Bethel Lutheran Church - Pastor Luke Bernthal
Soli Deo Gloria

Forgive Us When We Despise Your Great Salvation! ; Matthew 27: 15 - 26; 2009-03-11

1. We sometimes demand unpromised blessings
2. Father fix our eyes on the needs of our souls

The Bulletin (order of service)

Text: Matthew 27: 15 - 26;
15 Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished. 16 And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. 17 Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, "Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" 18 For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy. 19 While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, "Have nothing to do with that just Man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of Him." 20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. 21 The governor answered and said to them, "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" They said, "Barabbas!" 22 Pilate said to them, "What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?" They all said to him, "Let Him be crucified!" 23 Then the governor said, "Why, what evil has He done?" But they cried out all the more, saying, "Let Him be crucified!" 24 When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it." 25 And all the people answered and said, "His blood be on us and on our children." 26 Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.

They simply did not want the salvation He came to bring. They didn’t want the Savior He actually was. Have we ever been tempted to stray close to having the same thoughts and feelings of that unholy crowd? Are we ever tempted to demand something from God that He never promised or to reject the very thing which His Son died to offer? If so, then we must pray: “Father, forgive Us When We Despise Your Great Salvation!”

1.

“Let his blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25). Again, how could they shout such a thing? To find the answer, we have to look at the world in the way those people in the mob did. All their lives they had been waiting for the Messiah. From little on up, their heads and their imaginations were filled with Him. They wanted him to come so much that they could taste it.

From the first book of Moses to the final book, that of Malachi, the Holy Scriptures set forth the promises again and again. They told of the place where he would be born. They spoke of the wonders he would bring about. They spoke of triumph after suffering, of an eternal crown that would adorn the head of this Heir of the great King David.

And the Israelites wanted this—but just not in quite the same way the writers of the Old Testament had meant it. They had the desire for salvation, but not the same salvation that was promised in the words of the prophets. The Israelites were under the thumb of an occupying power. They were a conquered people, in a backwater province of the Roman Empire, and that “ticked them off” to no end! It was a blow to their national pride. It was a slap in the face for their religious prestige as the chosen people of God. A Savior from sin and death could wait; the Israelites wanted a Savior from Rome.

And so, as the years and centuries went on, the imagination of a nation had woven together a grand fantasy about the coming of the messianic age. The King Messiah would appear in the skies over Jerusalem and slowly and majestically descend into the courts of the great temple. He would raise His voice, and armies would gather at His call. They would go out from the Holy City, rank upon rank, invincible in battle, to bring vengeance upon the Romans and upon all the enemies of the Jews. The King Messiah would rule all the known world. Jerusalem would become the greatest city in the world, and all people would finally acknowledge the greatness of the people of Israel and of their glorious Messiah-King.

For a while it seemed that Jesus of Nazareth truly fit the mold of the Messiah. The Pharisee Nicodemus uttered the sentiment that many people, no doubt were thinking themselves when He spoke with Jesus in the dark of night: “No one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2). Some of the people asked rhetorically, “When the Christ comes, will he do more miraculous signs than this man?” (John 7:31). When he fed the five thousand, what had their reaction been? They had been of a mind to force him to become their king (John 6:1-15). On the Sunday before the Passover, all the talk was of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead over in Bethany. Then more and more stories of Jesus’ power were traded. And then they saw Him coming, entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday just as the prophet had said,

“Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9)

They took their cloaks off and laid them before His feet. They cut down palm branches lined His path with them. They even praised Him as the Messiah, God’s “Anointed One”: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they shouted, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:9).

Then came Friday, and what did the people see? A man beaten, whipped, and bleeding. He hardly had the strength to stand. They had mocked Him by wrapping Him in a crimson cloak as a royal robe and had woven a crown of thorns to put on his head. The Romans were laughing at Him—and by doing so were mocking all of Israel. “Here’s your King!? Here’s your Messiah!? Here is the man who was going to conquer Rome!? What a joke!”

That’s when the mob turned their anger loose on Jesus. He was no conquering king, no Messiah like they had wanted all their lives. They had gotten their hopes sky-high, only to have them dashed by who Jesus finally revealed Himself to be. And that made them furious! “Crucify Him!...Crucify Him!” (Matthew 27:22-23 NIV). Let Him be executed by the cruelest form of torture known to man!

I’m sure we would never go as far as the crowd did when we become disillusioned or angry with Jesus for not living up to what we expected of Him; for not living up to our assumptions and expectations—no matter how misguided, sinful, or false—or for failing to live up to promises that He has never actually made to us in His Word.

Perhaps we wouldn’t so blatantly reject the salvation of our souls. After all, many of us have been believers in Christ from little on. We know our Bible stories, our catechisms, our creeds. We know what Lent and Good Friday are all about.

But, sometimes, all of that seems to be stuck in some sort of “mystical” past, while we have to face life—real life; OUR life—as it is today. Salvation will certainly be of the highest importance on the day we die but, for now, perhaps we ought to be able to expect more out of our Savior than just that; expect Him to be a bit more “practical” for our own situation and time, perhaps. There has always been this feeling that bounces around among many Christians that once you become a Christian, the Lord ought to smooth out your path through life. After all, we’re connected to the Son of God, we’re “plugged in” to the Almighty King of the universe, aren’t we? Jesus Himself even said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18)—shouldn’t He then be exerting that power to give his followers better lives? Aren’t we right in expecting Him to?

Now, while we’re sitting here in church we can see right through this temptation, can’t we? We can remember the many passages in the Bible where we are reminded that the Lord God disciplines those he loves (Hebrews 12:5-7), and uses even hardships to bring about true good for us (Example of Joseph in the Old Testament; Romans 8:28, etc). But we aren’t always sitting here in church, are we? And when things are getting rough for us, the troubles are mounting up, and we pray and we pray and things still don’t seem to get better, then we look around and see the unbelievers in the world—or even other believers, for that matter—doing quite well something in us begins to wonder. Something wakes in us that begins to scream, “God, You’re not being fair! You’re not holding up Your end of the bargain!”

We begin to ask the potentially dangerous “Why?!” questions: Why He lets us get so sick. Why does He let us have all these money troubles? Why do we have trouble making good relationships? Why are we the ones who are depressed? Why are we the ones who can’t seem to get on top in life? Why can’t God just “step in” and make things a little easier for us?

Suddenly the eternal rescue from the very pit of hell itself, because of our own sins, because we haven’t kept our “end of the bargain” just doesn’t seem as important as the list of things we wish He would do for us in the here and now. Something inside us begins to feel betrayed by Him, as if He had promised us that life would be a “bowl of cherries” and then had refused to deliver. Can you begin to hear the far-off cries of the angry mob that gathered around Jesus cross beginning to swell and grow louder in your heart and head? Certainly not shouts of “Crucify Him!” but definitely shouts of, “Why?!” and “You’re not fair!” or “You’re not fit, or loving, or merciful enough to be the Lord of my life!”

2.

And that’s when we need to turn from the “angry voices” of our sinful flesh that Satan loves to “crank up” in our ears, and turn to our Father in heaven. We need to pray, “Father, fix our eyes on the needs of our souls!”

Of course we know that the affairs of our lives are important—they are! They are just as important to God as well! God Himself has invited us, in the letter of St. Peter, to cast all our cares upon him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). He has promised to be with us always, even through the worst that could happen to us, even to the end of the world (Matthew 28:20).

But let’s not repeat the error of the Jews of Jerusalem. That mob couldn’t have cared less about forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. They wanted freedom and blessings then and there, and Jesus wasn’t about to deliver them. And so they rejected Him. God had never promised them a hero to save them from Rome. He had promised and had sent his Son to save them from their greatest enemies: Satan, sin, and death in hell itself. But they died in their sins and their unbelief. They traded their souls for a dream that could not come true.

Let us not make up scenarios for ourselves and then blame God if he decides that our lives are to take a different path—or even a “darker” path. Don’t get angry with God because He doesn’t keep promises that you & I have put into His mouth. Learn exactly what it is God has promised you in His Word, the Bible, and then learn to do what the Bible says: wait patiently for the Lord and He will renew your strength (Psalm 27:14; Isaiah 40:31)

No, things in life are not going to be a walk through the roses. Hasn’t Jesus warned us of this? Didn’t He pray about this for us all in the Gospel of John (John 17)? He asked his Father not to take us out of the world with all its troubles but to keep us safe in him while we are in the world (John 17:15). Most importantly, let us always fix our eyes on that greatest of blessings, the one promised to us through the ages and, clearly and in no uncertain terms, throughout the Bible: the salvation of our souls through Jesus Christ. “But he [Jesus] was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6).

Think about it: What good would it have done us, really, if Jesus gave us everything we wanted in this world and in this life but neglected our greatest need: the payment for the full forgiveness of our sins? Who could enjoy the greatest blessings of this world knowing that, at the end, there would be a terrible, eternal price to pay? What kind of heartless, loveless God would give that to His children?!

Instead, the Lord has promised us the opposite. As the Apostle Paul says, our light and momentary troubles in this world are not worthy to be compared with the joys that await us (Romans 8:18); the joys of heaven that were bought for us by the blood of Jesus Christ! What a high price he paid to make you a child of God! Let us value this gift more highly than any other. Pray for the other blessings, yes, and be thankful when God sees it fit and good to give them to you! But whether He decides that is best that you suffer for a while or He decides that it is best that you enjoy life for a while, fix your eyes on the blessing that will never be taken away from you: your Savior Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Father, as we come to you in prayer, depending on your mercy and grace, let us never demand blessings you have not promised and let us never feel mistreated when, in your wisdom, you say no to our prayers, reserving for us greater blessings elsewhere. Fix our eyes upon Jesus Christ, our Savior from sin, death, and the devil. May we honor his love and his sacrifice by gratefully claiming him as our Lord and our God. Amen.