✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
Isaiah 50,4-9 1818
Palmarum o29
✠ The Annunciation of our Lord ✠
Dismas, the penitent insurrectionist at Christ’s right hand
25. März 2018
1. О Christ Jesus, Thou Humble King riding up to Thy throne, grant us comfort in the pardon and reconciliation You have brought the world as the Lamb of God without spot or blemish, so that we receive with joy the atonement you have attained for us. Amen. (Starck 78)
2. »The Lord who is the Lord has given Me the tongue of those who are taught, so that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning He awakens; He awakens My ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord who is the Lord has opened My ear, and I was not rebellious; I did not turn backward. I gave My back to those who strike, and My cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I did not hide My face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord who is the Lord helps Me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be put to shame. He who vindicates Me is near. Who will contend with Me? Let us stand up together. Who is My adversary? Let him draw near to Me. Behold, the Lord who is the Lord helps Me; who will declare Me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.«
3. The Prophet Isaiah describes the Messiah as one who is apt to teach. Jesus did quite a bit of teaching during Holy Week in and near the temple courtyard at Jerusalem. From Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday Jesus taught in parables and had debates with the Pharisees and Sadducees.
4. Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palmarum kicks off His whirlwind teaching tour. The Jewish crowd proclaims that Jesus is the King of Israel and Israel’s Messiah. Isaiah says the Messiah will be whipped on His back, spat upon and disgraced. This is a far cry from the joyous crowd that welcomed Him into Jerusalem on this day. Yet shortly thereafter, Jesus taught the crowd that the Messiah must be lifted up; He said: »Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. When I am lifted up from the earth, then I will draw all people to Myself.« (John 12,32) Jesus had just told the crowd: your Messiah is going to be crucified and killed by the Romans.
5. This is not what the crowd wanted to hear. They heard from the Scriptures that the Messiah remains forever, so how can He be crucified and killed (John 12,34)? The Prophet Isaiah makes such a claim of the Messiah’s immortality: »Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over His reign, to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forever more« (Isaiah 9,7). The crowd understood that the ruler to be cast out was the Roman emperor; the Messiah was supposed to free them from Roman rule and usher in an earthly paradise, not die at the hands of those same Romans. Jesus turned the conventional wisdom of the Jews and the popular rabbinic teaching about the Messiah around 180°.
6. Jesus is very clear in the Holy Gospels: He, the Messiah, must suffer, die and rise again. Each of the Gospels recorded 3 specific instances where Jesus taught this; His teaching on this matter was perhaps the one issue He repeated on multiple occasions throughout the Gospels. Part of the difficulty was that the crowds equated „remains forever“ with „not dying“, which is why, in part, the Gospels record Jesus raising people from the dead; each Gospel mentions at least 1 resurrection miracle and Luke mentions 2. Jesus raised 3 people in the Gospels. Then there is Jesus’ powerful statement to Martha before He resurrects her brother Lazarus: »I am the Resurrection and the Life« (John 11,25). To Jesus, remaining forever and dying are not contradictions. Jesus then told Martha: »Whoever believes in Me, though they die, yet they shall live« (John 11,25). Eternal life in Jesus is to remain forever and death simply cannot change what Jesus does and promises to do on the last day. Jesus is the Eternal Son of God; He can die but He also raises Himself back from the dead, remains forever and He promises that all who believe in Him will remain forever in His fellowship.
7. Jesus is also very clear in the Holy Gospels: His reign is spiritual, not earthly. By this He means: the reign of God is not about overthrowing the emperor, reestablishing in the Davidic monarchy on the throne or ruling a kingdom on this earth; the reign of God Jesus brings is one of forgiveness and salvation. The chief priests and the elders told Pontius Pilate that Jesus had claimed to be the King of the Jews (John 18,33). Pilate asked Jesus directly: »Are you the king of the Jews?« (John 18,33) And Jesus answered: »My kingdom is not of this world« (John 18,36). In the Gospel according to John, one of the earliest teachings of Jesus is „the kingdom of God“. Jesus told Nicodemus the Pharisee: One must be reborn to see the kingdom of God and that one enters this kingdom through Holy Baptism (John 3,3.5). The goal of this kingdom is eternal life for all who believe in Jesus who is lifted up to redeem the fallen world (John 3,14-16). »For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit« (Romans 14,17). Jesus’ kingdom is vastly different from the one the Jews expected and the Romans had built.
8. The ruler of this world to be cast out is Satan. He claimed to have the authority to give all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, if Jesus would fall down and worship him then they would all be His (Matthew 4,8-9). The Apostle Paul also grants that Satan had considerable reign over the world for he calls him »the prince of the power of the air who is at work in the sons of disobedience« (Ephesians 2,1-2); the Apostle John likewise says: »The whole world lies in the power of the evil one« (1. John 5,19). Jesus has liberated and rescued us from the dominion of the Devil. The Prophet Isaiah declares: »God helps us and vindicates us. Who will now contend with us? Who is now our adversary? Who will now declare as guilty?« The Apostle Paul asked similar questions in his Epistle to the Romans and answered them as follows: »We are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to arrive, nor powers, nor height nor death, or anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord« (Romans 8,37-39).
9. The Apostle John saw the Devil cast out in his apocalypse: »The great Dragon, was thrown down, that ancient Serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the Deceiver of the whole world; then I saw an angel seize Satan and throw him into the pit, shut it and sealed it over him« (Revelation 12,9; 20,1-3).
10. Jesus has triumphantly entered into Jerusalem on Palmarum and initiated the final series of events that would overthrow Satan from his throne. In an ironic twist, the world did go after Jesus as the Devil threw all his resources in one final attempt to defeat Jesus; his attempt failed. The cross became the method of Christ triumphing over Satan. Today we celebrate the True King of this world claiming fallen men and women to be His subjects and freeing them are from the Devil’s darkness. Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem to inaugurate the heavenly reign that is supported by the cornerstone of His suffering, crucifixion and death as the Messiah and Christ. Jesus brings us salvation with Divine power and glory. Jesus entered Jerusalem as Israel’s King and Messiah. His disciples and the Jewish crowd acclaim Him as such. Jesus entered Jerusalem as the Gentiles’ Prince and Christ.
11. So with the disciples we are acclaim: »Hosanna! Blessed is Jesus who arrives in the Name of the Lord, yea, the King of Israel!« (John 12,13) And with the Prophet Isaiah we affirm: »Christ who vindicates us is near!« On Palmarum the Righteous One entered Jerusalem to make us righteous. Amen.
12. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, who began this week heralded as the Messiah but ended the week lifted up on the cross; send forth the Holy Spirit, so that all who hear the gospel of Your death and resurrection will believe and have eternal life. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Soli Deo Gloria
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
All quotations from the Book of Concord are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 12. Edition © 1998 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Starck, Johann Friedrich. Starck’s Prayer Book. Copyright © 2009 Concordia Publishing House.
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