Behold the Man - Sermon for Good Friday, based on John 19:1-42.

Behold the Man                                                       
Good Friday 2024
Our Redeemer and Our Savior's 
Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
John 19:1-42

Sermon Audio available here:  

   Behold the Man.  This is what it's come down to: Pilate, the Roman governor, is trying to avoid a riot.  He's afraid to commit the injustice of executing Jesus, because of the crowds of Palm Sunday, the followers and friends of Jesus.  They might rebel if He executes Jesus.  Because they know, like Pilate, that Jesus is innocent.  At the same time Pilate fears angering the Jewish leaders, for he knows they could stage a riot just as well.  So, trying to walk the line between justice and appeasing Jesus' enemies, Pilate has Jesus scourged, that is whipped, and mocked, dressed in royal purple and crowned with thorns.  Hoping he had done enough, Pilate brings Jesus out for display:  Behold the Man.  Look at what I've done to Him, isn't this enough? 

   Behold the Man.  Like Balaam's donkey, (Numbers 22) and Caiaphas the high priest, (John 11:49-52), Pontius Pilate is an unlikely candidate to speak God’s Word, an unlikely prophet.  The governor’s proclamation is not just a few random words, filling in a blank in the story.  Nor are these false words, inserted in the Biblical text, only to be refuted.  No, these words of Pilate are profound.   They are true words. 

Behold the Man. 

   Jesus is the Man. He is the Archetype, the finest and best man, in every respect: in His miraculous birth, His sinless life, His humble service.  In His authoritative teaching, and perfect loyalty to God, in His faith and practice, Jesus is the Man.  And now He is the Man in suffering.  Loving His own to the very end, Jesus does more than simply wash their feet.  He begins to pour out His cleansing blood. 

   Jesus is the Man whom God accepts, the Man who fulfills all righteousness, who does the will of the Father, and keeps the Law.  He is the Beloved Son. 

   He is also the Man who suffers.  He stands in for all the rest of mankind, beaten, mocked, crowned in thorns, royal purple covering His blood-red body.   

   That this Jesus is the Man says something very bad about us.  About mankind.  This must be the Man because all the rest of us, men, women and children, do not live well.  We are not the finest and best.  Jesus stands there because of us, because we do not fulfill any righteousness, let alone all of it.  We do not do the will of the Father.  We do not keep the Law. 

   Many reject the Man Jesus precisely because of what His suffering says about us.  Who wants to be called a poor, miserable sinner?  We may protest: I’m a good person, aren’t I? 

   Well, we may be fine citizens, maybe even the best of people in the eyes of our neighbors.  But before God, whose standard is perfection, perfect holiness, inside and out, before God, we are lost in sin, and cannot free ourselves.  Whether personal righteousness has never really been our priority, or we have done our utmost to walk the walk, either way, none of us is the perfect man, or perfect woman.  Despite all our efforts at greatness and goodness, Jesus' suffering reveals that we are not worthy.  For if there were any other way to save us, God would have chosen it.  But there is no other way.  Jesus must suffer, for who we are. 

   This is a very difficult, a very harsh message.  And so, many reject it.  Some turn completely against Jesus, joining in the cries of the crowd to crucify Him, albeit in modern day language.  Listen to the poets and great minds of our age, who tell us to leave the superstitions of religion behind and embrace the brotherhood of man.  Jewish priests of the first century and modern intellectuals of the 21^st are joined in their desire to leave Jesus on the ash-heap of history.   

   Others try to keep Jesus, but only if they can change Him.  They focus on His teaching and healing and service to the poor, and ignore or downplay the suffering and cross, because of what His suffering and cross say about them.  About us.  Often we only want a Jesus who builds our self-esteem, and tells us how to live a little bit  better.  Not one who points out our inescapable sinfulness.   

   You and I could choose to reject the Man, standing beside Pilate, shamed and suffering.  But our choices do not change reality.  And the reality is this:  Jesus is the Man.  Jesus is the only Man who could reveal the depth of God's displeasure with our sin, and the only Man who could accept God's full punishment.  Every injustice you've ever suffered, and every injustice you've ever inflicted, multiplied by the billions of sinners who have gone before you, all of these sins have been answered for, paid for, suffered for, by the Man Jesus.  For He submitted not just to Pontius Pilate, but also to His own Father's righteous anger.

   And most amazingly, He did this willingly, for the joy set before Him.  For the promise of a heavenly congregation of redeemed sinners, Jesus is the Man.  In order to deliver to His Father a people, holy and righteous in His sight, Jesus meekly stands as the Man beside Pilate.  In order to prove the love and mercy of God, Jesus wears the purple robe.  In order to have you for His very own, Jesus accepts the crown of thorns. 

   It is only the great reversal of the Resurrection that makes it even possible for us to consider the utter darkness of Good Friday.  We live in hope because we know Jesus rose from the dead, showing us that His suffering was not for nothing.  Not at all.  In the light of the Resurrection we learn that His suffering was for everything, for the forgiveness of all sins, for the life of the world, and for the glory of His Father. 

   And so tonight we confess again that our sin made Him stand there.  We confess that we could never pay even a fraction of our debt.  We confess that the Man Jesus is our God.  We confess that there was never love like this.  Jesus, our Suffering King.  Behold the Man.  Amen.