Sermon - Palmarum 2019 - Matthew 27:11-54

Last Sunday marked a shift in Lent, when the Jews picked up rocks so that they could throw them at Jesus. Today marks an even greater shift in the mood of Lent. We’ve gone from Christian warfare as Jesus fights for us and we join in the battle against Satan, to Jesus’ suffering and death. We’ve gone from the triumphal entry with all of its fanfare, to shouts of murder which lead to Jesus being scourged and crucified. Today begins Holy Week.

When you hear the account of Jesus being betrayed, unjustly accused, tortured, and sentenced to death it might upset you. Jesus shouldn’t have died! This riotous crowd is ridiculous! Jesus is innocent, He shouldn’t die! So we, like Pilate, place all of the blame on that bloodthirsty crowd and excuse ourselves of any guilt. We wash our hands with Pilate and say, “I am innocent of this righteous man’s blood.” But the truth is, no one is innocent of this righteous man’s blood.

Innocence. The world is apparently full of innocent people, right? Every prison is filled with men who claim to be innocent. When unexplainable atrocities and tragedies occur we wail and mourn that innocent people have died. A tornado or hurricane wipes out a town we say that these people didn’t deserve it, they were innocent. When people get sick and die at a young age, especially children, we become angry that an innocent child has died. 

While those tragedies should cause us to mourn and be sad, it’s not true that any of them are innocent of death. It’s especially not true that any of us are innocent of what took place to Jesus. In fact it’s only because of us, and our complete lack of innocence, that Jesus stood before Pilate and didn’t deny the charges against Him. The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is only triumphal because Jesus was about to die for people who are in fact not innocent. 

Truly, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us… While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.” There are no innocent bystanders in the crucifixion of Jesus. Pilate wasn’t clean of Jesus’ blood and neither are we. “God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all.” From conception, each and every one of us is an enemy of God, calling out that murderers like us would go free while an innocent man takes our place. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” From birth we are of our Father the devil and our will is to his desires and he was a murderer from the beginning!

All of us are like Pilate, washing our hands of the bloodstains which cover them, claiming to be innocent, yet inwardly and outwardly we are all Barabbases. We are all insurrectionists against God. Murderers in our hearts if not our hands. We are all riotous crowds calling out that we murderers would get to be released from prison. We call out together with the people, “His blood be on us and on our children!” 

We aren’t innocent people. So this Holy Week, as you come to church on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, look not so much on the guiltiness of others but on your own guilt. Jesus teaches us “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” It is a loving thing to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. It’s a loving thing to alert your fellow Christians of their sins which are leading them on a path of destruction. But before you can love another in that way, you first need to repent of your sins. 

Reflect upon your guilt. Realize your sin. Understand that while on earth we are but prisoners, guilty as charged, we shouldn’t feign innocence when it comes to our guilt. But like Christ, let us humble ourselves. Jesus “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Jesus, who is truly innocent, who is God Himself in the flesh, humbled Himself so that by His blood we would be cleansed. 

Jesus takes your place at the crucifixion. He takes your beatings and mockings which rightly belong to guilty folk like us. He takes the logs and the specks out of your eyes. He takes the abandonment which you deserve. He cries out with a loud voice and yields up His spirit when that should have been you. Jesus takes all of our guilty pleasures, all of our little sins, all of our pretentious anger, all of our filthy deeds, all of our dark secrets, and He, the righteous man, dies so that we whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside and dead on the inside, can go free.

All of this is true because the blood of Jesus is indeed upon us. His blood covers all of our iniquities and guilt. The original sin which we’ve been conceived into and the actual sins which we commit day by day, all of it forgiven in the righteous blood of Jesus. His blood covers you in the waters of Baptism. His blood fills you in the cup of the altar. His blood washes you in the absolution. Because of the blood of God’s testament with us, we prisoners have been set free from the waterless pit of hell and returned to the stronghold of hope. In Jesus we are made innocent.

Holy Week is not a funeral for Jesus. It’s a time for us to believe that Jesus has come to free us guilty prisoners from our bondage to sin. It’s a time for us to focus especially on the innocent suffering of Jesus and how we guilty sinners are covered in His blood. So we don’t mourn because Jesus has died. Instead, like the prophet commanded us:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Behold, your king is coming to you;

righteous and having salvation is he,

humble and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.