MARCH 9, 2008  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, Mercy & Peace to you from God the Father Almighty, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

(John 11:47-53) Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. "What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." 49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." 51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

His name was Caiaphas. Caiaphas, politician, schemer, smooth, shrewd. High Priest Caiaphas sat at the table and nodded his head as reports came in about Jesus of Nazareth. The other priests and Pharisees, were worried --worried sick and showing it.

Oh, sure, those two groups, priests and Pharisees, never got along before. But politics makes strange-bedfellows; and now they were as thick as thieves --those priests and Pharisees. For now they had a common enemy.

And the most horrid thing happened. This rabbi, this Jesus of Nazareth, was not only coming closer to Jerusalem, but along the way, just today, He raised a man, raised a dead man to life. And this man was not recently dead, but he had been dead for days, stinking dead.

Apparently, that didn't stop Jesus. He went to the graveyard, that putrid place of death and ordered men to unseal the grave and roll the stone away. The men gagged at the smell of it; nothing smells worse than death. But Jesus came, took a breath, a deep breath of it, and then yelled defiance at death, and said, "Lazarus, come out!"

And lazarus did. Oh, he was tripping over the bandages, being wrapped up tighter than a mummy, that’s why this Jesus had to tell those startled men what next to do. "Well, just don't stand there. Take off the grave clothes, and let the man go!"

Caiaphas, politician, schemer, smooth, shrewd. Caiaphas heard all of this and just nodded. His henchmen were panicked. "This just ruins everything," they said. "What good have we done? We can't stop this man who stops death! Now the people are going to believe in Him all over again --and all our work will be in ruins. They saw him –heck, we saw him call this Lazarus-this man from death -four days dead and smelling like it, too-- and we saw him bring him back to life.

The Romans are going to catch wind of this. They'll come down on us for it. They'll take away everything we've worked for, our position in society, our wealth, our power in this nation. It's as good as gone --thanks to this Jesus.

"What can we do?"

Caiaphas, politician, schemer, smooth, shrewd, Caiaphas heard it all, heard it all and just nodded. Caiaphas was, after all, the High Priest. He didn't get that post, or keep it, by panicking. If anything, he was cool, controlled, calm. And unscrupulous. He knew how to hang on to power, and to keep things just the way they were.

Oh, for sure, he may have been an evil man, but he was holding a holy office. God had created that high priestly office, and Caiaphas believed that. But God had created that holy office to do what God Himself does: To free people; to set them free from sin and death and hell. Caiaphas did not believe that. Because he didn't want to.

"Can't have the people think they're free!" they others reminded Caiaphas. "Why, if people think they're free, they won't come to the temple with their sacrifices that keep us wealthy; they won't jump through all the religious hoops and laws we've invented that keep them in their place.

Take away all our "Don't eat this and don't drink that, and don't do work on the Sabbath Day," --why, these folks will be just as holy as WE are, and without lifting a finger, or washing a hand, or saying a prayers, or paying their tithes. And they won't look up to us any more! We'll lose our place. We'll lose our temple. We'll even lose our nation. So, what can we do?"

And so, slowly, Caiaphas the High Priest, spoke. He looked into the eyes of the fear-filled Pharisees and panicking priests, cleared his throat and said, "You know nothing at all! Can't you see an opportunity when it hits you in the face? Don't you realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish?"

The solution is simple; if you only keep your wits. Just kill Jesus. That way, you can keep things the way they are, under control, under our thumbs. Understand?

Caiaphas, politician, schemer, smooth, shrewd. Caiaphas was right. The only trouble for Caiaphas, cool, calm Caiaphas, was this. He didn't know how right he really was. The High Priest did not even realize that he was speaking as the high priest should. The scoundrel was speaking as a prophet, and he didn't even know it.

It was, and is better for one man to die than for all people to perish. Better that God be angry with Jesus than He be angry with you and me. Better for Jesus to suffer hell, than for you to suffer hell. Caiaphas didn't mean to say all that, but God put the words into his mouth, and he said it all, said it anyway, said it well. It is better that the Son of God should to be treated AS the Son of God, just so that you and I might be treated as children of God, treated as God's holy sinless sons and daughters. Jesus should die so we could live. Jesus should suffer hell so you and I could enjoy heaven. Jesus should be taken prisoner, so you and I could be free.

That's pretty scary stuff for Pharisees and priests.

But I wonder. Is it possible that it might be scary for you, too, my friends. Do you, when you hear the Gospel, that Jesus has freed you, do you still get a little scared and nervous.

Does it scare you and make you nervous when you hear that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, left for you to do. That God is as pleased as punch with you, REGARDLESS; of who you are or what you've done? That in Christ Jesus, God has already redeemed you --at no cost to you at all.

Why is it that people, sometimes even you, keep looking 'round, trying to find something that they have got to do? Why is it that some people come up and say, "But, Pastor, you've GOT to tell these people what they've got to do! It'll destroy this Church if you don't tell these people what they've got to do!" I've heard that countless times before. Kin da sounds to me as though not all the Pharisees have died off yet. You know, it is too bad that the Epistle Lesson ended at verse 11 today. I guarantee your ears would have perked up at verse twelve where we read. Rom 8:12-13

"See, Pastor?" There it is, Pastor! We DO have to do something. Paul says so."

We have an obligation to. . . .to. . . .to do what, friends? I see what St. Paul says we NO LONGER have an obligation to do. We have no obligation to the sinful nature; we're not in debt to the sinful nature any longer. There is no obligation there at all.

You see, the sinful nature only wants to kill you, it only wants to get you to live as if God were not in love with you. The sinful nature wants you acting as if you were not forgiven; as if you were still in sin. That way, the sinful nature could keep you all wrapped up in guilt and feeling bad and thinking, "Boy, I've really got to work on this or that. And maybe THEN I'll feel like God is really happy with me."

Paul says you’re not in debt to THAT! That guilt. That feeling. That feeling that comes from the sinful nature. See? Our sinful nature wants to fill in what Paul does not. Wants us going on where Paul leaves off. Our sinful nature is doing the same thing, saying the same thing that Caiaphas does and says. To keep us down and guilty.

Besides, why would you want to live like that? Is that life? The Scriptures tell us that the Holy Spirit is life, that by the Holy Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body? And how? By working harder? By putting the old spiritual nose to the grindstone?

That's exactly the way the self-righteous Pharisees and pietistic priests did it. That's why they plotted to kill Jesus. He was taking away their precious Law; all their holy do's and don'ts.

No, the Holy Spirit doesn't drive you to go back and live under the Law. He's not ordering you to go back out to battle against sin and not come back until you've got it right. No, the Holy Spirit speaks to you and me just as Jesus did to Lazurus. The Holy Spirit speaks to you as He ordered Ezekiel to speak. Remember the Old Testament lesson? Ezekiel spoke to dry bones; and those dead, dry bones sprang to life?

Dear friends, a bell is suppose to go off in your heads right about now! Isn't that the same thing Jesus did when He spoke to Lazarus? -didn’t Jesus over this rotting, putrid bag of bones that was Lazarus, and didn't Lazarus spring to life?

"Come forth, Lazarus," Jesus said. And Lazarus did. "Come forth, Sinner," Jesus said, in Baptism. And you did as Jesus breathed His Word into you and you awoke, and you lived. In fact, Jesus covered you with His own blood at your Baptism. Today He pours His body and blood into your dry bones at His holy Supper. He calls you forgiven through your pastor, and you are.

Jesus is calling you forth again today, and the grave must give way. Sin can no longer imprison you. Death can no longer hold you. Hell can no longer keep you down. Dear friends. All your sin and death and hell were laid on Jesus!

So, yes, you do have an obligation--but not to go back and do what your sinful nature tell you. Rather, your obligation is to do what Jesus tells you. And dear friends, Jesus is telling you today that you have no obligation, no debts, no sins at all. He has given you a life of freedom and peace. That's NOT what your sinful nature wants you to hear. It wants to plot against you just like Caiaphas and his cronies plotted to kill Jesus. It wants to kill you, too. And apart from Jesus, it will. Your sinful nature will kill you, and it will do it by wrapping you up in your sin where the Law can do its crushing. It will wrap you up in your guilt the way Lazarus was wrapped up in burial clothes. Remember, Jesus had to say to the men, "Loose him; let him go."

And that's the same thing Jesus tells His pastors. That is the job he gave to me. "Loose my people. Let them go! They are alive. They are free. They have no sin, no death, no hell. My dying, my rising make it so." Well, you heard Him, dear friends. You heard Him. Jesus, I mean. You're free, my friends, free to live forever.

Because Christ Is Risen.

Amen