Genesis 22:1-14/Hebrews 9:11-15/John 8:46-59
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit
Have you ever had a conversation with someone but it seems as if you are speaking two different languages, let alone speaking and understanding two different things? The more you try to clarify your points, the more the other person misunderstands what you are saying and turns the whole conversation around.
That’s exactly what’s happening between Jesus and the crowds of the Jews in John chapter eight. Jesus uses very simple, declarative sentences. There is no ivory tower talk coming out of our Lord’s mouth. Jesus asks some simple questions. The Jews know the answers, but they respond as if they ignore what Jesus says. They hear what they want to hear rather that what they actually hear.
The Jews create a whole universe for themselves around a lie. When Jesus began to preach and perform signs and wonders for the Jews to show He is the Messiah, the Son of God promised by the patriarchs and prophets, many believed what they heard and saw. Many others heard and saw Him, but refused to believe what He said was true. So they twisted His Words and made Jesus say and do what they wanted Him to say and do. They created a Bizarro world just like one of Superman’s arch-enemies. Bizarro world is a place where everything is the opposite of our world. What is wrong in our world is right in Bizarro world.
Sometimes our world is a lot like Bizarro world. People destroy our reputation with hurtful words and action. People take advantage of us. We do and speak well of others trying not to play their game. But instead of turning the other cheek we play their game. We fall headlong into Bizarro world and do things according to mob rule. After all, revenge is a dish that’s best served cold. If someone acts cold-blooded to us, we should act cold-blooded…and then some…in return!
Our Lord’s Words sound precious to our ears. There’s a lot of comfort when He says: if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death. God’s Word says so time and again. Jesus is the Word made flesh. He cannot lie. But His words sound to the Jews like a dagger to the heart. There is no comfort. Our Lord speaks fighting words because He wants to tear down their Bizarro world that has no room for a Savior Who is conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
Jesus’ Words to the Jews have some bite too. He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God…. Yet you have not known [My Father], but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word.
When you build your house in the Bizarro world of loving sin and hating righteousness, you need to hear what Jesus says to the Jews. He speaks them to you. He doesn’t speak them to make Himself look good and make you look like a fool. He speaks them in order for you to repent. That’s all Jesus wants from the Jews and from you and me. He wants repentance toward the forgiveness of sins. Psalm 95 says, Today, if you will hear His voice: do not harden your hearts.
So repent. Tear down the walls of the Bizarro world you build to hide from God. Turn to Him and confess your transgressions. He will remove the iniquity of your sin. He forgives your sins because He can. We believe He can because He tells the Jews, and you and me, before Abraham was, I AM.
Those are the Words that will send our Savior to the cross. We see the Jews pick up stones to stone Him. Christ’s time had not yet come. The time is coming when they will come after Jesus as a criminal. They will trump up charges of blasphemy: He said He was the King of the Jews. They will sentence Him to death. They will put the blame on themselves, though unknowingly, when they cry out to Pontius Pilate, His blood be on us and on our children.
Those are the Words that bring us comfort in His sorrow. Before Abraham was, Jesus is. He was there when the world was created. He was there when His Father promised to Adam and Eve that the serpent’s head would be crushed by the seed of the woman. He was there when His Father made that same promise to Abraham. Abraham believed God. God accounted Abraham’s faith in that promise as righteousness. Abraham sees the day of the Lord and is glad. Sadly, Abraham’s children by blood refuse to see that day for what it is.
That day when they sentenced Jesus to die brings us again to
Let’s be perfectly clear: this promise is for both Jew and Gentile. Jesus says what He says to the crowds of the Jews to get them away from their Bizarro world of ritual and ceremony for the sake of perpetuating their way of life. He wants them to see what’s behind why they worship. They hear His voice, but their hearts are hardened.
You hear His voice that kills and gives life. First the Word kills you; breaks down the walls around your soul. The Word proclaims you dead in order to bring you back to life. The Word transforms you through preaching the Good News of the New Covenant. The Word washes you clean in baptismal waters. The Word declares your sins forgiven. The Word goes in your mouth under bread and wine. The Word delivers, seals, and guarantees forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and the salvation of your soul.
We should be dead eternally for our sin. Yet the Ram of God caught in a thicket of thorns shaped into a crown is our substitute. That same Ram will rise from the dead because God cannot die. Because He lives, you too shall live. That’s the New Covenant promised for you and for all. The Bizarro world says it can’t be so because you can’t understand it. The life of faith says it must be so because God has yet to lie.
The Church calls the Fifth Sunday in Lent Passion Sunday. It’s as if the tone arm on a record player is drawn across a record to make a large scratch. The readings jar us from preparing for the Passion toward our Lord’s suffering and death. It all begins again today, when the Jews dig in their heels and fortify their Bizarro world that has no room for God’s Son taking on flesh, dying, and rising from the dead. The Lord has dug your heels out of the quicksand of hell and brought you to safety in the shadow of His cross and tomb. His blood covers you. His blood bestows you with the good thing to come: eternal life with our heavenly Father. Believe it for Jesus’ sake.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit
Hymns for Lent 5 (Lutheran Service Book)
430, “My Song Is Love Unknown”
438, “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth”
437, “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed”
429, “We Sing the Praise of Him Who Died”
692, “Praise to You and Adoration”