3/5,12/08 - Midweek Lent - Luke 23:4-12

A COMMON ENEMY, A COMMON SAVIOR

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One” (Psalm 2:1-2). So begins Psalm Two. And nowhere in Scripture are these words about our Savior more clearly fulfilled than in our story today: Jesus is alone, opposed by the crowd, accused by the chief priests and the teachers of the law, mocked by the soldiers, and questioned by Pilate and Herod. These nations raged. These peoples plotted in vain. These kings and rulers joined together against the Anointed One. Their common enemy was Christ! We read from the book of Luke, chapter 23, verses 4-12.
4 Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.” 5 But they insisted, “He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.” 6 On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7 When he learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time. 8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. 9 He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. 11 Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. 12 That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies.
Herod and Pilate were enemies before this happened. They didn’t get along. They didn’t like each other at all. The reason? Because Pontius Pilate was in charge of the land Herod’s brother had once ruled! Herod’s brother had ruled the land of Judea in the past, but because of some problems in the land of Judea, the Roman emperor had kicked Herod’s brother out, and replaced him with his own chosen man. By Jesus’ time Pontius Pilate was the ruler there. A man who was sitting in a position Herod’s family had once held for many. A man who ruled a different area than Herod, but really had a higher rank, so to speak, than Herod ever would. And so they didn’t like each other, they didn’t get along… until now. These enemies had found a common enemy in Christ. And so they joined together against him. Both of them wanted to rid themselves of this Jesus and so they finally saw eye to eye. But even more surprising than this friendship between enemies is that they both found another unthinkable ally as well: the Jewish people!
The Jewish people hated - they hated - the Roman rule. In fact, that’s why Herod’s brother had been kicked out in the first place: because he couldn’t handle all of the revolts and riots and rebellions that the Jewish people had been responsible for in the past. But now, the Jewish people, their high priests, and their teachers of the law, who hated the Romans, were now teaming up with the enemy against one of their own! Jesus became the common enemy of everyone: the Roman governor, the ruler of the area in which he grew up, the leaders of his own people, and even citizens from his home town. Jesus was completely alone. Jesus was hated from every direction. It’s a wonder that Jesus ever went through with it! It’s amazing to me that he came down to this earth to be the Savior of the ones who treated him like an enemy. It’s amazing to me that he came to save us.
Because although we can talk about the enemies of Christ in this story all we want, we’re no better than the Jewish crowds or the chief priests or Pilate or Herod. We may not have verbally called out for his death or accused him of blasphemy or mocked our Lord by placing a purple robe on his shoulders, but we are no more worth saving than those people. Because Christ was once our enemy just like he was theirs. We were actually God’s enemies! And I know you don’t want to believe that. I know you don’t want to think that you were ever God’s enemy. But listen to what Paul plainly says in the book of Romans, “We were God’s enemies” (Rom. 5:10). Those sound like pretty clear words to me. We were his enemies the moment we were conceived because we lived and breathed sin, because we didn’t believe in our Savior, and because we didn’t want to. Sin had so completely corrupted us from the very start that we hated God. He was our common enemy. And even now, even after we have been brought to faith in our Savior, even after we have been shown what Jesus has done for us, a remnant of that sin is still left. It’s obvious because we still sin. We still disobey our God’s commands. We still refuse to do what is right at times. We still doubt his promises when things get tough. We are no better than the nations who rage, the peoples who plot in vain, or the kings and the rulers who join together against the Lord and his Anointed One. In fact, we’re included in those detestable groups. Every time you sin, you rage against the Lord. Every time you decide to do what you want instead of what the Lord wants, you are plotting in vain against him. Every time you succumb to the temptations of this world, you are joining together against your Lord with your sinful nature. You are not worth saving. You are not worth saving. And I know that because I am not worth saving either. We have all disobeyed, disappointed, and disgusted our Lord because of who we are and how we’ve treated him.
That’s why it amazes me that Jesus went through with it. Because if I were God there is no way I would save people like us! I would look at what we’ve done, what we’ve said, and what we think every day, and I would shake my head in disgust. I know I wouldn’t be compassionate. I would say, “That’s what they get. That’s what they deserve. They haven’t done anything, anything to deserve my mercy or change my mind. They even make matters worse the longer they live! I have no desire whatsoever to save them because they rage and plot and gather together against me every day.” I would not have the patience or the heart for people like us.
I’m glad God is more compassionate than I. And he knows that we don’t deserve his compassion. He’s not a naïve God. He sees every rage, he is privy to every plot, he is aware every time we gather together against him with our sinful natures. But he came to this earth anyway. He knew what would happen. He knew what people had done in the past and what people would always do in the future. But he willingly stood before the crowds and the chief priests and the soldiers and Pilate and Herod anyway. He took their abuse, he took their mockery, he took their hate, without a word. And he took it for you. He took all of that for you because he decided to love you. He decided to bear the brunt of your sins so that he could forgive them on the cross. He accepted the role of our common enemy so that he could become our common Savior.
He died to become the common Savior of the world. He died for everyone. He even died for Herod. And Herod not only openly mocked him, Herod not only beheaded Jesus’ forerunner and cousin, John the Baptist, Herod’s father was the one that tried to kill Jesus when he was born! Remember: Jesus and his parents had to escape to Egypt after Herod’s father (Herod the Great) realized that the Wise Men had outwitted him and he ordered all males two years old and younger to be killed. Jesus gave his life up even for that wicked ruler and his son. Jesus died for Pilate too. The man who sentenced him to death. The leader who admitted he could find nothing wrong with Christ, but gave into the pressure of the crowds anyway. Jesus died for the soldiers who scourged him, the crowds who screamed at him, and the chief priests who falsely accused him. He even died for you. He allowed himself to be hung on that cross for the entire world so that he could be our common Savior. And he is. Even though most people don’t know it. He is the common Savior of the world. Murderers, rapists, thieves, druggies, prostitutes, sinners, you, me… we are all included.
What a wonderful love the Lord has shown us. Looking past everything we’ve done to him. Disregarding what we deserve. And giving us everything we shouldn’t have. That’s what our Savior is doing tonight as he stands in front of Pilate and Herod and the Jewish leaders and the Jewish people. He is loving you. He is saving you. He is allowing himself to be treated like their common enemy so that we will no longer be considered enemies of God. And this is exactly why we spend so much time every year on these last days of Jesus’ life. This is our Savior at the depth of his humiliation so that he could bring us to the heights of his glory. This is where our salvation happened. It’s real. And it’s brutal. And it’s beautiful. May the Lord bless our time with him during these last weeks as we shudder at his death on the cross and marvel at his resurrection from the tomb.
Amen.

“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God!” - Rev. 19:1