AU United Methodist Community

Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
April 4, 2004
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Luke 23:32-43

Is. 50:4-9a ¶ The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens — wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
¶ The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty?

Luke 23:32-43 ¶ Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
¶ One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

I. INTRODUCTION

When I was in law school I took a class called “Trial Advocacy.” It’s a favorite of third year law students because it’s a relatively light work load and because it’s a lot of fun. Primarily because you get to play lawyer and practice introducing things into evidence, examining and cross-examining witnesses, making opening and closing arguments, and so on. It’s a lot of fun, and for the final exam, you conduct a trial. My partner and I were the prosecutors in a murder trial. The defendants, the jurors, and the witnesses are all law students or other friends that you’ve recruited to play the various roles.

In our mock trial, the defendant–a police officer–was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend. The defense argued it was an accident that the gun had gone off accidentally. I was cross-examining a defense witness and fellow police officer. “Isn’t it true,” I asked, “that the defendant was familiar with the use of firearms?” “Yes,” he replied. “In fact,” I added with all the smugness a prosecutor is supposed to have, “isn’t it true that while serving in the army the defendant was a certified weapons expert?” It was a great question, designed to erase any doubt that the defendant could have made a mistake with his firearm. But the answer I got surprised me. “I wouldn’t know that,” he said. “Isn’t it in his personnel file?” I asked, clarifying the point. “I wouldn’t have any way of knowing that,” the witness answered. I was incredulous. “Sir,” I said, doing my best Law & Order type disdain, “Aren’t you the personnel officer in your police department?” He said nothing, but then glanced at the character information sheet he had in his lap. After a moment he looked up and said, “Why, yes I am.”

It got a laugh because the poor kid hadn’t studied his part. But there was a look of embarrassment on his face when he was confronted with the fact that he didn’t know who he was supposed to be. My question “Aren’t you the personnel officer?” jarred him back into an understanding of who he was supposed to be and we moved on with our mock trial.

II. THE TEXT

I have wondered whether the question asked of Jesus by the criminal on the cross was meant to do the same thing. “Are you not the messiah?” asks the mocking criminal. “Save yourself and us!”

The criminal is one of three groups who mock Jesus: the rulers, the soldiers, and then his fellow convict. The rulers say “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers offer him sour wine, and say, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Here this criminal is, crucified next to one called the ‘Messiah of God’ and the ‘King of the Jews’. This criminal is likely thinking to himself, ‘Has he forgotten who he is supposed to be?’ and shouts out “Are you not the messiah? Save yourself and us!”

III. THE MESSIAH

I suppose this criminal could be forgiven for thinking that. For his understanding of the Messiah would not have made it easy for him to accept that the Messiah was on the cross next to him. In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes, “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”. Foolishness to Gentiles, that is, Greeks, who did not believe in bodily resurrection and thought the whole idea silly, and a stumbling block to Jews because the messiah was supposed to be many things: crucified wasn’t one of them. “Messiah Crucified” was an oxymoron.

The word “Christ” comes from the Greek christos, which is itself a translation of the Hebrew mashiach which we know as “Messiah” and which means “the anointed one.”
Anointing was a sign of kingship in the ancient world. More recent kings are crowned, in the ancient world they were anointed. The anointing was a sign of office, and it was also a sign of divine approval. Priests and prophets were anointed as well. King David was anointed to be king over Israel and it is his glorious reign that became synonymous with the idealized kingdom later in Jewish history.

Later the idea of deliverance was associated with the anointed one, such as in the book of Isaiah, where the Persian king Cyrus is referred to as the Lord’s ‘anointed’ because he would be the one to allow the Jews to return from Exile to the land of Israel. (As a side note, Cyrus’ name in Hebrew is “Koresh”–when Vernon Wayne Howell rose to become the head of the Branch Davidians in Texas, he changed his name to “David Koresh”–thereby adopting two messianic names and signifying to anyone who was paying attention that he was planning to be a messianic deliverer, of a kind).

By Jesus’ day, the idea of an anointed deliverer had taken on spiritual overtones in addition to the political ones. The Messiah would usher in the kingdom of God, which would presage the Resurrection of the Dead, the conquering of evil and injustice, and the institution of a new order of Creation.

IV. FRUSTRATED EXPECTATIONS

But in either event, whether political or cosmic, the Messiah was not supposed to be arrested, scourged, beaten, and crucified. The criminal on the cross mocks Jesus almost as one who has lost his character information sheet, who has forgotten who he’s supposed to be. ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? You aren’t supposed to be on this cross. You’re supposed to be ushering in the kingdom, or at least kicking the Romans out–and instead, they’ve got you on one of their crosses.’

The ‘stumbling block’ St. Paul talks about isn’t just a stumbling block for Jews who weren’t followers of Jesus, it was for those who were followers, too. The Gospels report that the Twelve had all fled and were nowhere to be found after Jesus’ arrest. What were they doing? Were they wondering if they had backed the wrong horse? If they had thrown in their lot with the wrong man? Surely, the story wasn’t supposed to end this way.

A. Christian Claims

We can certainly forgive them for thinking that way, can’t we? There are times certainly when we have to think that maybe, just maybe, we’re kidding ourselves. Maybe we backed the wrong guy after all and we’ve just been telling his story because we want so bad for it to have been true that he was the Messiah. We don’t want him to be another dead Jew, murdered at the hands of the Romans. Could it be that Christianity has engaged in the most systematic form of wishful thinking the world has ever known?

B. The Jewish Objection

It could certainly look that way to others. Martin Buber, a Jewish theologian, who had a profound respect for Jesus, made the point about Jewish disbelief clearly: “We know more deeply, more truly, that world history has not been turned upside down to its very foundations–that the world is not yet redeemed. We sense its unredeemedness.” [cited in J. Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, p. 28]. Jews, Buber is saying, have an innate sense of what redemption the world is waiting for. He notes–correctly, I might add–that that redemption of the world has not taken place.

So what is it that we Christians are saying when we continue to refer to Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God? Seriously, was this the king we were waiting for?

V. THE KING OF THE JEWS

This was not the king we were waiting for. But what kind of king did we get? A king rejected by the religious leadership, the political leadership, and the people (including his disciples), and the criminal world. So much for a constituency.

A king who prays for forgiveness for his persecutors, who says from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” A king who with his last breath extends an offer of mercy and forgiveness to one who asks for it, saying “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

What kind of messiah is this? What kind of king behaves this way? This isn’t the same guy we greeted with palms and “Hosannas”, is it?

A. Easter

We are today entering into Holy Week, the last stretch in our long Lenten journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter. A journey toward the Empty Tomb and the miracle of the Resurrection. And yet we have this detour that takes us through Calvary, through betrayal, mocking, scourging, and the Cross. If we look at the cross and the cross alone, we will be forever asking “Are not you the messiah?”

But we know that Easter is around the corner. We know that the grave cannot contain Jesus. Jesus is vindicated by the resurrection, such that we can see him saying along with the prophet Isaiah:
The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near…

God has inverted our world by the power of Resurrection. Not finally, and not fully–Buber’s objection is still valid. But we who are Christians have been given a sneak preview, as it were. We have seen the vindication of the faith of Christ and in his message–and in our proclamation.

VI. CONCLUSION: THE KINGDOM

And it requires that we rethink our understandings of king and kingdom. We might think that we too have the character sheet that Jesus seems to have forgotten, we know the part he’s supposed to be playing. What Easter tells us is that, actually, it is we who have the wrong information. We are the ones who have forgotten who we are: made in the image of God.

In the image of a God who sends his only Son into our midst, healing, preaching, and teaching. Who comes to us humble, riding on a donkey, to our shouts of “Hosanna!” one day, and our shouts of “Crucify him!” another. Who prays for our forgiveness from the cross, and who hears our mocking words: “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” and who responds “I am” and who saves us, in spite of ourselves.