church

INI
First Midweek Lenten Services
February 25, 2010
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

Lenten Shadow and Light:
TWO MASTERS OF ISRAEL
John 18:19-24, 19:39

Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The two texts that we'll consider this evening are
both found in the Gospel of John; the first is from chapter 18, verses 19 through
24:

"The high priest then asked Jesus about His disciples and His doctrine. Jesus
answered him, 'I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and
in the temple, where the Jews always meet, and in secret I have said nothing.
Why do you ask Me? Ask those who have heard Me what I said to them. Indeed
they know what I said.' And when He had said these things, one of the officers
who stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, 'Do You answer
the high priest like that?' Jesus answered him, 'If I have spoken evil, bear
witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?' Then Annas sent Him
bound to Caiaphas the high priest."

The second text is John chapter 19, verse 39, which takes place after Jesus'
death:

"And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a
mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds." Here end our texts.

In Christ Jesus, whose doctrine we have heard and believed, Dear
Fellow-Redeemed,

All through my childhood, I was plagued with a special problem in school.
Some of you parents might recognize this: I seemed to be completely unable to
follow instructions! I got bad grades on test after test, because I either didn't
read the instructions, or I didn't follow them. Finally, over the years, my parents
and my teachers were able to pound two things into my head about instructions:
you have to read them carefully, and you have to follow them carefully!

You know, the Word of God is like that in a way. Jesus said, "Blessed are they
who hear the word of God and keep it." Two things - listen to God’s Word, and
follow it. That may seem obvious enough, but there are a lot of people –
including a lot of religious people! - who don't pay attention to those
instructions. And that's what our contrast is about this evening. Come back
with me to the hours of Jesus' passion, as we examine Annas and Nicodemus:

TWO MASTERS OF ISRAEL
I. One ignored Jesus' teaching and condemned Him...
II. One listened to Jesus' teaching and believed in Him!
Annas was what you’d call a "big wheel" among the leadership of the Jews, a
sort of political boss. For all intents and purposes, this one man controlled the
office of the high priest for more than fifty years. And among the Jews of that
time, that was like being the president of the United States. The high priest's
office had authority over the Sanhedrin, the Jewish "congress", which in turn
controlled all religious and social affairs in Israel. Even under the Roman
military occupation, they had their own laws and their own courts. The only
punishment they could not carry out themselves was the death penalty, which
had to be authorized by the Roman governor.

Even though Annas himself had only been high priest for five or six years, he
made sure that the power stayed in his family. Five of his sons had been high
priest after him, and the present office holder was his son-in-law, Caiaphas. But
Annas had the power, and everyone knew it. He was the real high priest. That
was why Jesus, after He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, was
brought first to Annas.

"The high priest then asked Jesus about His disciples and His doctrine." You
might think, "Well, there's a good sign. He's reading the instructions! He wants
to know about Jesus' teaching!" But that's not at all what Annas had on his
mind. His plans were far more sinister and nefarious than that. As high priest,
Annas was responsible for all the doctrine that was taught by Jewish teachers.
So that gave him the pretext he needed to interrogate Jesus. If he could find
some hint of conspiracy in Jesus' doctrine - some taint of rebellion against the
government – then they might be able to talk the governor into killing Jesus.
And that was his aim all along. That's what Annas really wanted, because Jesus
was getting to be a thorn in his side. Jesus had twice driven the merchants and
moneychangers out of the temple. And guess where the money from those
businesses went? Right into the pocket of the high priest. Besides, some of the
people were actually listening to Jesus, He had a following, and that was bad.
Annas knew that retaining his hold on political power depended on one thing,
and that was people respecting his authority, not that of some upstart young
rabbi from Nazareth. Why, some people (he scoffed to think of it!) were even
saying that this Jesus might be the promised Messiah Himself - of all the
preposterous notions!

In Annas a man who was a master of Israel. The highest religious authority
among God's chosen people. If anyone should have been ready to welcome the
long-awaited Messiah, it was Annas! But Annas hadn't been listening. He hadn't
heard Jesus' teaching, and He didn't care to hear it. Jesus said to him, "I spoke
openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the
Jews always meet, and in secret I have said nothing. Why do you ask Me? Ask
those who have heard Me what I said to them. Indeed they know what I said."
Annas had ignored Jesus' teaching. He could have listened, but he didn't. The
moment the Jews had been waiting for for thousands of years had come, and he
had missed it. Annas rejected the promised Messiah!

There's a lesson there for us. Faith is a door that we cannot open, but that we
can shut. We can't open it - only God does that. Scripture reminds us that “No
one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” I Cor 12:3. But we can
shut the door of faith. And the best way to do it is to despise God's Word.
When you let your Bible gather dust on the shelf at home...when you come less
often to hear God's Word preached in church...you're slowing down the flow of
life-giving nourishment from the Vine to the branches. You're inching the door
of faith shut, whether you realize it or not. On that dark night of Maundy
Thursday, the high priest Annas slammed the door shut with a bang! He
rejected his Messiah, and not just rejected Him – but condemned Him to death.

Annas wasn't just one bad apple, an isolated unbeliever who despised God’s
Word. The whole barrel of Jewish leaders was rotten from top to bottom! Jesus
lumped them all together when He said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk
over them are not aware of them." But there were one or two exceptions to the
rule. Men of reputation among the Jewish religious leaders who listened to what
Jesus had to say, and believed in Him. One such man was Nicodemus.

Nicodemus, too, was a master of Israel. He was a member of the Jewish ruling
body, the Sanhedrin. Like Annas, he wielded power among the Jews, and people
looked up to him. Unlike Annas, he had actually been paying attention to what
Jesus was saying during the three years of His ministry. Could it be that this
lowly man from Galilee was really the promised Messiah? He certainly was
performing amazing miracles. Nicodemus had to find out for himself. So he
took a big risk: he went to Jesus under the cloak of night, to speak with him in
person. He said, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for
no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." Then Jesus
began to talk.

And Nicodemus listened! He listened as Jesus taught him about being born
again by faith, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the
Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Nicodemus listened as Jesus
told him that He came from heaven itself, "No one has ascended to heaven but
He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of man..." Nicodemus
listened as Jesus told him how He, Jesus, would be lifted up in death for the sins
of mankind, "For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world through Him might be saved."

Nicodemus listened. And learned. This master of Israel heard the word of God,
and believed it! Through the Word that he had heard the Holy Spirit has worked
faith in his heart. Now Nicodemus was convinced that this was the One who
had been promised - the Messiah - the Savior of Israel. Months later, when the
Sanhedrin met to decide what to do about Jesus, Nicodemus was the only
member who stood up for Him. When the other rulers wanted to condemn
Jesus, Nicodemus protested, "Does our law judge a man before it hears him and
knows what he is doing?" Jn 7:51.

The words of our second text for tonight give us even more evidence of
Nicodemus' faith. After the Jews had carried out their sinister mission, and had
succeeded in having Jesus crucified, Joseph of Arimathea another secret disciple
of Jesus asked Pilate for the His body. "And Nicodemus, who at first came to
Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a
hundred pounds." In silent tribute to the Son of God, Nicodemus brought these
expensive spices to anoint Jesus' body for burial. It was an act of love - his faith
in Jesus coming to the surface.

You’ve probably seen the commercial for Traveller's Insurance – the one where
a hundred people with black umbrellas are moving down the sidewalk one
direction, and one person with a red umbrella is going through the middle of
them in the other direction. The message is that there is sometimes an
advantage to be had if you dare to be different. Nicodemus dared to be different
from the rest of Jewish leaders. While all his peers were slamming the door on
Jesus, Nicodemus listened to Him and believed in Him.

The doors are still slamming, aren’t they? Most of the people in our day either
reject Christianity altogether, or else they make it into a pretend religion of
work-righteousness. A game of "Let's Make a Deal", where you do a certain
number of good works and live a pretty good life, and God is supposed to
reward you in the end. That’s what many people think. Increasingly rare are the
real Christians. The ones who dare to be different. The ones who hear God's
Word and do it. Who are willing, like Nicodemus, to sit at Jesus feet and listen
to His message about a Savior for sinners. About a Messiah lifted up on a cross
in order to blot out the transgressions of men.

The door is open to you now! Will you listen to what Jesus has to say? Come to
the lonely hill of Calvary again during this Lenten Season, and throw all your
sins down at the foot of your Savior's cross. Cast off the cheap and tawdry
garments of your own good works and your own righteousness, and take on you
the pure white robe of Christ’s righteousness. Hear the Word, like Nicodemus
did, and believe. Believe that the whole reason Jesus came here was to suffer all
these things, and thereby to free you from your burden of sin. Join the hymn
writer in singing:

"I lay my sins on Jesus,
The spotless Lamb of God,
He bears them all and frees us
From the accursed load.
I bring my guilt to Jesus
To wash my crimson stains
White in His blood most precious
Till not a spot remains." AMEN.