Judica – Sunday 17 March A✠D 2024
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 43:1-2a;43:3-5;143:9a, 10a;18:48a, c;129:1-4
✠ Lection: Genesis 22:1-19;Hebrews 9:11-15;St. John 8:46-59a
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places venerate the crucifix, which depicts the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is also truly meet, right, and salutary to consider and repeatedly consider the beautiful symbolism that we employ in our worship and in our daily lives as Christians. We often adorn our own bodies with small crucifixes hung from our necks to remind us that we are redeemed in Christ. We display a crucifix upon our altar and process with it leading the way in God’s Divine Service. It is good to consider it again and again, because in its earthly simplicity, it makes no sense for us to carry around and look upon a Man’s dead body nailed to crossbeams of wood. Think about that, for there must be more there than what is seen. As we now enter Passiontide and make this ascent to Jerusalem of which we have been eagerly expecting, we refresh our spirits with the joy and privilege of looking upon our crucifixes and seeing much. But then, Jesus hid Himself and until we reveal them again in the Triduum concluding Holy Week, these stand as visual reminders in our worship of both our unworthiness to look upon so magnificent a sacrifice and that our grief and sin make their beauty and details fuzzy to our fallen eyes. At times, Jesus hides Himself so that we may better see life in the Crucifixion, because those who believe in Him and keep His word, shall never see death, but rather life as we view the Crucifixion through the empty tomb of the Resurrection.
If such re-realization of the beauty of Christ crucified makes you long for the good ole days of much godly commotion, then long for the right ones, not the ones that were experienced in America in the 50s and 60s and so on, for those have been revealed to have been built upon quickly crumbling falsehood. True Church growth comes in the people in Church, not merely by the number of people in Church. Long instead for the good ole days of the Garden, of Paradise, before sin entered into the world, for the new heavens and the new earth to come have their origin in that good creation of God. He will make all things new. True eternal life really does await us. You know how sin came into that good creation. Adam and Eve did not keep the word of God, exchanging it in sin for another, and their eyes were opened. They were opened to see good and evil, yes, but much worse for us all, their eyes were opened to see death; their own and our own, for that is what their sin brought upon us all. Because of their naked shame, when they heard the sound of the LORD walking in the Garden, they hid themselves. The deception of the sinful flesh tempts us not to keep God’s word, to hide ourselves from Him, and to seek a false peace by not coming to Him when He calls. Yet, He still calls out to us, “Where are you?” It is a call to repent and have faith that His mercy endures forever. His mercy endures even while He fully knows how and where we try to hide our breaking of His commandments.
He graciously calls out, just as He proclaimed in Jerusalem, “Amen, amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” In these words are many applications, especially since the rate of death among us is a steady 100%. We know death. Death has already hurt us all and it will hurt more. We taste death; that of our loved ones and that of our own as it draws near. How then shall it be that if we keep Jesus’ word that we shall never see death? Do not be deceived, we are all dying; no matter how young, no matter how old. No technology will ever keep us from death. No precautions, no injections, no hiding, no climate initiatives, nothing. In keeping Jesus’ word, we hold fast to and obey the Gospel instead. Obeying it by faith means believing that it is true and that it draws us into a life of not hiding ourselves, but living in the hope and joy of Christ and His forgiveness. We see our own bodily death coming, and even become understandably afraid of it, yet by the word of Christ we see beyond death, we see in death, we see through death, just as we do His crucifixion, life beyond it. In the crucifixion into which we are baptized in His Name, we see death swallowing up death, thus giving life. It is made most certain by our Lord’s resurrection from it.
In keeping His word, we shall also never see the death of other believers. The one that does come to all who are in Christ is but a temporary, bodily one, a peaceful sleep in a Christian grave. The Jews who hated Jesus and hid themselves from His teaching repeatedly spoke about Abraham and the prophets, men of faith, in ways that Christians do not speak about those who have died in this life when we speak of them in light of Jesus. They have died on a date that is now painful in our memories, yet they live. We have a hope and a certainty that those who die in Christ have died, yet live, and will never die again. This is our trust and hope because the One Who had no sin for which He could be convicted was sent into the world to honor His Father, for He made Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him and live. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Abraham is living. The prophets are living. Your loved ones who have died in Jesus are living, and though you do not see them, you know this to be true, by the word of Christ their Savior and yours. You see through the fuzzy tears of grief. You see the truth that is beyond the grave, beyond their graves, because theirs will give way to Christ’s grave, which is empty. Holy Week comes quickly and we shall be prepared to celebrate the paschal feast in sincerity and truth, for we are being refreshed in spirit to see the Crucifixion of Christ in its proper beauty that penetrates the stone heart.
The Lord Jesus says, “If anyone keeps my word he shall never see death.” They shall also not see His death, which means that when their eyes look upon His death, they see not just His three days in death, but their new beginning of life by all sins paid for and death being put to death. From the crucifixion flow water and blood, Baptism and Holy Communion, from His pierced side for the forgiveness of sins, an unstoppable river that makes glad the city of God. The Crucifix proclaims Jesus’ word that by His death comes your life. Thus, we return to our blessed veiled-but-for-a-time symbols, for we are not psychos that delight in merely parading around dead bodies nailed to wood in the pity of onlookers. Any who shun or pity the image of Christ crucified and do not keep His word see not beyond it. They see only death where there is everlasting life. Those who keep Jesus’ word look upon the Crucifix and rejoice even when the image is fuzzy by veil or by self. Jesus hides Himself from those who refuse to hear Him, who refuse to see life in His being lifted up and by dying, destroying death. He still hopes that none would perish, but that all would repent and cast their eyes upon Him there on His Holy Cross where God died for them. The crucifixion was necessary. The crucifixion was the divine plan, which is also why Jesus hid Himself; not only in judgment, but also in mercy.
He could not die a spontaneous stoning death at the hands of blind Jews that day. The Scriptures and His own spoken words must be fulfilled, for they are truth. He must be pierced for our transgressions and be the Cursèd Who hangs on a tree. Jesus hid Himself to fully be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. It was to His Father’s pleasure that upon Him would be placed not only the unrighteous wrath of those seeking to stone Him, but the full burdensome naked shame of the whole world’s sin. Veiled or not, it is marvelous in our eyes to see by faith that the chastisement for our peace was upon Him. The Father took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Jesus, His Son; and He took the fire of wrath and consumed our Savior in our stead. Just as the substitutionary ram was caught by the head in the thicket, so too was our Lord crowned with thorns as the Passover Sacrifice. In His Son, God was providing for Himself the Lamb for a burnt offering, so that we keep this word and never see death in Him.
It is written, “In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” Jesus may have hidden Himself, but He has done this, we have done this (veiled our crucifixes) so that we may see life in the Crucifixion. You who believe in Him and keep His word, shall never see death, but rather life as you see the Crucifixion in all that it reveals by faith. Jesus tells the truth. Let us believe His word and see the eternal, blissful story of Christ crucified that only the eyes of faith can behold, be comforted by, and rejoice in every time we see a crucifix.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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