church

INI
Third Midweek Lenten Service
February 27-28, 2013
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

The Hymns of the Passion
"O SACRED HEAD, NOW WOUNDED"
John 19:5

Grace and Lenten peace be multiplied unto you, Amen. The text for our
meditation this evening comes from the nineteenth chapter of John, verse five:

"Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And
Pilate said to them, 'Behold the Man!'" So far our text.

In the Name of Jesus, Whose praise we sing during this season of His Passion,
Dear Fellow Redeemed,

In 1727, British poet William Somerville wrote, There is something in a face,
An air, and a peculiar grace, Which boldest painters cannot trace. And what he
wrote is true, isn't it? The most descriptive part of a person's appearance is his
face. When we want to know what a person is like, what he's thinking or
experiencing, we don't look at his clothing, or his posture, or what kind of
manicure he's got. Our eyes are drawn to his head. We look in his face.

During this season of Lent, you've been looking at your Savior from the point
of view of several favorite Lenten hymns. Each examines a different aspect of
your Redeemer and His Passion. Tonight, your eyes are drawn to the most
descriptive part: the sacred head of your Lord Jesus. On Good Friday, Pontius
Pilate displayed the battered and bloody Jesus before the eyes of the assembled
crowd in Jerusalem. You'll see what they saw. And with the eyes of your faith,
you'll also see what they failed to see in the face of Jesus. On the basis of our
text, then, we consider the theme:

"O SACRED HEAD, NOW WOUNDED"

I. Behold the head of the King of Kings.
II. Behold the head of the world's Redeemer.

It was a Friday morning in Jerusalem, and the Roman governor was worried.
Angry crowds were gathered outside the imperial court of Pontius Pilate. If he
didn't play his cards right, he suspected he might soon have a riot on his hands.
The cause of it all seemed to be this Jesus of Nazareth. The Jews had brought
the prisoner to Pilate's court, indicting him on trumped-up charges of rebellion
against the government. It hadn't taken long to discover that the charges were
groundless, so Pilate had tried to release him. He was met with howls of
protest, and an angry chant of, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

What could the governor do? He pondered. If he couldn't talk reason to the
crowd, perhaps he could elicit their sympathy. He would make Jesus appear as
pathetic as possible. Maybe then the bloodthirsty crowd would relent. "So
Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him. And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns
and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe. Then they said,
'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they struck Him with their hands. Pilate then went
out again, and said to them, 'Behold, I am bringing Him out to you, that you
may know that I find no fault in Him.' Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown
of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, 'Behold the Man!'"
19:1-5.

Behold the Man. Those famous words have rung down through the centuries.
Say them to yourself: Behold the Man. Someone once wrote that every person
puts into those words exactly what he thinks of Jesus. Pilate, for his part, was
saying, "Behold the Man! How could this wretched creature possibly be a king?
Instead of a king's laurel wreath, He wears a crown of thorns. Instead of a proud
and haughty demeanor, His head is bowed down with shame and humiliation.
Behold the Man!"

Pilate was trying to elicit sympathy and pity from the mob. As you know, it
didn't work. And to tell the truth, our Lord doesn't want that kind of
sentimental sympathy from us, either. The picture of His face as He stands
there is shocking and saddening, but we know that that's not the whole story. In
verse one of tonight's sermon hymn we sing,

O sacred Head, now wounded,
With grief and shame weighed down.
Now scornfully surrounded
With thorns, Thine only crown.
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine.
Yet, tho' despised and glory, I joy to call Thee mine.

Consider that for a moment. Think about the glory had been Christ's before He
came down to earth as a human being! For you and I know that this
beaten-down prisoner was and is the eternal Son of God. "In the beginning was
the Word," John says, "and the Word was with God, and THE WORD WAS
GOD." All unknown to that Jewish crowd, it was the Almighty and eternal God
who was standing there before them. Pilate was wrong. He really was a king.
Praise God, you and I see what they failed to see - that this bowed head was the
head of the eternal King of Kings!

Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee,
Thou noble countenance,
Tho' mighty worlds shall fear Thee
And flee before Thy glance.

This ravaged face, agonized and exhausted, elicited only scorn and contempt
from the crowd that day in Pilate’s courtyard. But another Day is coming. A
Day on which the emotions of those who rejected Jesus will be quite different.
Not scorn and contempt any longer but fear, and terror, and bitter despair! For
then the mighty King whom they mocked in this life will render afearsome
judgment unto them. For it is written: "As I live, says the LORD, Every knee
shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God." -- Romans 14:11.

How blithely the world carries on its affairs all around us, discounting or
dismissing this fearful judgment to come! Two business associates were
spending an idle moment discussing their personal beliefs. The first man, an
unbeliever, was having a little fun at the expense of the second, who was a
Christian. "What are you going to do," he asked, "if you come to the end of
your life and discover that there really isn’t such a place as heaven?" "Oh, I'm
not too worried about that," the Christian replied. "But what are you going to
do if you reach the end of your life and discover that there really is such a place
as hell?"

It's a good question, isn't it? Jesus' bruised and bloody face on Good Friday was
indeed a shocking sight. But if want to think of something really shocking,
imagine what the faces of those tormentors of His will look like on Judgment
Day! What will their faces look like when they realize that it really was the
Messiah they crucified? That it really was the eternal King of Kings whom they
mocked and tortured and spit upon? In Rev. 1, the Apostle John says, "Behold,
He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced
Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him." What will the
faces of those unbelievers look like when they see the dark gates of hell
yawning open to receive their souls for an eternity of torment?

But we needn’t spend too much time worrying about other people’s sins. We’ve
got plenty of our own to concern us! Scripture warns, "Let him who thinks he
stands take heed lest he fall." Previously during this Midweek series you’ve
been reminded in a very pointed way that it was your sins, too, that contributed
to Jesus’ torment. I can’t enumerate those sins for you, of course, and I’m sure I
don’t have to. You know better than anyone what dark secrets lie in your past.
If you're like me, then you're only too painfully aware of all the ways in which
you’ve failed in your service to God and your neighbor. Each of us must admit,
in the words of tonight’s hymn:

My burden in Thy Passion,
Lord, Thou hast borne for me,
For it was MY transgression
Which brought this woe on Thee.

The suffering face of our Savior gives us a clear-eyed view of our own sin. But
we can view something else there as well. This evening let us thank the Lord for
giving us the ability to behold the Man, and see more than just a bruised and
humiliated human being. Indeed, we see in Christ more than just the sovereign
Lord of all the universe. He's something more to us. When we look upon the
face of Jesus, we see the sacred head of the world's Redeemer.

Jesus died to make a vicarious atonement for your sins. That may sound like a
complicated idea, but it's not really. It just means that Christ was punished in
your place, as your substitute. It's important you understand that. We Christians
commonly summarize our faith by saying, "Jesus suffered and died for me." And
that's true, of course, but it would actually be much more accurate to say "Jesus
suffered and died instead of me." Because you see, that's what He did! He
stepped into your place. As our hymn says, He Himself was weighed down with
the grief and shame of your sins. The good news is that He bore the entire
consequences of those sin for you. That's why John says, "And He Himself is
the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole
world." 1 John 2:2. And again we read, in 2 Cor 5:19 "God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them."

Because God allowed that sacred head to be wounded, our trespasses are not
imputed to us. The word imputed means "charged to one's account." I was
struggling for a way to get this concept across to my confirmation class a few
years ago, and I seized upon the metaphor of credit cards (I was somewhat
shocked to find out that 7th and 8th-graders know all about credit cards). I told
them to imagine they had a card that was maxed out to its credit limit, with
thousands of dollars of charges on it, and that there was no way they could even
make the minimum payment. They could imagine that. "Then," I said, "imagine
someone came along one day and paid, not just the minimum payment, but paid
off the entire account. Every penny. Well, that's what Jesus did for you. With
His death, He removed all the sins from your account." There was a stunned
silence around the table. Finally one girl just said, "Wow!"

Wow is right! This doctrine of vicarious atonement represents a stunning
turnaround in our status before almighty God. Our entire eternal future has
been transformed by the Gospel! We’ve been entirely released from the
obligation to pay for our sins. They shall never be charged against us! As the
Apostle Paul said, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are
in Christ Jesus." That's why, during this Lenten season, we may view the
wounded head of our suffering Savior not just with repentant sorrow, but with
great rejoicing as well. For it is in those wounds that we find peace, and it is in
those wounds that we find our assurance of heaven!

All of us have known people who have passed away. Some of us have actually
been at someone’s bedside at the moment of their death. It’s not an experience
you soon forget. Do you ever think about the moment of your own death, and
imagine what that will be like? Because of Jesus’ love, you can look forward to
that moment with cheerful confidence, rather than with fear! As we sing with
the hymnist:

Be Thou my Consolation,
My Shield when I must die.
Remind me of Thy passion
When my last hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold Thee,
Upon Thy cross shall dwell,
My heart by faith enfold Thee,
Who dieth thus dies well.. Amen.