Mark 15:16-20 + Covered in Shame + Rev. Charles Lehmann
In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The Romans had no use for kings. It had been 540 years since they had had
one, and he had been driven out. The Roman Republic had lasted for over four
hundred years, and in these days the Romans had a habit of invading their
neighbors, capturing their kings, and bringing them to Rome to kill them there.
But they didn't just kill foreign kings from backwater districts like
Palestine. All the citizens of Rome lined the streets for Julius Caesar's
triumph parades. When he crossed the Rubicon with the 13th Legion, even then
the people of Rome loved him. But when Rome learned that Caesar wanted to be
king, they stabbed him more than forty times on the floor of the senate.
The Romans had no use for kings. Even the emperors were careful not to
take that title, and were it not for the legions that protected them, even
Augustus and his heirs would have probably found themselves dead on the Senate
floor.
The Romans were proud and strong. For them to even consider showing
respect to a foreign king, that king would have had to have been strong. He
would have needed armies lined up behind him. He would need discipline and
honor. He would have had to prove himself on the battlefield against any and
all who opposed him.
Jesus could have been that kind of king. He could have slain the Roman
soldiers with a word. One of the Lord's angels was enough to kill 180,000 in
one night, and Jesus could have called down thousands of them. If He wanted
to, Jesus could have made Caesar beg for mercy. But Jesus isn’t that kind of
king. He is meek. He is gentle. When the Sanhedrin accused Him, Jesus walked
into Pilate’s palace with absolutely no defense. He refused to argue for His
innocence. He did not contest the charges. He had taken all our sin into
Himself and He wanted to be punished for it. None of the Lord's followers took
up arms to defend Him, even when the sentence of death was passed.
And so the Romans saw Jesus as a weak and pathetic man. They mocked him.
They spat on him. They beat him with sticks. They pressed a crown of thorns
onto his head. They put a cloak of royal purple on his back. They saluted him
with the words, “Hail, King of the Jews.”
But Jesus didn't say a word. Neither Mark nor John place any protest on
the Lord’s lips. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb
before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth.
Though the Romans put the purple robe on Jesus in order to mock him, the
cloak confessed something that the Romans couldn't see. It is now, as Jesus
begins to walk to the road to Golgotha that He is revealed to be the true king,
the king who will not be kept from saving His people. He is a king covered in
shame.
We love to think of Jesus as sinless and holy. He is not like us. He's
better and different. He's the Son of God. He's the true Son of David who
rules His people forever. And that's certainly true. Jesus commits no sin.
He is guilty of no transgression. But the Scriptures say that He takes our
sin. They say He becomes sin for us. He drinks the full cup of God's wrath
against us. That's happening here, on the road to Golgotha, when Jesus is
mocked by Roman soldiers and is carrying the cross upon which He will be
crucified. The sinless one has become sin. The pure one has been filled with
all our transgression
Here, on the cross, every sin is nailed. They are all in the body of our
Lord Jesus. Every sin that has or ever will be committed is there. Every
murder. Every lie. Every impure thought. Every lustful impulse. They are
all on Jesus. If you want to see sin in all of its ugliness, you look to Jesus
who is carrying them all. Because the Lord has become sin for us Luther would
be so bold as to say that on the cross Jesus “the chief, only, and greatest
sinner.”
Your Savior who is holy becomes unholy for you. Your Savior who has no
shame takes on all your shame. Your Savior who cannot die endures death for
you.
I don’t know about you, but my mind can’t hold it all in. Even the idea
of Jesus bearing just my sin seems impossible. My sin weighs me down every
day. It drags me into its muck day after day. It doesn’t let up. I am
dragged through my own filth every moment that I breathe. I can't bear it.
It's a miracle that I even make it from one day to the next. But Jesus has
taken all my sin. He bore it on His shoulders. He carried it to Golgotha. He
bore his cross, scorning its shame, and there He died to take away all of my
guilt.
But, thanks be to God, He didn’t stop with me. Every murder of the
holocaust, every trick turned in a seedy alley, every lie a husband tells his
wife, every cigarette a teenager sneaks when he’s hanging out with his friends,
every broken promise, every fractured relationship. Every sin that you or I or
anyone has ever committed is on Jesus.
There is no shame left for you. Jesus has died, and all your shame is
gone with Him. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins
are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
That’s you. Your lawless deeds are forgiven. Your sins are covered. You
are the one against whom the Lord will not count sin. The Lord has spoken this
glorious truth to you in water filled with the Word of God. It all comes in
the name which the Lord put on you in your baptism.
When Jesus was baptized he came out of the water sopping wet with your
sin. When you were baptized you came out of the water covered and clothed with
Christ’s righteousness.
This is the happy exchange. Christ takes from you all that is yours and
gives to you all that is His. Your sin, your pain, and your death are gone.
Jesus has taken them and even your sentence of eternal condemnation. He has
carried them to the cross. And though taking all that bad stuff is a wonder in
of itself, that's not all Jesus is doing!
All that the Lord deserves, He has given to you. Jesus is the eternal Son
of God, and He has since before time began shared a perfect love with His
Father. By this Jesus deserves glory, honor, praise and dominion—a life of
eternal joy with His Father in heaven. All good things for all time are His by
right.
But your Lord Jesus Christ counts all of these things nothing. He casts
them aside and takes on your nature. And everything that is His He gives to
you. That is the heart of divine love. Divine love gives, and not only does
divine love give, but it gives the Giver Himself.
On the cross, Jesus is covered in the shame He has come to destroy. But
you, dear Christian, are covered in Jesus by the waters of your baptism. In
love Jesus has given Himself to you. The Father looks down on you from heaven
and smiles. He sees you, His beloved Son, the one whom He has loved for all
eternity. You are the Father's beloved child. There is no way that you could
be more precious to Him.
The Romans had no use for kings. They beat them, mocked them, and killed
them. They made sport of them. But even the Romans had a Savior who was
greater than their hatred. He received their scorn as a gift. He took it into
His own body. They couldn't make Jesus hate them. Not even they could keep
the sins that He came to destroy. Jesus has forgiven them all. He has
forgiven me. He's forgiven you. He forgave the centurion who nailed Him to
the cross even before that Roman said, “Surely this was the Son of God.”
Jesus doesn't wait for us to treat Him the way He deserves before He loves
us. For God loved the world in this way: He sent His Son that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That's you, dear
Christian, and that's me. It almost makes you want to say that word we don't
say in Lent, doesn't it...
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Charles R. Lehmann
Assistant Pastor, Youth and Education
Peace with Christ Lutheran Church
Fort Collins, CO
http://wickedbutforgiven.blogspot.com/
http://believeloveprayfight.blogspot.com/
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