Sermon - Lent Midweek 1 2024 - John 6:35-40

 

The Scourging of Jesus, Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1537

The Obedience of Christ for our Righteousness

1. Jesus is obedient to the Father

2. He is obedient out of love for the Father and for us

Freedom and independence has been viewed as a basic human right here in the West for thousands of years. For example, a hallmark of western civilization is a liberal education. Liberal, not meaning the political ideology of the left, but liberal having to do with liberty, freedom. A Liberal education is a broad education meant to help a person live according to his or her freedom. Here in the modern US independence is still considered very important to many people; people want to be free to do what they want, go anywhere, and not be told what to do. 

It’s perhaps a bit surprising therefore to hear that Jesus, the Son of God, is obedient! Jesus said: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” Indeed, Jesus is obedient: “Being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In a culture that is very quick to buck authority and submission, Jesus willingly accepts submission to the Father and is obedient. 

Like St. Paul explained: “The head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” Submission is not a bad thing at all, because it simply is recognizing headship. Jesus willingly submitted Himself and His will to the Father in heaven. Make no mistake, just because Jesus is fully God that doesn’t mean that it was necessarily easy for Him to submit to the Father’s will. Recall that Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that He might not have to drink the cup prepared for Him, but not His will but the Father’s be done.

The fact that it wasn’t easy highlights Jesus’ obedience, and additionally sheds light on the fact that Jesus willingly obeyed the Father. Jesus wasn’t abused by God the Father, He didn’t unwillingly go to the cross, and nothing that happened to Him was a surprise to Him because He willingly went forward on His own freewill. So when we talk about freedom and independence, Jesus was indeed free, He wasn’t a slave, but in His freedom He chose to be obedient to the Father and did as was commanded Him.

This is an important lesson we learn from Jesus even very practically. Submission and obedience are not bad things, these aren’t just things for good little dogs to do, but even Jesus Himself was submissive and obedient. When it comes to our lives with other people, it is good to be submissive and obedient to those with headship over us. The fourth commandment is good for us: honor your father and your mother. We extend this beyond our parents and to all in authority over us. 

Most especially ought we to learn this obedience when it comes to God, our heavenly Father. He knows what is good for us, and when He speaks to us through the scriptures, He wants to bless us. God doesn’t want to hurt us with His Word, He doesn’t want to put us down and make us feel miserable, but He says these things out of love for us. Therefore we learn to gladly do what He commands. When God says something in the Bible which is uncomfortable, we should all the more embrace it and lean into it in order to submit ourselves beneath God’s almighty hand. Just as it was good for Jesus to suffer upon the cross, so is it good for us to obey the Father’s will.

Submission to God is very good for us! This is why Jesus submitted Himself to the Father. The Father’s will, although painful at times, is meant to bring about the greatest good. “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” God doesn’t love suffering and making people miserable, it’s just the opposite! God loves us! Love is the driving force behind God’s commandments.

Love is also the driving force behind why Jesus submits to the Father’s will. Jesus submits to the Father because He loves the Father, that’s first and perhaps most obvious. You serve the one you love. But Jesus was also obedient to the Father because He loves us. “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus obeyed the Father’s will and went to suffer upon the cross because He loves us. We did not deserve His love, since He died for sinners, He died for the ungodly, for His enemies. Jesus died for the disobedient.

The disobedience of one man, namely Adam, led to death for all mankind. All of us likewise have been disobedient, and we deserve all of the rotten things that happen to us. Typically disobedient dogs who bite their Master, who devour the Master’s Son, are put down. But in such surprising and overpowering love, the Son of God obediently laid down His own life for the disobedient so that we may be righteous.

 “By the one Man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” His death on the cross declared us to be righteous in the Father’s sight. Through His suffering and death our sins are atoned for and forgiven, and righteousness is given in the place of sin. That one act of righteousness by the one Man Jesus Christ leads to justification and life for all men. Because of the obedience of Jesus to suffer for us sinners, grace reigns through righteousness leading to eternal life.

How beautiful it is that Jesus, the Son of God, who is truly more free and independent than all, laid aside His freedom and became as a slave, obedient to the Father’s will to the point of death upon a tree. He laid aside His freedom and was obedient so that we who have been disobedient and falsely free, may become truly free as Christ is free, and inherit His kingdom prepared for us from before the ages began.