Sermon – Luke 23:44-53 - Suffered Under Pontius Pilate, Was Crucified Dead and Buried

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

Sermon – Luke 23:44-53 - “Suffered Under Pontius Pilate, Was Crucified Dead and Buried”

Palm Sunday

March 24, 2013

On this Palm Sunday I am continuing when my exposition of the Apostles Creed. This creed, which is based on the Old Roman Symbol of the early church in Rome, has been used by the church to teach those who desire to join the church through baptism about our faith. Therefore it is a statement of what the church believes. It has sustained the church though theological heresies and external persecutions. Through all of this the church continues to proclaim it's belief in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the virgin Mary. This is the bedrock of our faith that sustains us no matter what happens. Today we will look at the might be the most unexpected phrase in the creed, but first let's pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

Luke 23:44-53 ⁴⁴ It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, ⁴⁵ for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. ⁴⁶ Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last. ⁴⁷ The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man." ⁴⁸ When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. ⁴⁹ But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. ⁵⁰ Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, ⁵¹ who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. ⁵² Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body. ⁵³ Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.

In the year 64AD a great fire swept though Rome. It raged mercilessly for six long days. We know about this fire from a book written a few decades later called Annals by the Roman historian Tacitus. According to Tacitus, a rumor was spreading across Rome just days after the fire that the Emperor Nero had started the fire himself. Nero, hoping to deflect the criticism, looked for a scapegoat, some group that could be blamed for the fire. The group he chose was a rapidly growing group that had been around for about 30 years. They were known as Christians, named after their founder who was called “Christus”. These Christians were suspected tof being atheists because they refused to bow down and worship Roman gods, and even refused to worship the emperor. Nero found out that their leader had been arrested and crucified, executed on a cross, by the Procurator, Governor, of Judah, Pontius Pilate. Nero argued that this group of atheists, whose founder had been duly executed, must have been responsible for the fire, and he ordered their persecution.

Christians were arrested and executed. Church tradition tells us that the Apostle Peter was crucified upside down. Church tradition also tells us that the Apostle Paul, being a Roman citizen, was spared crucifixion and was beheaded. Many Christians were taken to the Colosseum or the Circus, clothed in fresh animal skins so they would be eaten by hungry lions and tigers for public entertainment. We hear that the Christians were not particularly entertaining because as the animals approached the would not fight or even try to run away, rather the Christians would kneel and pray that their persecutors would be forgiven.

What got Christians in trouble was this phase in the creed, “suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried”. It is an awful reminded of the suffering and death of Jesus. Just days after entering Jerusalem on a donkey, with palm branches lining the road in honor of a liberating king, Jesus was arrested and executed in a brutal and humiliating way. Why would we want to remember these events? Why would we teach this shameful part of our history to new initiates? Why would we have this in our sacred texts? Why would preachers talk about this every year? Why would we even erect crosses in front of the church telling other outside of the church what had happened to Jesus?

The reason we do these things is because our faith in rooted not in some myth, but in actual historical times and places. Pontius Pilate is the key to know that God entered into human history at a particular time and place. Our faith does not start in a time long long ago and in a place far far away as do many fairy tales. Our faith is based on the historical reality that Jesus died at the hands of a Roman governor who was in Judah between 26 and 36 AD. Jesus was in Jerusalem for passover during that time period when he was arrested, tried, executed and buried. These are all indisputable historical facts. Jesus really existed; he lived and died.

This claim that Jesus lived and died is the only historically provable part of the creed. God's creation and power over the physical and spiritual is not something that can be historically documented. We believe this by faith and the authority of Scripture. Likewise Jesus' conception by the Holy Spirit and birth from a virgin cannot be verified outside of scripture so again it is a matter of faith. But Jesus' life and death is part of the historical record which cannot be denied. There is no doubt that Jesus suffered sorrow and disappointment just like us. There is no question that Jesus suffered shame and scorn just like us. And Jesus suffered not inwardly but publicly at the hands of the Roman government.

So why would Emperor Nero and others fear Christians so much that they would persecute and kill them? The answer to this lies in what the Christians were doing. Christians astonished the Romans by their love for one another. They cared for the poor and the needy and the outcasts of society. They forgave not only their friends but also their enemies. They led disciplined lives of prayer and fasting. And they were willing to die before renouncing the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Without the fear of death Christians could not be controlled by a tyrannical government, and so Nero and many others who have followed in his footstep, have feared us and have tried to persecute us into submission.

You may think that the days of persecuting Christians are over. After all we can safely worship in our church without the interference or persecution of our government. And our nation wants us to pray and care for those in need. But did you not that more Christians were killed for their faith in the 20^th century than at any other time? At any moment a tyrant can demand of us thing we cannot do and our loyalty to Jesus will be tested.

The reason Christians will not submit to tyrants is because we believe that in his death Jesus conquered sin. Pontius Pilate and religious leaders who pushed him represented all of us in our complicity with Sin. As Luther told us Sin is not lying or cheating or even murder. These are all sins, plural, and are terrible manifestations of what we call Sin, singular. We understand Sin to be the rejection of God's mercy and grace. It is our refusal to believe in, to trust our lives completely in the hands of God. In his death Jesus took the Sin of the whole world on his shoulders. He lifted the yoke of Sin from us so that we never again are weighed down by it. And Jesus freed us to believe in God and trust him with our very lives.

We are called to take up our own crosses and follow him. We are to follow Jesus into hospital rooms to pray with people dying from incurable diseases. We are to follow Jesus into the home of a mentally or physically disabled child. We are to follow Jesus into miserable work places and terrible old age. We do these things because we follow the one who suffered and died so that we would be free to love one another just as God love us.

This Holy Week we will be following our Lord to supper in an upper room and to a cross just outside the city gate and to a dark tomb and into the depths of hell. Christ is doing all this, sacrificing himself, for our sake so that we will be free from Sin, trust in God and follow Jesus right here in Pocomoke. So I urge you to look for ways to love you neighbor this week. Find some way to lift another's burden. Be Christians and love and care for least among us. And do this fearlessly because you know that no one has the power to stop you because even if you are put to death, in Christ you will live on. Sin not longer has hold of you. Sin no longer processes you. You are free to love and serve.

Lord Jesus we thank you for all you have done for us. We thank you for lifting the burden of Sin and freeing us to live lives of love. We will follow you this week all the way to your tomb and beyond. This we pray to Our Father in your name. Amen.