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This Week's Sermon The Second Sunday in Lent 04 March 2007 The Double Cross Luke 13:31-35 LSB Series C Vicar Hans W. Fiene Soli Deo Gloria!

If you watch enough movies or read enough books that deal with espionage or covert operations or anything with a really complex plot, you'll eventually be exposed to a thematic device called the double-cross. Basically, the double-cross works like this: Character A cozies up to Character B, earns his trust and then, at on opportune moment, Character A turns on Character B in order to benefit himself. If you remember the Lord of the Rings movies, the character Gollum spends the entire second film trying to win the trust of Frodo Baggins, only to betray him in order to get back the coveted ring of power by the third film. But that's just one example of a double cross. I'm sure you can think of countless others.

If you look at the words of the Pharisees in today's Gospel text, they're actually making an attempt to double cross Jesus. When they come to him and say, "get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you", they're trying to follow the double cross formula of cozying up to Christ and earning his trust to serve their own personal agendas. In their minds, if they can fool Christ into believing that they're legitimately concerned for him, then he'll listen to them and leave their area for fear of his safety. Obviously, the Pharisees want Christ gone because he's constantly doing and teaching miraculous things while frequently condemning their pharisaic way of life. So while it may not be as dramatic of a moment as anything you'll see in the movies, the opportune moment for the Pharisees' double cross would come if they could get Christ to believe them and leave the area, so that they could get back their kind of legalistic dominance over the people-that dominance and control being to them what the ring of power was to Gollum.

Christ, of course, isn't fooled by them. And when he responds to the Pharisees, for us it's almost comical because he has the exact opposite reaction that the Pharisees were hoping to get. Throwing aside all of their phony concern and pretentiousness, Christ stares their evil, selfish intentions in the face and essentially declares to them, "If you don't like what I'm doing now, just you wait. Because neither Herod nor you nor anybody else in this world will stop me from accomplishing what I have been sent to do."

The fact that the Pharisees had seen Christ performing miracles and that they'd seen how he had a far greater understanding of the Scriptures than they did-you'd think that they would know better at this point. You'd think that, considering all of Christ's divine abilities, they'd be able to figure out that He could see right through their façade. But can we really expect them to give up their attempts at double crossing Christ when we are constantly trying to double cross Him in our own individual ways?

Without a doubt, our methods of trying to align ourselves with Christ are quite different than that of the Pharisees, but what we share with them is the same sinful desire to misuse our association with Christ to further our own earthly status. A very common trick that people use to boost that earthly status, to boost their own self-esteem and self-image is to criticize and put down everyone around them. Very often, we will try and accomplish this by speaking slanderously about our friends and neighbors-by airing their dirty laundry in front of anyone who will listen. And, in order to make this slanderous behavior look as pure and well-intentioned as possible, we'll try to convince others that we're only saying these things out of a loving, Christian concern for these people-that we're worried about their spiritual well-being. When we've done this, we've double crossed Christ by using his name as a justification for breaking the eighth commandment.

Double crossing Christ in order to benefit our own reputation doesn't just happen outside of the Church. It happens inside, too. If the reason you're here this morning is anything other than wanting to receive the forgiveness of sins and strengthening in the faith through the Word and Sacraments, you are double crossing Christ. If you are here today because you want to impress either men or God with how much you're going to praise Him, you have cozied up to the gift that is God coming down to you, double crossed that gift and tried to turn it into your own accomplishment of you going up to God. Or if you've come to the Divine Service today because you're trying to convince someone-whether it's a spouse or a parent or even yourself-that you're a good and respectable and mature person, you've waited for Christ to come into your presence, and then you've taken the Glory of His mercy and tried to turn it into your own glory.

Just as Christ knew exactly what the Pharisees were up to when they tried to convince Him of their concern for His safety, Christ also knows exactly what we're up to when we cozy up to his name with the intention of glorifying ourselves through it. And the promise behind His response to the Pharisees is the same promise He gives to us. It doesn't matter how often we've misused the name of Christ. It doesn't matter how hard we've tried to turn His glory into ours. It doesn't matter how many hypocrites fill the church pews on Sunday morning. Nothing can change what Christ accomplished on the third day when He finished his course. To know this, you don't need to look any further than what Christ says after this promise to the Pharisees, in what is often called the Lament over Jerusalem.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!" Christ says. "How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" Here, in Jerusalem, you have the prototypical image of the double crosser-a people who revel in their status as God's favored nation, who boldly proclaim themselves to be the children of Abraham, who cozy up to the promises that God has given them and then use those same promises to reject God's command to repent. They double crossed God every time they wrapped themselves in their status as His people in order to justify killing His repentance-preaching prophets. But even though things would be no different with Christ-even though they would accuse Him of blasphemy, even though they would call out for his blood and mock His promise of grace, this traitorous, double crossing city could not stop the grace of Christ from pouring out both upon Jerusalem and the entire world.

There's a reason nothing could stop Christ from accomplishing this goal. You see, again, if you watch enough of these movies with double crossing, you'll eventually come across what I suppose could be called the double-double-cross. When the protagonist knows the intentions of the person trying to earn his trust, when he can see right through that, he's actually able to turn the tables and use the moment of the double cross against his enemy. Not only is Christ declaring the Pharisees in today's text that their double crossing can't stop Him, he's also declaring to the one responsible for putting the sinful desire into the Pharisees in the first place-Satan. Nowhere is Christ's ability to use Satan's influence of betrayal against him than through Judas. Satan inspires Judas to use his close relationship with Christ as a means of double crossing Him. But Christ looks right through Judas' kiss and declares to Satan, "You have put this sin of betrayal into him. But with this same sin, I am going to destroy you." Because it was through that sin of betrayal that set into motion the events that put Christ upon the cross.

And when Christ is upon the Cross, when He looks out upon the sea of Jerusalem and all these Judases who have betrayed Him, not only does Christ see the influence of Satan. He also sees a perfect depiction of who He's dying for. You see, when Christ prays that His Father would forgive this murderous mob, when He assures the world that His blood is going to cleanse everyone, even the greatest of sinners, He's also declaring to the devil, "You have put on the lips of these people the calls for my death. But through the death that you have orchestrated, I am going to take the sin out of them. I'm gong to save them and I'm going destroy you for all time."

Upon the Cross, Christ proclaimed that His blood would not only cleanse those who stood by him faithfully, but that it would also wash over the entire nation of double-crossing Judases dwelling beneath him. In the same way, His blood will still cleanse us from the double-crossing Judas dwelling within our hearts. And just as Christ's mercy at the Cross wasn't limited to those who had stood by him faithfully until the end, so that same mercy, given continually through His Word and Sacraments, isn't limited to those who have always used them faithfully. When you've tried to turn the Divine Service into a display of your own piety and glory, Christ is still just as present and His forgiveness is no less in abundance. When you've used your status as a Christian to insult people and harm their reputations, your double crossing is exactly why Christ has come to you with His blood-to cleanse both you of your sin and everyone else in this world of their sins. When Christ assures us that nothing can stop Him from winning mankind's salvation upon the Cross, He assures us that our salvation depends solely on who He is and what He does-and not at all on who we are and how purely we appreciate His gift.

You see, while our sinful nature may always seek to betray Christ, what Christ does at the Cross is actually the inverse of that double crossing formula. When we sought to join ourselves to Christ's perfection for our own benefit, Christ joins Himself, He locks Himself onto everything in us that is the opposite of perfection. All of our sinfulness, all of our wickedness, every evil ounce within us, Christ doesn't just align Himself with these things. He actually takes them out of us and puts them in into Himself. And in that opportune moment of His death, Christ doesn't use His association with us to benefit Himself. He uses it to benefit us with the gift of eternal life. On the third day, when Christ finished His course and rose from the dead, in that moment He assured Satan and all God's enemies that no double cross could ever take the life salvation out of His Cross.