Sermon for 4/1/12 “Christ for Sinners”

Sermon for 4/1/12 “Christ for Sinners”

Lord, open our hearts and minds to the great wonder of your death on our behalf, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

We will be very brief today. I hope you will pardon it. Presentation of the benevolence of the month delayed the beginning of the service a bit. Today's Gospel reading is very long. We have yet to receive the Sacrament of communion. The time is short. Yet our worship is centered on Word and Sacraments, both proclamations of the same gospel, Christ for sinners.

What did the people shout to Jesus when he was on the cross? “He saved others, he cannot save himself.” I expect we've all seen a cross with a corpus on it. You have, though you might not have used that term. It's the cross with the representation of Jesus' body hanging on it. He's hanging there and is dead. Some people object to this. Yet we don't need to find it objectionable. Picture one of those crosses with the corpus on it. Is that Jesus alive? No, in those depictions he has died for the sins of the world, for your sins, for my sins. Jesus, dead on the cross, doesn't seem to us a means of salvation. We, like the people who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on the Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday, would expect Jesus to show himself as a conqueror, a mighty king. Maybe it makes us uncomfortable to realize that Jesus truly dies for us. After all, we expect the person who saves us would not be a person who would die himself.

This very unexpected event, though, is what shows Jesus is able to save us entirely. He acted according to his divine wisdom. As we read in Philippians he did not grasp his own prerogative. He didn't assert his authority to be treated like God. He simply showed that he is God. Yet he does it in unexpected ways. Jesus, called the friend of sinners, has fellowship with Judas, who will later betray him. He gives his body and blood to the one who would deny him three times before the next dawn. He protects those who arrest him from his own followers. He protects his faithless followers from the people who have come to arrest him. He allows false testimony against him. He makes no argument against Pilate. He accepts wrong. He is beaten, stripped, humiliated, and makes no defense. Jesus, in fact, needs no defense. He asserts his deity, but he does not consider it something he needs to defend. He will prove it up in time. By the end of the Gospel passage today he has given us his very life. He saved others. Is he able to save himself? It doesn't look like he is.

As we proceed through Holy Week I'd like us to consider this. The Gospel readings leave Jesus in the tomb. It is the darkest week of the Church calendar. In our midweek services Thursday and Friday we will even go so far as to depart in silence as a sign of mourning. Jesus doesn't save himself. Why is that? It is because Jesus saves us. He does not need to save himself. That isn't important to him. Jesus needs no saving. We need saving. Jesus died, not for himself, but for sinners. Jesus gave himself for us, dying for the sins of the whole world, dying to bring us to God. Jesus needs no savior. We do.

So as we confess the Creed, we remember its focus on Jesus, the one who gave himself for us. As we give in the offering we remember that Jesus gave himself for us. As we pray for the Church around the world we remember that Jesus gave himself for the sins of the world. As we sing the liturgy and receive communion we remember that Jesus has given his very real, very physical, true body and true blood for us to receive, granting forgiveness, life, and salvation. As we receive the blessing at the end of the service we remember that our Lord has send us out into the world to bring his words of grace into our community. Jesus saved others. He did not save himself.

Thanks be to God.