Matthew 27:1-2 * March 5, 2008 * Midweek Lent 5 * Prof. Daniel Leyrer

“The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Is 53:5).

Dear friends who have come to watch with Jesus this little hour,

The Passion of the Christ. That Mel Gibson-directed movie from several years back forced people around the world to rethink their definition of “passion.” Normally we use the word passion to mean intensity, really liking something, really wanting something. Later this month in the national college basketball tournament called March Madness you are likely to hear the word passion dropped by more than one announcer. As your TV screen is filled with the grimacing face of a player, the perspiring face of a coach, or the pained face of a fan, someone will say: “What passion! They really want it.”

But is that the passion of the Christ? Oh, he really wanted to save us. The Bible says that “for the joy set before him [Jesus] endured the cross” (Heb 12:2). About his life, Christ himself said: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my accord” (Jn 10:18). He was determined, he had a zeal, he had a passion to save us from our sins.

But when we speak of the Passion History, or we sing “Jesus, I will ponder now on your holy passion” (CW 98), we mean something more than determination. We mean suffering. The sinless God-man with the spotless soul suffered so many things to be our Savior. And this is his passion. So determined is he to pay for your sins and mine that he suffers even to the point of becoming sin and bearing God’s judgment upon sin in our place. Such is his passion.

This is where we find him tonight on the short crossroad we travel with him. He is suffering at the hands of his enemies. They had already spit upon him and struck him with their fists. They had mocked him. And now Jesus was being led along the crossroad from the Sanhedrin to Pilate. The only thing stronger than his enemies’ passion to put him to death is Jesus’ passion to bring us eternal life.

“Early in the morning, all the chief priests and elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death.” Like workaholics who plow right through Christmas Eve and Christmas morning to get more work done at the office, so the religious leaders of the day skipped Passover celebrations with there families to make sure Jesus was condemned to death. But the Sanhedrin’s late night sentence of death had to be ratified by an early morning session with the Roman governor Pilate. So off they went in the wee hours of Friday. Every one of them. All 70 men who made up the ruling council made sure the Son of God would stand before Pontius Pilate, made sure they were there to shout “Crucify!”

The passion against Jesus hasn’t subsided in the 20 centuries since that Friday morning. Christ still has enemies, doesn’t he? They use his name as a punch line or a curse word. They dishonor him in obscene “art.” They ridicule his teachings and bring his story under jolly elves and cuddly bunnies. Yes, friends, the passion to get rid of Jesus still burns hot today. And just as on the Friday morning so long ago, this passion against our Lord finds strength in numbers. “Nobody believes that anymore,” says the college professor to the God-fearing freshman in his biology class. “Everybody does this,” says one employee encouraging another to steal from her employer.

Where are we, his disciples, when this passion burns against Jesus? Two thousand years ago his disciples betrayed him or denied him or ran away from him. There was no passion to stand up for Jesus. Opportunities to stand up for Jesus abound today among us disciples. Where are we? Are we hiding in the shadows of trying to fit in, to not rock the boat? Are we denying him with our failure to let anyone know we are his followers? Are we locking ourselves behind the doors of silence for fear that people will make fun of us if we speak up for him? Today we must confess that our passion for Jesus does not always match his enemies’ passion against him.

And yet, to walk these crossroads with Jesus in his Word, to travel with him with the feet of faith from the Sanhedrin’s chamber to Pilate’s palace—that’s not about his disciples’ passion. It’s not about our passion. It’s about his passion, the passion of the Christ.

Consider his passion, dear friends. Consider what the Son of God was determined to endure for our sakes as you listen again to this one verse from Matthew: “They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate, the governor” (Mt 27:2). As the most dangerous of criminals is led handcuffed, shackled, and guarded to his cell, so was Jesus led forth in bonds to Pilate’s court. Yes, Pilate. Jesus’ enemies despised this Gentile governor, but today he was just the man they needed. Pilate was a man known for brutality in taking care of “Jewish problems,” and a brutal death for Jesus was what these enemies were looking for. Some 700 years before Isaiah had prophesied: “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter” (Is 53:7).

Where is his passion? He went. Where his enemies led, he followed. He allowed it to happen. The Lord of heaven and earth who fills heaven and earth let himself be bound in chains. No struggling. No fighting. No resisting. Though he had legions of angels at his beck and call, as he said the night before, he did not call upon them. No calling down fire upon his persecutors. No getting out of it. He endured it all. Here is the passion of the Christ. No pain, no shame could stop him from going to the cross to remove our guilt. No bonds, no chains could stop him from walking every step to the cross where he would shatter the shackles of sin that were pulling us into hell. No power of earth or hell would deter our Lord Jesus from paying the powerful price to take away our sins.

That’s passion. That’s love. The Bible says: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). The Passion season is coming to a close. We’re getting closer to those days—Good Friday and Easter Sunday—when we commemorate his love for us. Let’s remember this as we journey closer to the cross and empty tomb this year: He hasn’t stopped loving us. The same passion that filled him to endure all things to take away your sin still fills him—to live within our hearts, to walk by our side, to guide us and comfort us in every season of life, to take us to be with him when our journey here is done. The Passion of the Christ. What he suffered he suffers no more. What he did for you and me lives forever.

Amen.