Outer Rim Territories

Lent V Judica - March 12, 2008 Midweek

Vicar Christopher Gillespie Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost Saginaw, Michigan Lent 5 Midweek (March 12, 2008) Text: Psalm 22:6-8 (based up the CPH 2008 Lenten Series “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy”. I’d say its about 60% original.) But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: “He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him. Let Him deliver him, since He delights in him.” (Psalm 22:6–8) Those who passed by hurled insults at Jesus that Good Friday, shaking their heads and mocking Him: “ ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but He can’t save Himself! He’s supposed to be the King of Israel! Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God, or so He says. Let God rescue Him now if He wants Him, for He said, “I am the Son of God” ’ ” (Matthew 27:39–43). Scorn, pure scorn, outright ridicule of God’s anointed, contempt for the Messiah of the Lord. We sing about it in our hymn: “ever patient and lowly, Thyself to scorn didst offer” (LSB 434). Being scorned, is not just having your feelings hurt. Being scorned is being told that you good for nothing... that you are the lowest of the lowest.. that you are nobody. Our world is full of scorn, contempt, derision, disdain, and mockery. Our world hurls insults at each other. It mocks us, and shakes its head at us, saying "You are nothing!" “I am a worm and not a man,” wrote King David, “scorned by men and despised by the people” (Psalm 22:6). That is the way it went for David for much of his life: hunted by his enemies and rejected by his people because he did not look like who he actually was, a king. They took David for a pipsqueak of a man, a herder of sheep, some backwater boy—not the Lord’s anointed, the rightful king of Israel. Many times David was under attack and his life was in danger. No wonder, then, that in this psalm David called out to the Lord in anguish, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me?” (Psalm 22:1). So what is worse? To be mocked and scorned by those around you? Or to be scorned despised rejected by God? Never fear, our Lord does not reject you! Despite the lament we share with David, Our Lord does not despise you. He does not mock you, throw insults at you, or laugh shamefully at you. Rather our Lord gives you all good gifts, all the things that you need to support you in this body and life. He does this has only a Father can, providing for his children in their time of need. When he does so you can confess "God has taken away my reproach." Our Lord does not scorn in his people; he does not hold his people in contempt. Rather he holds the enemies of his people in contempt. He puts his adversaries to rout, puts them to shame. Who are these enemies? They are the enemies that He has fought since our fall in the Garden of Eden. These enemies dwell within us. They are part of us. We cannot escape them, at least not by our own power. Rather, our Lord sent his son, Jesus Christ to be a scapegoat... a scapegoat on which all the sins of the people are heaped. All of the scorn that we deserve for our sin is placed upon this Lamb. All this suffering and death that we deserve are given to the Lamb. Rather than handing us over to the master of sin, the devil, our Lord gives himself over to sin for us. Not only is Jesus scorned by man, spit upon, insulted, and rejected; Jesus is scorned by his very Father. The same Father who gives us all good gifts is the Father who rejects His one and only begotten son. The fury of God against a scornful world and all its sin was unleashed fully upon His beloved Son, because Christ carried all our sins upon His sinless back that day He died. David’s lament recorded in Psalm 22 was only dress rehearsal for what happened centuries later on the hill called Golgatha, the place of the skull. As it was with David, so it was with Jesus upon His cross. Here the Light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel hung in shame and degradation, nailed on a cross to die a horrific death. Abandoned by most of His friends and scorned by all His enemies, among Jesus’ words from the cross were those of David: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). So low had Jesus stooped in His redeeming love that God His loving Father abandoned Him and turned His back on Him in righteous fury against our sin. Yet this, too, is the measure of His love for sinners like you and me. So deep was His sorrow, so sharp His pain, so bitter His despair that Jesus understood Himself to be subhuman: “I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people” (Psalm 22:6). In these words we catch the sarcasm in the gloating eyes of the temple authorities; we glimpse the triumphant contempt of the Pharisees. We can almost see their poisoned, mocking lips and their conceited, wagging heads: “He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue Him. Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him” (Psalm 22:8). They thought they had the last word that day at Calvary, but they did not. Our Lord makes himself man, but then suffers the full wrath of God, and becomes less than a man - indeed a worm. Our sinful nature in the eyes of God makes us worms. But rather than see us in this way, our Lord sees his own son Jesus as the worm. He makes his own son to be sin for us. The beauty of this scorn of God is that he would despise his own son in order that we might be loved. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to die for us and for his sake forgives us all our sins. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is no ordinary scapegoat. Jesus Christ is perfect, sinless, without shame. While he is rejected by men, and rejected by his father, death has no dominion over him. Sin cannot overcome him. Satan cannot bind him. For he is the son of the living God, the one whom the grave cannot hold. For in Jesus, death has been swallowed up for ever. The mockery and scorn of the people in the eyes of men and in the eyes of God for their sins is gone. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from our faces. He has taken away the scorn of his people upon the earth. And all through his very words spoken on the cross "it is finished." Jesus’ mocking and jeering enemies did not see the whole picture. That humiliating death He died was more than it appeared to be. He truly was the Son of God, though He looked more like a worm than a man. Jesus truly was the head over all things for His Church, though He looked more like a fool than a King. That is the way it remains to this very day. All those who know Jesus by faith confess Him to be both Lord and God, but those who reject Him go on mocking Him, for they do not see Jesus as He really is. He is actually God wrapped in human flesh, but only the eyes of faith can see that. You can call Jesus “Teacher,” and there is little reaction. But call Him “God” and you will be jeered and mocked because the world despises everything the Creator treasures. That is the way it is in this fallen world, and so it will remain until Jesus comes again in glory to bring down the curtain on this created world and usher in the kingdom yet to come. Therefore we remain faithful to this Lord of ours who was mocked and ridiculed. He is our only hope both for time and for eternity. He remains both God and Lord, our Savior and our King, and He has not abandoned us to our own devices though He has entered into heaven’s glory. “Behold, I am with you always,” He promises (Matthew 28:20). He remains our living God, not some dead and distant hero. Jesus is truly with us even now, though we cannot see Him. He is present in that Word and washing and Meal He left His Church to proclaim and administer until He returns to claim us for Himself. All these means are His real presence given for the forgiveness of our sins. They provide genuine release from guilt and shame before the Father’s throne on the basis of what Christ achieved once for all on the cross. Over and over we receive these gifts in this sacred space by the Word that is preached into our ears and the sacraments administered to us. We can have confidence in them that God has not scorned us. We should not take these gifts for granted, for they come with a high price. The very Lamb of God suffered the scorn of men and the wrath of God to deliver these gifts to us in this place. So we keep coming to receive them, then we leave to live our lives made whole and new out there, where we are called to love God in our neighbor. Children, born of God at the font, we know the deliverer has come from Zion. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us the kingdom of his beloved son. Jesus Christ delivered us from the wrath to come. He has saved us from our pursuers -- sin, death, and the devil and has delivered us. And so we can pray the Lord's prayer: “lead is not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” For in the prayer we confess: the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and delivered us safely into his heavenly kingdom. So let the world mock and jeer the Lord who bought us with His blood. Let them ridicule and reject those who are called by His name and who follow in His steps. We know the glorious final chapter of this world’s sad story. We know the One in whom we have believed, and we are persuaded that He is able to keep that which we have committed unto Him until the day He comes in glory. Amen.