“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
A LAMB GOES UNCOMPLAINING FORTH,
THE GUILT OF ALL MEN BEARING
Sermon Text: St. John 19:15-18. But they cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!” Then he delivered Him to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center.
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. You carried Your cross and upon it the burden of our sin and sorrow: We humbly ask You, enable us by Your Holy Spirit to comfort ourselves with Your work to make full satisfaction for our sins. Help us daily to see that all our burden was carried by You. By Your Spirit, let us take upon ourselves Your easy yoke and light burden and learn from You, and find rest for our souls. Sanctify us by the truth; Your Word is truth. Amen.
Dear people loved by God in Christ, who died for you: Grace and peace comes to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
There’s a scene in the The Fellowship of the Ring, which first was a book by J.R.R. Tolkien and then a movie, that mirrors this scene before us in Jesus’ Passion. It’s when there is a council of the scattered bands of those who have been resisting the evil lord for years. Their talk degenerates into old prejudices and grudges; their voices rise, competing to be heard over each other. At the height of the chaos, Frodo the hobbit steps up unnoticed; he says: “I will take the ring, though I do not know the way.”
For those who have read the books, this is an emotional moment because we know what he’ll face on that way, that road. He becomes the target of all the forces of evil, he’ll receive an incurable wound, his burden will weigh him down so low he can’t remember his home, he’ll be over-whelmed by darkness and so weakened that he can’t go on, a friend must carry him in order to carry the burden a short way. In the end he gains the victory, but at great cost. That’s the way that lies before him.
Whether or not this is intentional by the author Tolkien, it powerfully pictures and explains the truth behind what we hear tonight in the Passion.
The contest of wills between Pontius Pilate and the Jews had grown to a fever pitch. He tried every scheme to get Jesus released; the Jews stirred up a mob. Pilate brought out an unsavory criminal, dripping with venom and insolence, defiant of God, for him to be punished and Jesus set free; but the Jews demanded he set Barabbas free, and not Jesus. They said, “Crucify Him!” Pilate tried again to release Jesus; they yelled, “Crucify Him!” Pilate tried to shout over them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests, quite out of their minds, yelled: “We have no king but Caesar.” All these angry voices, competing in volume, producing a chaos of ugliness.
Unnoticed by everyone – because it was happening from eternity in God’s secret council – was that God so arranged things that Pilate “delivered Him to be crucified.” Jesus had said: “The Son of Man goes just as it is written of Him” (Mt 26:24). This was God’s plan. Pilate and the Jews were just the human instruments of God’s eternal decree being carried out.
As Pilate “delivered Him to be crucified,” this is Jesus stepping for-ward – at the height of the chaos – saying: “I will take it, though I do not know the way,” for truly, walking the valley of the shadow of death was unknown to Him. What did He step forward to take? The burden of everyone’s sin.
It’s just one verse in John’s gospel – “So they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called Golgotha” – but there’s so much there. You can add details from other gospels, Simon of Cyrene, the women of Jerusalem, other things too, but that’s just on the surface. What was happening on the outside wasn’t the real action.
The real action was Jesus’ actual burden. It wasn’t made of wood. It was made of your sin. Your sins are the debts you owe to God: the things you should have done but didn’t do, the things you shouldn’t have done but still did. You can’t erase or make up for them. Your sins are a burden on their own. You know your sins committed in thought, word, and deed. You carry them with you. Carrying them around makes everything harder.
Everything is an effort because of the burden you carry around. You struggle to have enjoyment, to be content, to show love, to carry out your duties at home, at work, and in the world with a free heart, because you carry a burden into all these interactions. Sometimes you feel life is a burden, or that your duties are. Sometimes you feel it’s too much, you can’t handle it, you have too much on your shoulders, you never do it well enough, there’s always more, you’re never done. Oh for a burden-less life!
So Jesus steps forward and says, “I will take it.” He takes it from you. He lifts it off of your shoulders, all your burden of sin, all the weight of it.
He willingly took this burden. This great hymn that we sang pictures this as a conversation in the secret council of the Holy Trinity, a tender discourse between the Father and the Son. “Go forth, My Son,” the Father saith, “And free men from the fear of death, from guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, but by Thy Passion men shall share the fruit of Thy salvation.”Then comes Christ’s response to His Father: “ ‘Yea, Father, yea, most willingly I’ll bear what Thou commandest; My will conforms to Thy decree, I do what Thou demandest.” Did you catch that? “Most willingly I do it.”
He willingly became a Burden, the Burden of the cross. This we can’t do. It weighed Him down, so low He could hardly even remember His home in glory with the Father where He was loved and not forsaken. He received His own incurable wound. He is seen in heaven as the wounded Lamb, and those dear tokens of His Passion – His wounds – still His body bears.
Bearing this burden weakened Him so that they must find a friend for Him in Simon of Cyrene who carried the wood of the cross a short way. That happened on the road from Pilate’s judgment hall to Golgotha. Simon carried none of the burden of sin, however. Only Jesus could carry that. Jesus was bearing the true burden of all the sin of the whole world.
Then Jesus was oppressed by the worst darkness, forsaken by God the Father, while He was on the cross. There couldn’t be a more oppressive, heavier burden! He did it for you, so that there will be no burden, nothing overwhelming or oppressive, that lasts, and so that anything that is like that for you will become light because of Him. He did the striving and wrestling for you, all of it! So stop striving and struggling! That is the mission of other religions, to strive and wrestle and work your way into God’s good graces. Jesus has done all the work for you. He has taken your burden and borne it, He has borne it all, for you – all the way.
You can think of it this way: He has unburdened you. But we take those burdens back from Him, and make them ours again. Silly people we are, thinking we must or even can bear it. So what does He do? He brings the unburdening into the present. In the absolution – which you might call “the unburdening” – when God’s forgiveness is spoken to you, what’s happening? Jesus has come to you and unburdens you. He says: “I already bore that.” He unburdens you, for you to live unburdened. Amen!