Sermon for Midweek of Lent 4
FATHER, INTO YOUR HANDS…
Theme: God the Father hurled His Son into the deep by nailing Him to the cross.
Artists will sometimes depict our Lord’s crucifixion in ways that intend to
emphasize an important point for you. For example,
· Some medieval artists depicted Christ crucified on a grapevine, in
order to show you that the wine you drink in Holy Communion is also the blood
Jesus shed for the forgiveness of your sins.
· To make the same point, the artist Albrecht Duerer (1471-1528) depicted
angels surrounding Jesus on the cross. These angels hold communion chalices to
collect the blood from our Lord’s hands, feet and side.
· Lucas Cranach (1472-1553) wanted to connect the crucifixion to your
Baptism. Cranach did this by depicting himself standing near the cross while
blood spurts from Jesus’ pierced side onto Cranach’s head.
Some artists depict our Lord’s body so horribly torn and bloodied that their
artwork is difficult to look upon, much less enjoy. But these crucifixions are
not the most jarring. Hardly any crucifixion scenes are more disturbing than
those that depict God the Father holding the beam of the cross in His hands
while His only-begotten Son hangs upon it, suffocating to death.
Read any of the four Gospels and you will see that Pontius Pilate and his Roman
soldiers crucified Jesus. In his Pentecost sermon, Peter pointed to the Jews of
Jerusalem, holding them responsible for the death Jesus (Acts 2:36). While
neither you nor I were present on that dark Friday, each of us must admit to
our own share of the responsibility, since “Christ Jesus came to save sinners”
(1 Timothy 1:15).
We are all small actors on an infinitely larger stage.
God the Father “so loved the world that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16). “The
LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “God made Him who
knew no sin to be sin for us” 2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV), so that “the deepest
stroke that pierced Him was the stroke that justice gave” (LSB 451.2).
So artists depict the Father holding the cross while His Son suffers and dies.
Even worse, some artists have portrayed God the Father grasping His Victim,
pinning Jesus into His divinely-ordained place, allowing the Son no possibility
of escape (e.g., Bassano’s Holy Trinity).
Who is Jesus?
· Jesus is Isaac, bound with ropes and waiting patiently upon his
father’s altar, acquiescing himself to his father’s sacrificial knife (Genesis
22).
· Jesus is Absalom: hanging, helpless, pierced for the sake of the
kingdom by his father’s most reliable assassin (2 Samuel 18:9-14).
· Jesus is Jonah, who prays to the LORD his God from the belly of the
fish, “YOU cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas… all YOUR waves
and YOUR billows passed over me.”
Yet the One who delivers death to His Son is also He who also gives all things
life. Neither Jesus nor Jonah will despair of the Father’s goodness, even in
the hour of greatest affliction. Jesus and Jonah both know that God the Father
has brought them into the bottomless void. There in the darkness, Jesus and
Jonah both remain unwavering in their trust. Jonah prays Words that speak the
certainty and assurance of faith—faith in the resurrection. The Words of
Jonah’s prayer are not good only for himself and not dependable for only his
crucified Lord Jesus. Jonah/Jesus’ Words good and dependable also for you,
especially when you also sink beneath the waves:
I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and He answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice…
I said, “I am driven away from Your sight; Yet I shall again look
upon Your holy temple.”
I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet You brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.
Salvation belongs to the Lord!
___________________________________________________________________
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