifixion on the day of preparation for the Passover is [00:13:00] a signal to the moment he will be lifted up, the moment he will be glorified and ascend to God. In a few words, God triumphs.

  
  God's love continues, just as it has begun, and continues to pour into the world through the presence of the Holy Spirit. We know this in the story of Jesus' life and death and what will be his resurrection because we're people of faith. He gives us salvation, a path to forgiveness once and for all, a promise that he will come again, a model. A path to living a life of kindness and concern. A life which continues the love command. "Love one another as I have loved you."[00:14:00]

  
  It's already beginning. In the words of this passion, already spreading. Simon of Cyrene is stepping forward to help carry the cross. Joseph of Arimathea will offer a tomb for Jesus. And before Jesus says it is finished, he makes sure that his disciple is acknowledged and that his mother will be taken care of. In the name of God, Amen.