[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon Palm Sunday 01 April 2007 "Is There Justice?" Luke 23:1-56 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Just take a glance at the news headlines on an news website and you will find story after story of greed, violence, corruption, and perversity, with other kinds of evil thrown in for good measure. Some days one finds it hard to stomach reading the headlines. The world is so full of evil that one wonders just what to do or where to go to escape it. The fact is, we can't do much about the evil in the world nor can we escape it because we are part of the problem. The evil in this world is reflected also in us, in our hearts, minds, and actions.

If that were not bad enough, the world rises and shakes its fist at God, the source of all good. One writer recently made the connection between the entertainment industry and the religion of science, which he calls "scientism." He cited singer Elton John who last year called for the banning of all religion, in particular Christianity, because religion "stirs up hatred toward gay people." The writer, Thomas Fleming, observed that "Christophobia is the religion of Hollywood . . ." The hatred of Christ has deep roots, reaching all the way back to the day Jesus began his earthly ministry. Certain scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg have said that religious people are evil and that the world would be a much better place with no religion or religious people [The Washington Times, Culture Briefs, 23 March 2007]. They think that science will make all the good people nice. They fail to see what lies in the deepest recesses of man's heart.

Luther observed in his Heidelberg Disputation that the theology of glory calls good evil and evil good.

21. A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.¹

The great evil of mankind is shown in how it treated Christ. Jesus was completely innocent of any of the charges against him, yet the crowd clamored for his death. Pilate, recognizing that Jesus was innocent offered a solution, but it was rejected. He offered them a notoriously evil man, Barabbas, thinking that they would choose the good over the evil, but they did not. They chose the evil over the good! What happened to Jesus was a horrible miscarriage of justice. An innocent man suffered the fate of the world's worst criminal while a horrible criminal walked out of jail a free man.

It is a picture of what mankind does. Recently, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the leading captured al Qaeda terrorist, confessed to terrorist acts and spoke of those he wished to commit. He took responsibility for killing almost 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. He bragged about cutting off a reporter's head, which he held in his hand and had his photo taken with it. The reaction of two United States Senators was remarkable. They were worried that we had mistreated this man in captivity! They were worried about the fact that we were dealing incorrectly with the man who had just finished bragging about how much he wanted to kill Americans. One commentator remarked that this was "a suicidal inability to come to grips with evil." A modern day Barabbas may be set free and true justice will be denied.

Just a little over a week ago a German judge refused to grant a Moroccan born German woman a divorce on the grounds that the Koran allows husbands to beat their wives. The woman filed for divorce because her husband regularly beat her and threatened to kill her. Again, evil is called good and good is called evil. Another Barabbas has been set free.

It is not merely these Jews or these two senators or the German judge who are guilty of injustice, but all of us. We do the same thing every time we sin. We would rather call evil "good" and good "evil" than admit that we are part of the problem. Every time you sin you are saying that Jesus should die because his innocence spotlights your sin. We clamor for Barabbas to be released yet again!

"Is There Justice?"

If you have been following the daily readings in the insert you would have read through the Joseph cycle from Genesis about a week ago. From the beginning, Joseph was a marked man by his brothers because they were jealous of him. And why was this so? Because he was his father's favorite, to be sure, but there is more. When Joseph told his dreams, in particular when he told his brothers that they would all defer to him and that they would indeed bow down to him, they were enraged. It was this rage that caused them to sell him to slave traders, but this was only after Reuben cautioned against killing him with their own hands. Joseph suffered great injustices at the hands of others, but through it all the hand of God himself was moving. When Joseph, second only to Pharaoh in power, finally reveals himself, his brothers are very much afraid because they think that he will take revenge on them. Indeed, they deserve such justice! Yet, through all the pain and suffering which Joseph endured, he could assure them:

"And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors." (Genesis 45:5-7, ESV)

The injustices done to Jesus turn out to be the greatest good news for the world. Jesus was condemned to die as a sinner even though he was not. He did not deserve it. He was completely innocent of any of the phony charges leveled against him, yet it was God's eternal plan for the redemption of all of us that Jesus be condemned to death. Jesus became the world's biggest sinner because he was, in fact, carrying the sins of the world in his own body. At the very beginning of his earthly ministry, John the Baptizer said of Jesus:

"Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29, ESV)

Through this human injustice God's justice over sin was done. All the sins of the world were laid on Jesus in the fulfillment of everything that took place on the Great Day of Atonement as the two lambs were sacrificed to make atonement for the sins of the people. The first lamb had his blood shed and that blood was poured out on the altar. The second lamb was the scapegoat, the innocent lamb on whose head were confessed all the sins of the people. This lamb was led out into the wilderness, out of the presence of the people, to die there, bearing all their sins and iniquities. The innocent became the guilty and the guilty were declared innocent.

It is such distressing news to hear of your sinfulness, your iniquities, your transgressions, your hostility, your rebellion against God, and of the evil that lurks in your heart, but it is the greatest good news to hear that God himself has sent his Lamb of God to take away all your sins. Jesus did that by going to the cross, by suffering innocently, by being betrayed, by unimaginable physical and spiritual suffering and agony, by dying a criminal's death, the kind of death reserved only for the very worst of men. He died, abandoned by men and by his Father in heaven.

"Is There Justice?" Indeed, there is and there isn't! There is justice because God's justice over your sins has been completely satisfied, and at the same time you escape the justice you deserve! The hymnwriter Thomas Kelly [LSB 451.2-3] put it well:

2 Tell me, ye who hear Him groaning,
Was there ever grief like His?
Friends through fear His cause disowning,
Foes insulting His distress;
Many hands were raised to wound Him,
None would intervene to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced Him
Was the stroke that justice gave.

3 Ye who think of sin but lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed,
See who bears the awful load;
'Tis the Word, the Lord's anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.

Text and Tune: Public domain

Holy Week proclaims God's justice on human sin. While God's Word condemns your sins and your part in the death of Jesus because he bears your sins, it also proclaims that God got justice over sin, death, and hell in the cross of Jesus. By going to this unjust death, Jesus won your release from the guilt and punishment of your sins. His death is your death, the death you deserved. Jesus died so that you don't have to die eternally. He redeemed you and every other person in this world by his innocent suffering and death. There is not one person whom his blood does not cover. Jesus is the true Lamb of God, the one true Sacrifice, the Propitiation for our sins, the Scapegoat, the Passover lamb, and more! Jesus has satisfied God's righteous wrath over your sin.

Evil continues to abound in our world, but the love of God in Christ abounds even more. The evil has not been able to shut out the Gospel message of what Jesus' death and resurrection accomplished. Jesus was numbered with the transgressors so that you would not have to be on the last day. God justifies sinners because of Christ's innocent death. And he distributes that justice, this forgiveness, in Word and in the Holy Supper of Christ's body and blood. Here in his body and blood is your justification, your acquittal, your eternal life. Here is God's justice for you! Christ gets your death and you get his life, his righteousness!

"Is There Justice?" Indeed, in Christ Jesus there is-for every sinner in this world-for you!

¹Luther, M. (1999, c1957). Vol. 31: Luther's works, vol. 31 : Career of the Reformer I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (31:40). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.