Palm and Passion Sunday, March 24th, A+D 2024
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Perfect Certainty – Matthew chapters 26 – 27, Philippians 2
Audio of the sermon is available HERE.
What is He doing? What does Jesus intend to achieve with these controversial words and works? Is He certain this thing is going to end the way He wants?
anointing with highly valuable perfume by the woman in Bethany, a flagrant waste of money, or so it seemed. He portrayed Himself as the Son of David, the coming Messiah King, by orchestrating the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday. By this, Jesus enraged the Pharisees and Priests, and gave them concrete accusations with which to denounce Him to the Roman governor. Already before Monday of this most fundamental week, Jesus had totally confounded human wisdom. Is He sure all this is a good idea?
During the week, it got worse: arguments in the Temple and verbal attacks against the leaders of the Jews, apocalyptic teaching, radical claims of coming destruction. Finally, Jesus displays the certainty and confidence to redefine the Passover of the Jews. He tranforms the perpetual institution of Moses, annuls the Law’s prohibition against drinking blood, and eternally remakes the Passover, with reference to His own death. Are you sure, Jesus?
He rejects the fervent desire of many of His followers, the urge for Him to foment a rebellion against the Romans. Instead, Jesus submits to the arrest, torture and humiliation of the Priests, and the Romans. He calmly goes to Calvary, facing without hesitation the worst that human beings could do. But the deepest stroke that pierced Him was the stroke that Justice gave, the justice of God, the wrath of His own beloved Father against human sin. In the moment, it all seems like madness, a terrible waste. Who can understand His goal, His plan? Where does Jesus find His certainty?
Four Palm and Passion Sundays ago, in April of 2020, the whole world suffered from an extreme lack of certainty. In February “lockdown” had been a term used mostly to refer to confining inmates in their cells, to prevent a prison riot. By April, lockdowns were for everybody.
In much of the world, freedom of movement was suddenly restricted. Only “essential workers” moved about normally. Loved ones in hospitals and nursing homes were on their own. Schools and churches were shuttered. We all need to submit; the science is certain, don’t you know? When and how would we escape this health crisis? What was the real danger of COVID19? What measures protect me and my family? Who knew, for sure? No one.
Isolated in our homes, interacting through screens, the same internet, which gave us some precious contact with friends and loved ones, also flooded us with conflicting information, fantastic stories, opposing theories. Page after page fed our minds with doubt and fear. Many of us became amateur public health researchers, seeking the truth, seeking certainty. But the deeper we dug, the more certainty escaped us. Oh, how we wanted to know for sure! But no.
But, that was four years ago. Today, we are all relieved that life has completely returned to normal, that we again enjoy a high level of certainty in our lives. No longer are the internet, the coffee shop, and our own minds roiled by constant doubts.
Oh, that such were the case! We are no longer in a worldwide health crisis, unless you count Type 2 diabetes, loneliness, substance abuse, obesity, or widespread gender disphoria as crises. In April 2020 we in the United States were locked into a presidential election with the combined age of the two major candidates setting a new record, raising doubts about their fitness for the office. This year, the same two men shatter that record by 8 years. AI generated images, video and text may eventually teach us the wisdom to doubt everything we see on our screens. But at this moment, certainty, and the peace that we gain from a sense of certainty, are just as far away as ever. Maybe farther.
And so, brothers and sisters in Christ, I thank the Lord that, in the midst of these uncertain times, we are celebrating Holy Week. What a priceless blessing to gather together, in the flesh, to rehearse, and remember, and celebrate the most important week in all of human history. There is no better Word, no better Way to help us regain Christian certainty, than by meditating once again on the holy work of Jesus Christ, His work of perfect certainty.
Before the foundation of the world, the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, knew, without a doubt, the date and the events of the first Holy Week. God also knew all about today, our celebration of Holy Week in A+D 2024. From before time began, the plan was set. The Creator, the eternal God, in the person of the Son, was with perfect certainty going to unite with His creation, taking the essence of the guilty man into his spotless, perfect being. Jesus became like us in every way, except without sin. And for what? Certainly He did not come down and enter into human history to lead us to a victory according to our expectations. Jesus did not ride a donkey into Jerusalem to restore David's earthly kingdom, nor to make America great again, nor to achieve social justice.
Restoring the ancient splendor of Israel would not have helped anyone, because King David was the problem. Israel’s greatest leader, and everyone else, every person except Jesus, including you and me, we were and are the problem that creates our uncertainty. The only thing constant and sure about us is our frailty and fallenness.
Jesus had to reveal the weakness of everyone, even his own disciples and friends, because the truth about all the sons of Adam is that, as the Psalmist declares: “they have been corrupted, they have committed abominable acts; There is no one who does good… The Lord has looked down from heaven on the children of man to see if there is anyone who understands, who seeks after God. They have all turned aside, they have all been corrupted; there is no one who does good, there is not even one.” (Psalms 14 and 53: 1-3) There was no real certainty, and so also no real hope among mankind, because all of us were corrupted. All of us naturally deceive, and fall for deception. We are all victims, and perpetrators, from our conception, from our very first breath.
Nevertheless, Jesus was perfectly certain about His plan. Not because it was easy or pleasant. Rather, being God Himself, the eternal Son of the Father, Jesus knew the Truth that is greater than our sin and corruption. Jesus knew the Truth that is even greater than the hatred and envy of satan: Jesus knew with perfect certainty that God is love.
When we go through trials and tribulations, when we face uncertainty, suffering and evil, we want nothing more than to be with our loved ones, to experience the love we first received as babies. We desperately want to receive and share love, like the unexpected love that flowed from us who became parents. Not always, but often, by God’s grace, human parents and children still feel and give great love. Even without knowing its Source, children and parents normally still share a profound love. Our family love is not perfect, far from it. But it is the best we have in this world. We are all sinners, but God in his goodness has left this imperfect love in our lives, to give us an idea, a shadow of the love that exists between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the love God seeks to share with every soul.
The love of family is wonderful. And yet, even if we could multiply a thousand times the intensity of the best love we have experienced with family and friends, God’s love is still greater. God’s love, unattainable for us, is the source of the perfect certainty of Christ. Jesus is sure of His plan, because He knows love, the love that is God.
This is why Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, endured everything, suffered everything, calmly, and with hope. He completed His aweful work with certainty, for the sake future joy. For the joy of revealing to the world, of revealing to you that, although you deserve His rejection, God has loved you in this way: He sent his Only Begotten Son to take away all your weakness and doubt, all your sin, all your punishment and shame. Jesus has destroyed them all in His own body, in His own suffering and death on the Cross. Jesus did it all with the perfect certainty that, after three days, a new creation would be revealed, a new reality in which you can know the real love of God Himself.
This was the certainty of Christ, which gave him the strength to do and endure everything that happended during Holy Week. And Christ’s certainty is also your certainty. This is God’s guarantee to you, signed, sealed and delivered at your Baptism. There the God who is love, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, united you with the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, making you a member of the family of God, perfectly safe in His love. This is the certainty which Christ feeds us, from His altar, His holy Body and Blood, the forgiveness of sins that Christians are invited to eat and to drink. This is the certainty that the Spirit pours into your heart, through your ears, every time you silence the stream of the world’s doubt-filled noise, and listen once again to the voice of Truth, the voice of certainty. This voice of God sometimes thunders, sometimes whispers, sometimes sings, and is always seeking to speak peace to you, in Jesus’ Name.
The certainty of Jesus is for you. Uncertainty, confusion and doubt are the tools of satan. They give the evil one great power over us, if we are not firmly resting in the surety that is Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen, for you. When we fall into doubt about God’s love, we also lose our reason for fleeing and resisting the darker tools of evil. The short term thrill of feeding my sinful appetites seems like a sure thing, in the moment. If I am not sure that God is actually on my side, what does it matter if I give in to temptation? Only knowing the love of Jesus can truly help you and me reject the temptations of the devil.
So, certainty about God’s love, poured out for us in Jesus, is critical for our lives, today. And you and I being sure of God’s grace, mercy and power is also critical for our neighbors. When I am tempted to doubt God’s love, your certainty makes you God’s preacher to bring me back to the Truth. For precisely this reason St. Paul exhorts us to have the mind of Christ. And what is good between Christians is also good for those of our neighbors who live without faith in Jesus. The calm certainty of the Christian resting in the love of God is the greatest attraction the Church has for people lost in doubt.
And so, this Holy Week, we take time to hear and meditate upon the sure and certain work of Jesus. And we pray to the Holy Spirit, that He help us live in this certainty, for ourselves, for each other, and for the life of the world, Amen.
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