19th Day of Lent
Dear friends in Christ. Here we are tonight almost exactly halfway through Lent’s 40 days; our reading of our Lord’s Passion brings us with Jesus into the palace of the High Priest. What an odd scene is placed before us in our text: Jesus, the very God Himself, is on trial; the Creator is placed on trial by His creatures. “You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?” And they all condemned Him to be worthy of death.
Here is a true Lenten call of repentance—we are capable of the same thing. That’s the depth of human sin and corruption that we would put our Creator on trial in an attempt to eliminate Him. Although the way we may do it is different than in our Passion account, the result is still the same. Today, it is in vogue to “eliminate” God and His Christ by denying His existence and making ourselves and what we sinful creatures want to be supreme. For example, people and governments overturn what God says in His word as to what morality is, what marriage is; about what life is—so that now we have abortion at one end of life and physician assisted suicide at the other. Given the chance, the godless world really would kill God if it could. On a smaller personal/ individual level, each willful sin we commit is a result of our putting God “on trial”, rejecting Him, condemning His clear will and way and placing our sinful, corrupt will in His place. A clear and powerful call for each to exam his/her own heart and to confess sin!
The words of our reading that we want to focus in on this evening are Jesus’ clear confession of Who He is: true God and true man in one Person—and the Savior of the world. Christ’s clear confession of Who He really is, is in direct contrast not only of Peter who was denying knowing Jesus, but also is in direct contrast to what was happening inside the High Priest’s house as false witness after false witness came forward against Jesus, but their statements did not agree.
As a fascinating aside, look at the question the High Priest had asked Jesus: You, are You the Christ…? Here he asks Jesus whether He is the Christ, that is, the Anointed One—the long-promised Messiah. So far nothing too extraordinary here but then the High Priest, Caiaphas, adds the Son of the Blessed, -- You, are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? –that is, as the Holy Spirit has St. Matthew form it: the Son of God. The Blessed One is God! What’s interesting about that is that it shows that the faith of the OT people and the people at the time of Jesus is different than it is of the Jews today. Today, the Jew would say that there is a God—and that’s it; there’s no Persons within the Godhead—like Christians, we say there is one God but three distinct Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But here Caiaphas, the High Priest, reflecting what the people then believed—and rightly so—said that the Messiah, the Christ, would be the Son of the Blessed, that is, the Son of God. Here’s another example showing that the faith of the OT people was Trinitarian. With this statement here, Caiaphas confesses that there is just not “God,” the “Father” but also “the Son;” and, on top of the that the Messiah would be the Son of the Blessed, the Son of God. In other words, Caiaphas was not questioning the assumption that the Christ, the Messiah would be the Son of God; but what he was questioning was if Jesus is that Messiah, that Son of God. After all, Jesus was not that grand political, worldly Savior that so many were looking for. Jesus became that great divide. With Christians, who at first were predominately Jewish, recognizing and confessing that Jesus is the Messiah/ Savior and the Son of God; with Christians holding to the Persons within the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—the Jews began going the opposite direction until they became what they are today. Always remember that modern day Judaism is a reaction against Christianity.
What led up to Jesus’ clear confession of who He is? There was this parade, one after another, of false witnesses that were brought forward with supposedly condemning evidence against Jesus but none of it agreed. All the while these accusations against Jesus are flying, Jesus remains silent: And when the High Priest had stood up in the midst, he asked Jesus, “Do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against You?” And He continued to keep silent and was not answering anything. Here by His silence, Jesus is fulfilling the prophecy [Is 53.7]: He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. Jesus’ innocence was shown by His silence. There was nothing for Him to say because the witnesses already had shown themselves to be false. The witnesses and their contradictory testimony were a “defense” in themselves. With these accusations flying fast and furious, it would have been a waste of His breath for Him to answer because the Jewish council would have not listened and accepted anyway. But notice: even after the High Priest “encouraged” Jesus to speak up in His defense— Do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against You?, hoping that Jesus would say something incriminating–Jesus continued to keep silent and was not answering anything.
Then it began dawning on the Jews: by Jesus’ silence He was branding as lies the testimonies of the witnesses. Finally, again, the High Priest had to step in, seeing that the events were going nowhere. Again the high priest began asking Him, saying to Him, “You, are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”. Now silence would be denial.
Jesus was “forced” to proclaim the truth of who He really is. It’s not that it would do Him any good before this crowd, but here Jesus has to make the good confession when asked point blank if He is the Messiah, that is, the Son of God. Before His silence showed His innocence—the lying testimony witnesses against itself. But now if He wouldn’t, His silence would mean to one and all that Jesus is not the Messiah, the Son of God.
In response to the high priest’s question, “You, are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”, Jesus responds: I am. But this answer is quite a bit more significant than a definite “Yes!” It is Jesus’ claim that He is indeed the true God. Keep in mind what we learned before from the high priest’s question, “You, are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”; his question showed that the Jews expected the Messiah to be the Son of God—they expected Him to be God! So when Jesus says: I am, He is saying that He is the true God, the God who in the burning bush spoke to Moses and when Moses asked Him His name said [Ex 3.14]: I AM WHO I AM…Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ “I AM” became among the Jews the name of the Lord. Think of how it hit these Jews in the high priest’s palace that day when Jesus says “I AM”; that is I am the one who spoke to Moses in the burning bush, I am the one who led your ancestors out of slavery in Egypt, I am the one true God right here in your midst! But, oh! how different/ opposite Jesus is from the Messiah, the Mighty political God they were expecting. Jesus didn’t come raising a powerful army that would kick out the Romans and reestablish Israel as a great nation/ empire, subjecting people to it. Instead, Jesus came already as king and set up His kingdom in the hearts of people; Jesus came and by His suffering and death defeated the devil and sin and overthrew his kingdom and rescued us from it; and by His resurrection destroyed death for us.
But, talk is cheap. Jesus could say that but was/is He really the Messiah, the Son of God, the great I AM? Look again at Caiaphas’ question: “You, are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”. What is Peter’s earlier confession of faith, long before he denied Jesus that first Good Friday very early morning [Mt. 16.16]? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. But again, maybe Peter wasn’t very “stable”—maybe he was easily swayed by the emotion of the moment. But what happened about a week after Peter’s confession? Jesus’ transfiguration—when He showed forth His glorious divinity in all its majesty. At that time God the Father announced from heaven [Mt 17.5]: This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him! God the Father confirms Peter’s confession of faith as truth—Jesus is the true God, the “I AM,” the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
This is the very same thing the Father said of Jesus, the Son, at the beginning of His earthly ministry [Mt 3.17]: This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. By His preaching and by His miracles Jesus had confirmed that what the Father had said is correct: He is the true God, the Son. Now before the Jewish council trying to find cause to put Him to death, “You, are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus boldly confesses who He is: I AM, that is, the Messiah who is the Son of God, Who is Himself God.
Jesus doesn’t stop there but gives the full confession of Who He really is; He defines Who the Christ, the Son of the Blessed is: And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. Here Jesus, the true God, the Son, refers to Himself as the Son of Man. Here Jesus confesses that He the true God has also become a true man. He, the Son of Man, is that miraculous offspring of the human race in whom the Son of God became man; in Jesus the human nature was assumed/ taken up into the divine. Now, before the Jewish council, before the high priest, Jesus, the God-man, was in deepest humiliation. He was not making use of His divine almighty power. Here He was allowing Himself to be accused of sin He didn’t/ couldn’t commit, to suffer, and to die—all for us and our salvation; to bring about, establish, set up His kingdom as He is enthroned on the cross.
But that human nature of Jesus, Jesus Himself, would not forever be in deepest humiliation as Caiaphas and the others saw Him then. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. Instead Jesus, the Son of Man, the God-man, would share the authority of God—sit at the right hand of the Power—because He is God, I AM—Jesus: God and man in one Person. The high priest and others would get a glimpse of the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power when they would see/ experience the miracles that happened when Jesus died—the earthquakes, the temple curtain torn in two, the dead rising; they would experience the rule of the risen and ascended Christ—still both true God and true man—as He sent His Holy Spirit on Pentecost to His Church, as He blessed the teaching and preaching of His apostles, as He went with them and worked with them confirming their word with the accompanying signs; many of them would 40 years later see the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and priesthood as that sign par excellence that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, who offered up that perfect, once for all sacrifice for sin and reconciled the sinful world to the holy God; that sign that the OT ceremonies had served their purpose and been fulfilled in Jesus. On the Last Day they will again see Jesus, the God-man, in all His glory as the Judge of the world. Then they will again see Him in the flesh and recognize too late that the One they rejected as Savior really is the Savior. When the high priest had torn his clothes, he said, “What further need do we have for witnesses. “You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?” And they all condemned Him to be worthy of death.
The one who rejects Jesus as Savior will have Him as judge. Certainly this gives us great pause to ponder this Lent: am I recognizing and receiving Jesus, the God-man, as my Savior. What is the most glorious good news to the Christian is foolishness and blasphemy to the unbeliever. INJ Amen