Intro
In the late 1800s, William Henley wrote these well-known words of soaring
rhetoric: “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” But such
words were nothing but moving syllables of hot air! For you cannot master your
fate, you can only shape it using the gifts and abilities God has given you.
But even more, you aren’t the captain of your soul either. You are merely its
whimpering and whining passenger. God is the captain of your soul!
Main Body
In tonight’s Gospel reading, we hear of Caiaphas, the High Priest of the Jewish
nation, and a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. He probably
didn’t spent much time on the deck of a ship. But he did think of himself as
great navigator.
Caiaphas’ job was to keep the Jewish nation intact, afloat on the tossing seas
of empires. That was no small undertaking! It took all skill he and the
Sanhedrin had to keep little Judea from splintering on the jagged shoals of
Roman politics, from being swallowed up and disappearing beneath the waves.
But somehow Israel still survived--and they were proud of themselves for it!
But in all of their skillful, political maneuverings, they had forgotten who
the true master of Israel was. In all the skillful navigation to preserve
political power and stability, they condemned their true master to death when
He came before them.
Let me tell you how the High Priest of the Jewish nation got to be the High
Priest in the days of Jesus. It took political skill. The Romans, when they
had conquered the country, decided that an office as important as the High
Priest could not be something out of their control. So the Romans ensured that
their appointed governor of the province would decide who would fill the
office. And he had one overriding concern about the candidates: make sure it
is someone who can keep the peace and keep the taxes coming in.
Caiaphas’ family members would be in the office of the High Priest for about
100 years, because they knew how to “play the game.” Caiaphas knew how to spot
and exploit the slightest weakness in the Roman governor’s position. He knew
how to keep the streets of Jerusalem relatively peaceful. And he gladly
wielded the power of High Priest to allow few rivals.
But now there was this Jesus from Nazareth who was disrupting the status quo.
He was a thorn in his side. The man traveled throughout Israel preaching and
teaching, which would be all right, except for one problem: He kept on talking
about the hypocrisy and false teachings of the Jewish leaders. Jesus said the
priesthood had abandoned the pure teachings of God and had replaced them,
instead, with the human traditions and foolish opinions.
And to make matters worse, this Jesus kept performing miracles and getting
everybody all worked up about Himself. Every miracle He performed made Him
look better--and the priests look worse! “You've done nothing,” some of the
Pharisees griped, “See how the whole world chases after Him” (John 12:19).
So the High Priest and his council, the Sanhedrin, had much work to do. They
had to do something to weaken the influence of this rabbi, Jesus. They sent
out their colleagues and cronies to trap Him in some misstatement, to ruin his
popularity with the people. But that failed time and again. They even
confronted Him on the day He rode into town with palm branches all over the
road. But Jesus wouldn’t back down. How stubborn! Who did He think He was,
God?
So they plotted His death. They bribed one of His disciples to betray Him for
30 pieces of silver. They held a travesty of a night-time trial, with a
handpicked crowd, and condemned Him. They brought him to the Roman governor
and demanded that he execute Jesus. And when Pontius Pilate later placed a
placard on Jesus’ cross, showing what crime He was dying for, the priests
protested, but to no avail.
It was such an insult. Pilate had written, “The King of the Jews” above the
head of the man they had rejected. Not Him! They would not have Him rule over
them! They would have nothing to do with Him!
And that was the trouble. They didn’t want to yield the control they had over
Israel. They didn’t want to yield their power to any so-called Messiah. They
were like the enemies of the Lord’s anointed, who said in the Psalms: “Let us
break their chains and throw off their shackles” (Psalm 2:3). They were the
captains of the ship of Israel; they were the masters of their fate, they and
no other!
But who here doesn’t join them in this blasphemous defiance of God? For you
see, that’s what’s so insidious about sin and temptation--we don’t see its true
ugliness, at least not in ourselves. Oh, we can see it all too well in others.
We can see it in Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.
But can we see it when it rears it hideous face in our own hearts? Don’t you
and I feel, at times, not the joyous freedom of Christ, but the overbearing
demands He places on us? His ways are not our ways--and so we often don’t want
to live as He wants us to live. Our sinful flesh rankles at the idea that we
don’t get to call all the shots for our own lives. We want to be the captain
of our soul; we want to be the master of our fate.
And so we defy our Lord Jesus Christ and turn to the forbidden sins we love.
We ignore doing what we know He has told us to do. These are not those
iniquities we fall into through weakness or ignorance. These are acts of
rebellion when our human nature just doesn’t want Jesus to be our King--those
times when we want to be the master of our fate and captain of our soul.
And suddenly there you are, sitting in the council chamber of the Sanhedrin,
presiding in the place of Caiaphas. Oh, you can’t condemn Christ to a Roman
cross as Caiaphas did, for Christ has already died. Instead, you condemn Him
to the backseat of your life, out of sight and out of mind. Instead, you do
what you want to do, refusing to listen to Him, all the while having the nerve
to call Him your “Lord and King.” And if you continue down this road, soon you
will cast Jesus out of your life, as surely as the High Priest and his minions
had cast Him out of their nation.
God, help us to remember that we aren’t fit to be the captains of our fate or
the pilots of our souls. Have we forgotten how surely we will bring our ships
to wreck and ruin if we start navigating?
We are sinners, born in sin, and wallowing in it all our days. What moral or
ethical sense do we have within ourselves that can be our chart and compass
when, as Scripture says, nothing good is present in our sinful flesh?
We see the shipwrecks that people make of their lives when they try to sail
according to their own charts. They set their own rules. They have their own
designs for the way they think they should live life. And, in the end, they
bring only sorrow and pain, if not to themselves then to the others they ram
and sink in their lust to live free of every rule but their own.
It was to save us from such wreck and ruin that God’s Son came to this earth.
He humbled himself before the authorities of the Jewish nation and of the Roman
Empire. But more than that, He humbled Himself to the authority of the divine
Law, which we so often cast aside. He humbled Himself to the condemnation and
death that we earn for ourselves.
He didn’t allow us to set sail to eternal ruin, regret, and punishment. He
surrendered Himself to the power of the wicked ruler who wanted to end His
kingship once and for all. He allowed the Sanhedrin to try him and Caiaphas to
condemn Him to death. But through this death, He paid the price and penalty
for our many and constant refusals to live under His kingly reign.
Jesus Christ is the pilot of our lives! He and He alone is the captain of our
souls. Yes, we know that His ways are not our ways. He’s God; we’re not. We
live in a sinful world where the roaring lion stalks us, seeking to devour us.
How could we ever imagine that living the Christian life would be a cakewalk?
Remember what the Apostle Paul tells us: “He died for all, so that those who
live should no longer live for themselves but for the One who died and rose for
them” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Try to throw off Christ’s kingly rule? Why? He’s
what is most precious and important in our lives!
Conclusion
“Master of my fate”? “Captain of my soul”? Only Christ and Christ alone can
make that claim--not you or me! For He alone paid the full price to make you
His own. All so that you may be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and
serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. This is
most certainly true. Amen.
We pray, “Father, forgive us when we forget that Your Son is our Savior and
King! Make us holy in your sight by the blood of your Son. Crack open our
hardened hearts and soften them that we may yearn to live by Your ways instead
of our own. Teach us the blessedness of knowing Jesus Christ as our Savior and
of living under His kingly reign. Amen.”
--
Rich Futrell, Pastor
Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Kimberling City, MO
Where we are to receive and confess the faith of the Church (in and with the
Augsburg Confession): The faith once delivered to the saints, the faith of
Christ Jesus, His Word of the Gospel, His full forgiveness of sins, His flesh
and blood given and poured out for us, and His gracious gift of life for body,
soul, and spirit.
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