Midweek Lenten Sermon 5
St. Luke 23:39-43
+ Jesu Juva +
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! The Lamb is the sacrifice. The altar is the Cross. But even here Satan lurks. Apes God. Through means, through people skulking around the Cross, the devil is at work. He attempts to derail Jesus from His work for sinners.
Those who passed by derided Him. Wagged their heads. And from their mouths spills this spewage: “Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God.” Others mocked Him the same way: “You’re the Son of God? Then get off that pole. And then after you climb down, we’ll believe in you.” The soldiers similarly: “Save yourself.” And then one of the thieves: “Save yourself and us if you are the Christ.”
As it was in the wilderness after His Baptism, so it is at the Cross. Jesus: tempted to not be the Christ, the Son of the living God. Here is Satan’s opportune time. Jesus is at His weakest. The suffering is much more immense that a 40 day fast. The disciples have fled. He refuses the help of legions of angels. His Body is beaten to a bloody pulp. The sin of the world will be laid on Him. He will be punished with hell’s damnation. Forsaken even by His Father. “SO GET OFF THAT CROSS JESUS!” But if He does, He’s no longer the Son of God. He’s no longer the Savior. And there’s no salvation for you or for anybody else.
Revealed in this grotesque crucifixion, this utter helplessness, is God’s great power. In this darkness of death God reigns on the earth. Crowned with thorns. His throne is the Tree. “Jesus of Nazareth, King.”
Satan overcame Adam and Eve and all mankind by a tree. Now the devil is defeated by the second and last Adam as He hangs on Calvary’s Tree. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
One criminal sees and hears all that happens to Jesus. And something happens. The Spirit and life Words of the Lamb of God work a change. Early on he mocked. But now there is no more cursing. Instead, he reprimands his fellow criminal. Then he confesses his sin: “We are getting what we deserve.” Then he bears witness to the innocence of Jesus, the Man in the middle: “But this man has done nothing wrong.”
What is the change? The change is repentance: faith. And faith gives birth to prayer. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” “Remember me.” Isn’t that amazing? He doesn’t ask for Jesus to loosen his spikes, take him off his cross, and heal his broken body. No request for any of that. Instead, “Remember me. Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He wants a place with Jesus in His kingdom.
The Roman government and the Jerusalem police department would remember him as a fiend and wretch for his crimes. After all, his villainy was so criminal that he was given the death sentence. His prayer is for mercy. He confesses his sin expecting Jesus the Savior to forgive him.
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He speaks. He answers the prayer. His is the Voice of God Himself. Jesus gives His “Amen” to this man’s prayer. “Truly I say to you.” Literally Jesus in the Greek says the Hebrew word for “truth.” Jesus answers the penitent criminal’s prayer with an “Amen.” Prayer heard. Prayer answered. “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
“Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you.” That’s what happens here. Absolution is spoken. Forgiveness is given. The man has citizenship in God’s kingdom through the forgiveness Jesus speaks and gives. This man has heard the living voice of God Jesus in the Gospel from the Cross. The forgiven criminal has heaven even before he goes to heaven in the “Amen” of the Lord’s Absolution.
If only you could hear the living voice of Jesus just like the thief on the cross. If only you, who are the victims of your own sin, could receive the “Amen” of Jesus in answer to your pleas for His help. YOU CAN! AND YOU DO! Your hear Christ’s voice in the spoken Word of the Gospel: Holy Absolution.
To you who confess your sin, the sin you know and feel in your heart, Jesus speaks. It is an expensive Word. It cost Jesus His life so that “repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in His name to all nations” (Luke 24:47) and to you. When you go to your pastor for Holy Absolution he will ask you: “Do you believe that my forgiveness is God’s forgiveness?” And the answer in response is: “Yes, Pastor, I do.” And so it is. The Absolution is Christ’s. It’s His voice. His speaking. His doing and giving. “He who hears you hears me,” Jesus says (Luke 10:16).
The Small Catechism’s teaching on the Office of the Keys is our confession. “When the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, . . . and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.” In the Word of the Absolution Jesus is graciously present for you. Forgiving you your sin because His Word says so. And His Word does it. Gives it. This Absolution is “God’s voice from heaven” (Augsburg Confession, XXV:3-4, Tappert).
One Lutheran pastor puts it this way. “In private absolution there occurs the application of the universal promise of grace to anyone at all separately, so that whoever has been absolved can and should claim with certainty that Christ surely has forgiven him his sins because He has announced it to him with His own voice through the minister’s absolution, no differently from how He did in the case of the paralytic: ‘My son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you,’ Matt. 9” (David Chrytraeus, A Summary of the Christian Faith, p. 137).
The crucified and risen Lord Jesus speaks to you in the Absolution. He chooses not to remember the sins of your youth, the sins of your present, and the sins of your future. All is forgiven. His death is bigger than your sin and the world’s. “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Heaven is yours today. You are forgiven. Christ says so in the Absolution.
We now sing: (stanzas 5-7, #235 “As Surely as I Live, God Said” Lutheran Worship)
The words which absolution giveWhen ministers lay on their hands,
Are his who died that we might live;Absolved by Christ the sinner stands;
The minister whom Christ has sentHe who by grace the Word believes
Is but His humble instrument.The purchase of His blood receives.
All praise to you, O Christ, shall be
For absolution full and free,
In which you show your richest grace;
From false indulgence guard our race.