Sunday of the Passion
Mt
26:1-27:66
3/24/24
It went exactly as planned. It didn’t go as planned. That is the contrast that we find at the
beginning of the reading of the Passion of Our Lord according to St.
Matthew. Our text begins by saying, “When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ‘You
know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of
Man will be delivered up to be crucified.’”
Jesus
predicts that his death – his crucifixion – will occur at the time of the
Passover. This is actually fourth time
our Lord has predicted his passion. Just
before entering the Jerusalem he had said, “See, we
are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the
chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver
him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and
he will be raised on the third day.”
This is what Jesus said would
happen. However, the Jewish religious
leaders had a very different plan.
Immediately after Jesus’ prediction of his death we find this in our
text: “Then the chief priests and the elders
of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name
was Caiaphas,
and
plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they
said, ‘Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.’”
The religious leaders had had enough of
Jesus. It was time to get rid of the
troublemaker. However, they knew well
about Jesus’ popularity – how the crowds were enamored with him. They needed to get rid of him secretly. And clearly, the Passover was not the
time to do it. Jerusalem would be filled
with pilgrims, many who had come from Galilee.
As a celebration of how God had rescued Israel from Egypt, it was a time
that raised renewed hopes that God would do this again and rescue them from the
Romans. It was an emotionally charged
time, and so was absolutely the wrong moment to act against Jesus.
But then, an unexpected opportunity
presented itself. We learn, “Then one of
the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and
said, ‘What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?’ And they paid
him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an
opportunity to betray him.” This changed everything. They now had someone from Jesus’ inner circle
who was going to give Jesus up to them.
It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
And so,
events were going to happen as Jesus had said.
They were going to happen in this way because it was God’s will. When Jesus was arrested in the Garden of
Gethsemane, and one of those with him flailed with a sword, he said, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will
perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he
will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?
But how then should the Scriptures be
fulfilled, that it must be so?”
Holy Week
was going to follow God’s plan. It was
the plan that the angel had announced to Joseph when he learned that Mary was
pregnant and was going to divorce her: “Joseph, son
of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in
her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his
name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Jesus
had come to Holy Week to provide rescue from sin. He came to Holy Week because you feel anger
in your heart against others. He came to
Holy Week because you are jealous and covet.
He came to Holy Week because you lust.
Jesus
had come to Holy Week to provide rescue from sin. But the way he was going to do it defies our
expectations. We expect the almighty God
to act in force, power, and victory. But
Jesus had said, “the Son of Man came not
to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom
for many.”
Jesus
had come to die. He had come to be
crucified. At the Last Supper, Jesus
instituted the Sacrament of the Altar as he blessed bread and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” He took a cup, and when he had
given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, for this
is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out
for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus would give his body and shed his blood
on the cross to win forgiveness.
God’s
plan was for Jesus to die on the cross as the ransom for many. We learn about what this means from Jesus’
prayer in the Garden. We hear in
our text, “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed,
saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’”
In the Old Testament,
the cup is the cup of God’s wrath. The psalmist wrote: “For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with
foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of
the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.” Jesus Christ was the sinless One. Yet it was God’s will that he should receive
the judgment for our sins.
This
was God’s plan. It was a plan that would
subject Jesus to excruciating spiritual and physical pain. This was not something that Jesus wanted to
experience. Yet three times he prayed that God’s will would be done. Our Lord had taken on the role of the
suffering Servant at his baptism. His
ministry had always been directed toward the cross. He was fulfilling the Scriptures. And now, as he stood on the verge of his
passion, he committed himself to carrying out the Father’s will.
God’s plan meant the injustice of Jesus’
so-called trial before the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate. Jesus the innocent One was condemned to
death. Pilate knew the Jewish leaders had delivered Jesus up out of envy. He offered up the opportunity to release
either Jesus or the prisoner Barabbas.
But the crowd was stirred to demand the release of Barabbas and that
Jesus be crucified. The criminal was released, and Jesus was scourged and taken
to crucifixion.
Jesus was
crucified in the midst of two criminals. The sinless One took his place in the
midst of sinners as he died for the sins of all. It was the Father’s will for Jesus to be on
the cross. Yet the religious leaders
mocked our Lord saying, “He saved others; he
cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from
the cross, and we will believe in him. He
trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am
the Son of God.’”
Jesus showed that he was the faithful Son of God by remaining on the
cross. He was there to receive God’s
judgment and wrath against our sin. The
darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour was the sign of God’s end time
judgment. As he was dying he cried out,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus experienced for us the damnation of God’s judgment so that we
never will.
Jesus had been crucified with the charge above him: “This is Jesus the King
of the Jews.” He had been crucified as a
Messiah figure. And in death, there
could be only one conclusion – he had been a false messiah. Certainly, he had been rejected by God.
Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body of Jesus and buried it in his own
new tomb that had been cut in the rock.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there to see where Jesus was
buried. Yet even in death, Jesus’
opponents weren’t done. They went to
Pilate with concerns about Jesus’ claim that he would rise on the third
day. What if Jesus’ disciples stole his
body and claimed he had risen? So Pilate gave them permission to make the tomb
secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.
That is how the Passion of Our Lord ends. That is how Holy Week ends. But we are here today because that is not how
things remained. Jesus had predicted
that he would rise on the third day. In
our text Jesus says, “But after I am raised
up, I will go before you to Galilee.”
We have gathered on Sunday – on the first day of the
week. We do so because on the third day
– on the first day of the week – Jesus rose from the dead. The Christian Church
worships on Sunday because each Sunday is a celebration of Christ’s resurrection. It is a “little Easter” as it were.
This coming time of Holy Week prepares us for the yearly great
celebration of Christ’s resurrection. It prepares us for Easter. In our text this morning we see how things
took place according to God’s plan.
Jesus fulfilled the Father’s will by suffering death on a cross. He did so to win forgiveness for us. This week we will follow our Lord to his
death on the cross and burial. But we will gather again next Sunday, because
Jesus Christ has risen from the dead.
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