Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-12; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33
As most of you know, I am a bit different. My family will whole-heartedly agree with that statement.
We have been known to do odd things for entertainment. Once, while living in Atlanta, we drove to Birmingham, AL for a hamburger. We have been known to drive to Cool Springs Park on Route 50 just to see if the cow is still on the roof. And last winter, we made the decision to go tubing with the youth group five minutes before we left. I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s who we are. We don’t often make sense. But we have fun and learn a lot.
And so, when I look at scripture, I often look for the odd parts of the scripture – the parts that don’t make sense if you take just a moment. Like, for example, the transition in our Gospel reading today.
The time of the reading is early in the last week before the Crucifixion. Jesus has entered into town to a joyful celebration and begins to head to the Temple. The town is filled with Jews who are in town for the week-long Passover festival, one of the most important holidays of the Jewish calendar.
Suddenly, some Greeks who were in town to worship start talking to Phillip. Now, we have to understand that this was highly unusual. There weren’t many Greeks who worshipped at the Jewish temple – Greeks were well known to have their own gods and goddesses. It would be like one of you stopping at the 7/11 on the way to church, and a busload of Chinese tourists asking you if they can come to your church and worship with you – and it turns out that they are all Christians! How unusual would that be here in central West Virginia?
Well, Phillip is a good Greek name, so Phillip probably understood Greek, and so he brings the tourists to Andrew, and the two of them decide together to bring these Greeks to Jesus. So far, so good. But then Jesus does one of those things which is completely in character, but is very odd for anyone else.
You know, most people would meet with the Greeks and you’d expect to see some back and forth between Jesus and the Greeks. But that doesn’t happen in this case. Instead, Jesus suddenly goes into a riff about His upcoming death!
23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.32 And I, when I am lifted up[g] from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
But why did Jesus have to die?
If you think about it, if Jesus chose to remain, He could still be sitting in Jerusalem, ruling the world with a division of 50,000 angels as well as His divine powers. Why did Jesus have to die and go through the whole death and Resurrection thing?
Jesus’ words here help us to understand why He didn’t take the easy way out and blast His opponents, setting Himself up as undisputed ruler of the world in that day and time.
24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
The first point is that the mere presence of Jesus alive was now a barrier to the spreading of His Words. Let me explain what I mean.
When Saundra and I attended Cornerstone Bible Church in Lilburn, GA, the senior teaching pastor was Dr Doug McIntosh. Doug was – and is – a great teacher. Doug’s sermons have depth and wisdom. They are the sort of sermons that you can listen to week-after-week and always learn something new and transformative in your life. You grew in Christ and wanted to serve the Lord. And so the church prospered, and many missionaries and ministers came from that church. But some people never left the church. They even drove an hour to come back to the church after they moved because of Dr Doug.
Now, if a mere man can be so attractive and addictive in his teaching – I’d like you to imagine walking with Jesus Christ. If Jesus had not left, his disciples would be clustered around Him today, hanging on His every word. There would not be Christian communities in every part of the world. Instead, there would be just one Christian community – within earshot of Jesus Himself.
You see, when Jesus died, just like a kernel of wheat planted, there grew up a plant with many seeds known as disciples. Then many of those disciples also planted communities where they traveled and new groups of disciples sprung up. Christianity spread faster than dandelions across the globe. But it would not have spread if Jesus had not died.
Jesus said: 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Was He talking to us or to Himself? It doesn’t matter, for He also said, “26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”
If we fall in love with this life, it is a sure ticket to death, for it we fall in love with this life, we are not in love with God, but with a created thing. We are to love the Creator, not the created things. However, if we deeply desire the Creator, then we will grow to hate the created things because they are nothing when compared to the beauty of the Creator. Only the perfection, the intricacy, the delicate details of the Creator will, in the long run satisfy us. Eventually, if we desire the Creator, we will be sick of the things of this world as an eight-year-old who has worked his first day in a candy shop with permission to sample anything in the shop.
My wife is a great cook, and has learned the places on the Internet to find recipes and techniques which allow her to make almost anything. It really has spoiled me, for she adapts the recipes to our family’s tastes, and so it means that restaurant food doesn’t taste nearly as good as it once did when I was a single engineer living in Johnson City, TN.
As we study God and see the things God does, the beauty of God and God’s actions make even God’s creations on this earth look poorly done as the effects of the Fall work on everything. Yes, I can see how loving God will lead to hating the world.
After asking God to glorify His Name – and God responding, Jesus continues:
31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.
It appears that Jesus’ death was directly involved in driving out “the prince of this world, “ who we know by the name of Satan. From the time of Adam, Satan has ruled the earth. From the time of Eve, people have listened and believed Satan’s lies. From the time of the Fall, God has allowed Satan to rule the world as God planned God’s conquest.
God, at any time, could have directly assaulted the earth with an angel army and directly defeated Satan. But, as we know, war means suffering and death. Those are the food of Satan, they are the meat and bread that he eats, those are the very things that Satan loves.
When we attack our enemies through direct action, we have bought into certain lies that Satan has spread.
First, we believe that we can obtain a victory. Yet anyone who has killed another person, or injured them, even by accident, knows the damage that happens to your soul. Those men who came back from the first World War were damaged by the constant fear of death as the shells exploded over their trenches night-after-night. But those who came back from more recent wars were damaged as much or more by their visions of killing men and women, sometimes children, who were shooting at them. They were placed in a position of “kill or be killed” and had to make a decision. But it was a no win decision, and Satan knew that before he set up the situation. He manipulated those men and women into a situation where they would be damaged, no matter what they did. And now, we pick up the pieces by helping men and women recognize that God will forgive them, for they had no good choice.
The same happens to those who injure others in accidents – or even injure animals. About ten years ago, we had a cute little dog named Betty who liked to chase mice and voles in the fields around our home. Unfortunately, Betty chase a vole out into the highway and a woman hit Betty with her car. The woman was completely devastated, for she had terrible difficulty forgiving herself.
So God would not assault the earth through direct action and bring the planet and the people to loyalty through war, for that would harm his loyal followers as well as those God’s army defeated. Besides, God gave us free will and considers that free will to be more important for us than all the damage caused by wars and famines and torture throughout all the ages. And so, God decided upon a much more subtle plan.
God decided first to teach us what was right and what was wrong. God gave Moses the Law, a list of the Ten Commandments and over 600 detailed commands about what was right – and what was wrong. Part of it was to remind us of God’s character and power. Part of it was to show us how to live with each other. And over the centuries some people did a pretty good job of following the Law and others did a pretty poor job of following the Law. But the Law was only given to the descendents of Jacob – the House of Israel.
The Law led us to know what was right – and what was wrong. And we found that none of us could follow the law perfectly. In fact, by the time Jesus arrived, we’d gotten pretty good at living to the letter of the Law, mainly by re-interpreting the Law to mean whatever was convenient for us. Just like anyone, a ruler should not steal? Call it a tax, then. Someone brings his best lamb for sacrifice and you want to make some money as a priest? Insist that the lamb is not good enough and require him to buy a different lamb from your brother-in-law. Like to spend time with the ladies? Insist that adultery is only something that happens when a married woman spends time with a married man – if a married man spends time with an unmarried woman, say it isn’t adultery. These things happened!
So God then sent Jesus to planet earth, to teach a better way, to move people beyond the letter of the Law into the basic concepts that we are to love God and love each other, and do those things which accomplish those intents. And while He was telling us this, Jesus showed us this also by spending the bulk of His ministry with the people who were not loved, the people who were different, the people who were too poor to pay for friendship.
And then…gently at first, and then louder and louder… Jesus claimed to be God.
And people were forced to make a decision. Was Jesus God or not?
Many decided that He could not be God and stopped following Jesus from that point. The crowds were still large, but they weren’t continually growing. Many people could not grasp the idea that God was walking with them. But the core disciples – and in particular, about a 120 other men and women – decided to stick with Him. They believed.
But then, Jesus announced He had to die.
It had been predicted in the scriptures, it was scattered all through the Psalms and Isaiah and Jeremiah. Psalm 53 was particularly clear about it – join us on Good Friday and we’ll read it.
Yes, it was all over scripture that the Messiah, the Savior, the Christ had to die. But why?
In the Law, there were many sacrifices established as penalties for breaking the Law. For this crime against God’s Law, you sacrificed a pair of doves. For that crime against God’s Law, you sacrificed a quart of flour. For another crime, you sacrificed a sheep or a goat, and for another crime, you sacrificed a perfect young bull. In a time of farmers and herders, when cash money was rare and not found in the household of the average person, these sacrifices of valuable food and livestock were truly sacrifices that meant something.
And then, once a year, the high priest of Israel on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement at the harvest festival – on that day the high priest of Israel would take the best bull that the priests could find, the most valuable creature in the land, and the high priest would kill the bull and catch his blood in a special basin. Then, fully purified, his prayers said – and his last will and testament written – the high priest would walk into the Holy Sanctuary where the other priests would tie a rope around his leg, and then the high priest would walk into the innermost Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant sat in its gleaning splendor holding the tablets upon which was the Law itself, the tablets that Moses brought back from the mountain, the rod of Aaron, some manna, and there on the top of the Ark was the Mercy Seat where the presence of God was, and there on that special spot, the high priest, trembling in fear lest he had done anything wrong, the high priest would pour the precious blood of that precious bull as an offering to God so that God would forgive all the other crimes that the people of Israel had committed against God over the last year and had not sacrificed for. The bull covered everything that was left. It was a propitiation, a special sacrifice to please God.
And then, if he was still alive, the high priest left the Holy of Holies, and did not return for another year. The rope around his leg, you see, was in case he made a mistake and was stricken dead by God. But if he left safely, all was right between the people of Israel, and God.
And this was the situation when Jesus came to town that week, and the Greeks came to Phillip and then to Andrew.
But Jesus and God understood two additional things.
First, they understood that in about 40 years, the Temple would be destroyed by the Romans. The sacrifices would stop, the Atonement could not be made, the bull could not pay for the sins of the people of Israel thereafter. Something new had to be arranged.
Second, they understood that there were many people in the world who were not of the House of Israel. There were many people who were not Jews in the world, and the Law had been given just to the Jews. How should all the non-Jewish people of the world be right with God? How should people like the Greeks, like you and like me pay for our sins. If we could not sacrifice at the Temple, what possible way could we get right with God?
And so, long before time existed, it was decided that there should be a Christ that walked upon the earth, and it was decided that that Christ should suffer and die, and it was decided that the Christ – who was the Word of God and was God – should replace the bull as the grand atoning sacrifice of all time.
You see, the value of the Son of God is far more than the value of all the animals upon the earth, far more than the value of all the jewels and gold and silver in the earth, and even more than the value of the earth itself. And thus, the sacrifice of the Son of God was the only thing valuable enough to pay for all the crimes against God that all the people of the world have committed or will commit. This is what we mean by “Jesus paid the price”.
Imagine, if you will, that one day you discover that the Highway patrol has been working with the NSA, and has satellite data that shows all the times you’ve traveled over the speed limit, and sends you a bill which itemizes each time you passed the speed limit, going back to the day you got your driver’s license and adding penalty and interest. How many of us could pay the bill?
Furthermore, imagine that hidden cameras and hidden microphones have tracked every single time you muttered under your breath a threat such as “I’m going to kill that child!” or said something like, “I wish I had that car”, and you received in the mail a sentence for threatening others, for contemplating theft, and for any other crime you’ve merely thought about committing, no matter how small or petty, or how jokingly you meant the comment, even the time when you were angry at your bully neighbor when you were 5 years old and told your mother, “I want him to die”. How many years would you need to spend in prison?
Since God is the perfect policeman, and has all the evidence, there is no dancing around – God knows all about you. You are in big trouble, and you cannot pay the bill, you cannot do the time for all the crime you’ve committed in your mind.
Jesus had to pay the bill for you, Jesus had to do the time, and Jesus had to pay for your mental murders – and mine, too.
But God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit love you, so Jesus chose to die. And when He died upon that cross, the penalties for all the crimes against God and others were paid for, once and for all. That bill for all those speeding tickets? Paid in full. That list of back-to-back sentences without parole? Paroled and expunged from you record. Everything you’ve been accused of? Charges dropped. Debt paid. All is forgiven. Remember our first reading from Jeremiah? “Declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
And all you have to do is say and believe, “Thank you, Jesus! I believe that You were capable of paying the price.”
That is why Jesus had to die. A sacrifice was needed and we were each bankrupt, so Jesus stepped in and paid our fines.
Finally, though, let’s talk about what set Him off – the arrival of the Greeks. I suppose the best way to illustrate this is to go back to that busload of Chinese Christian tourists. Remember them? When you met them at the 7/11 this morning, they didn’t just ask to be taken to your church – they said they were looking for Quiet Dell Church because they had heard of it and wanted to learn how we did church that was so much better than the other churches. You’d be thinking – our fame has spread even to China? Well, maybe someday….
When those Greeks arrived, they were notable because they were not Jews. Everyone else who came to speak with Jesus was a local – a Pharisee, a temple priest, the local people, even the Roman guards. But now, people from out-of-town – even out of the country – were asking to talk to Jesus.
Jesus knew, you see, that His mission wasn’t just to the Jews. Although He personally was to speak, as He said, “to the lost sheep of Israel”, His disciples were to carry His Words and connect Him to the rest of the world. So Jesus understood that the time had come at last for Him to be lifted up just like that bronze snake that Moses made in the wilderness so all could be healed, that the time had come for the Son of God to suffer and die, the time had come for the prophecies to be fulfilled as Jesus became high “priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” (Melchizedek was the high priest of God in Salem - the town that later became Jerusalem - at the time of Abraham, far before Moses brought down the Law and the Levitical and Aaronic priesthood was established. See Genesis 14.)
Jesus then turned His face toward the cross. Not willingly – but obediently. For there was no other way.
On that Good Friday outside of Jerusalem, Jesus truly became the Christ, the Savior, the Messiah, the High Priest forever of God, and the ultimate atoning sacrifice as the Son of God was killed like a sacrificial lamb for the sins which we have each committed. It was the only way for God to bring us back to God, for in any other way, God’s wonderful integrity, God’s wonderful goodness, God’s perfect holiness would have been violated. And so, like a lamb to the slaughter, Jesus went.
And when His life-giving blood left Him, Death died. Now, we just wait around for everyone to get the news. The game is won – the ball is held, the clock is running out. Jesus won, for He said that those who believe in Him will have eternal life, and we know that this is true because before the weekend was over, Jesus – the One who had been sacrificed – was walking around, strolling several miles, eating fish, talking and teaching again to His friends, and His body was alive again.
Death was dead – a mere annoyance to those who believe, less of a problem than a kidney stone, a tale to frighten naughty children, but nothing for mature, believing adults to be worried about. “O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?”
Today, we give thanks to Jesus. Today, we give thanks to God. Today, we come to the altar and say, “Thanks be to God for all He has done for me”. Feel free to come forward and kneel or stand at the altar rail to tell God what His Son has done for you. Show your gratitude. Perhaps you need to ask something of God – come forward and ask it. Perhaps you have a friend or relative who needs to hear about God’s Son. Come forward and pray for your friend or neighbor. Come to the altar, look upon the Son of God, and be healed.
The first point is that the mere presence of Jesus alive was now a barrier to the spreading of His Words. Let me explain what I mean.
When Saundra and I attended Cornerstone Bible Church in Lilburn, GA, the senior teaching pastor was Dr Doug McIntosh. Doug was – and is – a great teacher. Doug’s sermons have depth and wisdom. They are the sort of sermons that you can listen to week-after-week and always learn something new and transformative in your life. You grew in Christ and wanted to serve the Lord. And so the church prospered, and many missionaries and ministers came from that church. But some people never left the church. They even drove an hour to come back to the church after they moved because of Dr Doug.
Now, if a mere man can be so attractive and addictive in his teaching – I’d like you to imagine walking with Jesus Christ. If Jesus had not left, his disciples would be clustered around Him today, hanging on His every word. There would not be Christian communities in every part of the world. Instead, there would be just one Christian community – within earshot of Jesus Himself.
You see, when Jesus died, just like a kernel of wheat planted, there grew up a plant with many seeds known as disciples. Then many of those disciples also planted communities where they traveled and new groups of disciples sprung up. Christianity spread faster than dandelions across the globe. But it would not have spread if Jesus had not died.
Jesus said: 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Was He talking to us or to Himself? It doesn’t matter, for He also said, “26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”
If we fall in love with this life, it is a sure ticket to death, for it we fall in love with this life, we are not in love with God, but with a created thing. We are to love the Creator, not the created things. However, if we deeply desire the Creator, then we will grow to hate the created things because they are nothing when compared to the beauty of the Creator. Only the perfection, the intricacy, the delicate details of the Creator will, in the long run satisfy us. Eventually, if we desire the Creator, we will be sick of the things of this world as an eight-year-old who has worked his first day in a candy shop with permission to sample anything in the shop.
My wife is a great cook, and has learned the places on the Internet to find recipes and techniques which allow her to make almost anything. It really has spoiled me, for she adapts the recipes to our family’s tastes, and so it means that restaurant food doesn’t taste nearly as good as it once did when I was a single engineer living in Johnson City, TN.
As we study God and see the things God does, the beauty of God and God’s actions make even God’s creations on this earth look poorly done as the effects of the Fall work on everything. Yes, I can see how loving God will lead to hating the world.
After asking God to glorify His Name – and God responding, Jesus continues:
31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.
It appears that Jesus’ death was directly involved in driving out “the prince of this world, “ who we know by the name of Satan. From the time of Adam, Satan has ruled the earth. From the time of Eve, people have listened and believed Satan’s lies. From the time of the Fall, God has allowed Satan to rule the world as God planned God’s conquest.
God, at any time, could have directly assaulted the earth with an angel army and directly defeated Satan. But, as we know, war means suffering and death. Those are the food of Satan, they are the meat and bread that he eats, those are the very things that Satan loves.
When we attack our enemies through direct action, we have bought into certain lies that Satan has spread.
First, we believe that we can obtain a victory. Yet anyone who has killed another person, or injured them, even by accident, knows the damage that happens to your soul. Those men who came back from the first World War were damaged by the constant fear of death as the shells exploded over their trenches night-after-night. But those who came back from more recent wars were damaged as much or more by their visions of killing men and women, sometimes children, who were shooting at them. They were placed in a position of “kill or be killed” and had to make a decision. But it was a no win decision, and Satan knew that before he set up the situation. He manipulated those men and women into a situation where they would be damaged, no matter what they did. And now, we pick up the pieces by helping men and women recognize that God will forgive them, for they had no good choice.
The same happens to those who injure others in accidents – or even injure animals. About ten years ago, we had a cute little dog named Betty who liked to chase mice and voles in the fields around our home. Unfortunately, Betty chase a vole out into the highway and a woman hit Betty with her car. The woman was completely devastated, for she had terrible difficulty forgiving herself.
So God would not assault the earth through direct action and bring the planet and the people to loyalty through war, for that would harm his loyal followers as well as those God’s army defeated. Besides, God gave us free will and considers that free will to be more important for us than all the damage caused by wars and famines and torture throughout all the ages. And so, God decided upon a much more subtle plan.
God decided first to teach us what was right and what was wrong. God gave Moses the Law, a list of the Ten Commandments and over 600 detailed commands about what was right – and what was wrong. Part of it was to remind us of God’s character and power. Part of it was to show us how to live with each other. And over the centuries some people did a pretty good job of following the Law and others did a pretty poor job of following the Law. But the Law was only given to the descendents of Jacob – the House of Israel.
The Law led us to know what was right – and what was wrong. And we found that none of us could follow the law perfectly. In fact, by the time Jesus arrived, we’d gotten pretty good at living to the letter of the Law, mainly by re-interpreting the Law to mean whatever was convenient for us. Just like anyone, a ruler should not steal? Call it a tax, then. Someone brings his best lamb for sacrifice and you want to make some money as a priest? Insist that the lamb is not good enough and require him to buy a different lamb from your brother-in-law. Like to spend time with the ladies? Insist that adultery is only something that happens when a married woman spends time with a married man – if a married man spends time with an unmarried woman, say it isn’t adultery. These things happened!
So God then sent Jesus to planet earth, to teach a better way, to move people beyond the letter of the Law into the basic concepts that we are to love God and love each other, and do those things which accomplish those intents. And while He was telling us this, Jesus showed us this also by spending the bulk of His ministry with the people who were not loved, the people who were different, the people who were too poor to pay for friendship.
And then…gently at first, and then louder and louder… Jesus claimed to be God.
And people were forced to make a decision. Was Jesus God or not?
Many decided that He could not be God and stopped following Jesus from that point. The crowds were still large, but they weren’t continually growing. Many people could not grasp the idea that God was walking with them. But the core disciples – and in particular, about a 120 other men and women – decided to stick with Him. They believed.
But then, Jesus announced He had to die.
It had been predicted in the scriptures, it was scattered all through the Psalms and Isaiah and Jeremiah. Psalm 53 was particularly clear about it – join us on Good Friday and we’ll read it.
Yes, it was all over scripture that the Messiah, the Savior, the Christ had to die. But why?
In the Law, there were many sacrifices established as penalties for breaking the Law. For this crime against God’s Law, you sacrificed a pair of doves. For that crime against God’s Law, you sacrificed a quart of flour. For another crime, you sacrificed a sheep or a goat, and for another crime, you sacrificed a perfect young bull. In a time of farmers and herders, when cash money was rare and not found in the household of the average person, these sacrifices of valuable food and livestock were truly sacrifices that meant something.
And then, once a year, the high priest of Israel on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement at the harvest festival – on that day the high priest of Israel would take the best bull that the priests could find, the most valuable creature in the land, and the high priest would kill the bull and catch his blood in a special basin. Then, fully purified, his prayers said – and his last will and testament written – the high priest would walk into the Holy Sanctuary where the other priests would tie a rope around his leg, and then the high priest would walk into the innermost Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant sat in its gleaning splendor holding the tablets upon which was the Law itself, the tablets that Moses brought back from the mountain, the rod of Aaron, some manna, and there on the top of the Ark was the Mercy Seat where the presence of God was, and there on that special spot, the high priest, trembling in fear lest he had done anything wrong, the high priest would pour the precious blood of that precious bull as an offering to God so that God would forgive all the other crimes that the people of Israel had committed against God over the last year and had not sacrificed for. The bull covered everything that was left. It was a propitiation, a special sacrifice to please God.
And then, if he was still alive, the high priest left the Holy of Holies, and did not return for another year. The rope around his leg, you see, was in case he made a mistake and was stricken dead by God. But if he left safely, all was right between the people of Israel, and God.
And this was the situation when Jesus came to town that week, and the Greeks came to Phillip and then to Andrew.
But Jesus and God understood two additional things.
First, they understood that in about 40 years, the Temple would be destroyed by the Romans. The sacrifices would stop, the Atonement could not be made, the bull could not pay for the sins of the people of Israel thereafter. Something new had to be arranged.
Second, they understood that there were many people in the world who were not of the House of Israel. There were many people who were not Jews in the world, and the Law had been given just to the Jews. How should all the non-Jewish people of the world be right with God? How should people like the Greeks, like you and like me pay for our sins. If we could not sacrifice at the Temple, what possible way could we get right with God?
And so, long before time existed, it was decided that there should be a Christ that walked upon the earth, and it was decided that that Christ should suffer and die, and it was decided that the Christ – who was the Word of God and was God – should replace the bull as the grand atoning sacrifice of all time.
You see, the value of the Son of God is far more than the value of all the animals upon the earth, far more than the value of all the jewels and gold and silver in the earth, and even more than the value of the earth itself. And thus, the sacrifice of the Son of God was the only thing valuable enough to pay for all the crimes against God that all the people of the world have committed or will commit. This is what we mean by “Jesus paid the price”.
Imagine, if you will, that one day you discover that the Highway patrol has been working with the NSA, and has satellite data that shows all the times you’ve traveled over the speed limit, and sends you a bill which itemizes each time you passed the speed limit, going back to the day you got your driver’s license and adding penalty and interest. How many of us could pay the bill?
Furthermore, imagine that hidden cameras and hidden microphones have tracked every single time you muttered under your breath a threat such as “I’m going to kill that child!” or said something like, “I wish I had that car”, and you received in the mail a sentence for threatening others, for contemplating theft, and for any other crime you’ve merely thought about committing, no matter how small or petty, or how jokingly you meant the comment, even the time when you were angry at your bully neighbor when you were 5 years old and told your mother, “I want him to die”. How many years would you need to spend in prison?
Since God is the perfect policeman, and has all the evidence, there is no dancing around – God knows all about you. You are in big trouble, and you cannot pay the bill, you cannot do the time for all the crime you’ve committed in your mind.
Jesus had to pay the bill for you, Jesus had to do the time, and Jesus had to pay for your mental murders – and mine, too.
But God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit love you, so Jesus chose to die. And when He died upon that cross, the penalties for all the crimes against God and others were paid for, once and for all. That bill for all those speeding tickets? Paid in full. That list of back-to-back sentences without parole? Paroled and expunged from you record. Everything you’ve been accused of? Charges dropped. Debt paid. All is forgiven. Remember our first reading from Jeremiah? “Declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
And all you have to do is say and believe, “Thank you, Jesus! I believe that You were capable of paying the price.”
That is why Jesus had to die. A sacrifice was needed and we were each bankrupt, so Jesus stepped in and paid our fines.
Finally, though, let’s talk about what set Him off – the arrival of the Greeks. I suppose the best way to illustrate this is to go back to that busload of Chinese Christian tourists. Remember them? When you met them at the 7/11 this morning, they didn’t just ask to be taken to your church – they said they were looking for Quiet Dell Church because they had heard of it and wanted to learn how we did church that was so much better than the other churches. You’d be thinking – our fame has spread even to China? Well, maybe someday….
When those Greeks arrived, they were notable because they were not Jews. Everyone else who came to speak with Jesus was a local – a Pharisee, a temple priest, the local people, even the Roman guards. But now, people from out-of-town – even out of the country – were asking to talk to Jesus.
Jesus knew, you see, that His mission wasn’t just to the Jews. Although He personally was to speak, as He said, “to the lost sheep of Israel”, His disciples were to carry His Words and connect Him to the rest of the world. So Jesus understood that the time had come at last for Him to be lifted up just like that bronze snake that Moses made in the wilderness so all could be healed, that the time had come for the Son of God to suffer and die, the time had come for the prophecies to be fulfilled as Jesus became high “priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” (Melchizedek was the high priest of God in Salem - the town that later became Jerusalem - at the time of Abraham, far before Moses brought down the Law and the Levitical and Aaronic priesthood was established. See Genesis 14.)
Jesus then turned His face toward the cross. Not willingly – but obediently. For there was no other way.
On that Good Friday outside of Jerusalem, Jesus truly became the Christ, the Savior, the Messiah, the High Priest forever of God, and the ultimate atoning sacrifice as the Son of God was killed like a sacrificial lamb for the sins which we have each committed. It was the only way for God to bring us back to God, for in any other way, God’s wonderful integrity, God’s wonderful goodness, God’s perfect holiness would have been violated. And so, like a lamb to the slaughter, Jesus went.
And when His life-giving blood left Him, Death died. Now, we just wait around for everyone to get the news. The game is won – the ball is held, the clock is running out. Jesus won, for He said that those who believe in Him will have eternal life, and we know that this is true because before the weekend was over, Jesus – the One who had been sacrificed – was walking around, strolling several miles, eating fish, talking and teaching again to His friends, and His body was alive again.
Death was dead – a mere annoyance to those who believe, less of a problem than a kidney stone, a tale to frighten naughty children, but nothing for mature, believing adults to be worried about. “O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?”
Today, we give thanks to Jesus. Today, we give thanks to God. Today, we come to the altar and say, “Thanks be to God for all He has done for me”. Feel free to come forward and kneel or stand at the altar rail to tell God what His Son has done for you. Show your gratitude. Perhaps you need to ask something of God – come forward and ask it. Perhaps you have a friend or relative who needs to hear about God’s Son. Come forward and pray for your friend or neighbor. Come to the altar, look upon the Son of God, and be healed.
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