(Text and Audio)
Title: When Morning Came
I want to offer two words of thanks as we get started this morning.
First of all I just wanted to say “Thank you” for the wonderful and generous Christmas card and gift you gave to my family on Christmas Eve. It was so very humbling to be the recipient of such generosity. And to whoever out there was responsible for including a gift card to the movie theater, thank you. How did you know I liked movies?
Secondly, I want to acknowledge a bit of a milestone this morning. Today, as we begin the New Year, we also begin a new chapter in the book of Matthew. Today, we begin chapter 27 of Matthew’s Gospel and, as most of you know, there are 28 chapters to this book.
So we are only two chapters away from completing, as a church, a book we began in the Summer of 2010, almost seven years ago. Let me just say again what a privilege I consider it to be to preach to such a hungry, astute, and dedicated congregation week after week.
I have never here felt the pressure that many minsters often do to “spruce up the Word” or “make things exciting”. Your expectation has always been: bring the Word of God, fully, honestly, don’t pull any punches, don’t hide from difficult teaching, be honest with us when you don’t know something, and trust God’s spirit and guidance.
Let’s begin, shall we?
(read/pray)
“When morning came”
This was an all night affair. To set up the timeline: Jesus enters the Garden to pray after the last supper in the upper room, during the passover celebration which was celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Nisan (placing it in late March or Early April on our calendar.)
This means that these events were taking place in the early Spring of that year, so it was very likely already very dark by the time Jesus enters into the midst of the Garden to pray. He is most likely in the Garden a few hours when his arrest takes place in the middle of the night.
He is then led to the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest, where they listen to several testimonies concerning the conduct of Jesus until finally two men have matching testimonies that then push Caiaphas to directly ask Jesus about these claims. When Jesus acknowledges these claims the rest of the Sanhedrin agree: He is deserving of death.
And now, these men, charged with the responsibility of teaching the Law that they have broken, will conspire to kill the very Messiah their prophets had predicted.
The great American preacher Matthew Henry, offers some excellent historical insight into the decision of the Sanhedrin to take Jesus to Pilate. You might think that the Jewish leadership had a cozy relationship with Pilate and they often did each other’s “dirty work”, but that was not the case at all.
For Henry tells us:
We left Christ in the hands of the chief priests and elders, condemned to die, but the Jewish leadership could only show their teeth; about two years before this the Romans had taken from the Jews the power of capital punishment; they could put no man to death, and therefore early in the morning another council is held, to consider what is to be done. And here we are told what was done in that morning-council, after they had been for two or three hours consulting with their pillows.
They decide thatChrist is delivered up to Pilate, that he might execute the sentence they had passed upon him. Judea having been almost one hundred years before this conquered by Pompey, had ever since been tributary to Rome, and was lately made part of the province of Syria, and subject to the government of the president of Syria, under whom there were several procurators, who chiefly attended the business of the revenues, but sometimes, as Pilate particularly, had the whole power of the president lodged in them. This was a plain evidence that the sceptre was departed from Judah, and that therefore now the Shilloh must come, according to Jacob’s prophecy, Gen. 49:10. Pilate is characterized by the Roman writers of that time, as a man of a rough and haughty spirit, wilful and implacable, and extremely covetous and oppressive; the Jews had a great enmity to his person, and were weary of his government, and yet they made use of him as the tool of their malice against Christ.
The Walk of Shame
(read verse 2)
Upon first glance, this verse seems pretty self-explanitory and matter-of-fact, but I think it bears great fruit upon further examination.
This is something that is not explored in the Gospels, but just using some simple logic, I think we can paint a picture of what verse 2 looks like played out.
“They bound him”
Now, we know from earlier in chapter 26 that he was bound when they arrested him in the Garden, so it’s safe to assume that during the pre-trail testimonies they released the bindings. But now, having been convicted of blasphemy, they bound him, in all likelihood with his arms behind his back (as was the custom for criminals during the time), and led him from Caiaphas’s house to Pilate’s house.
These two houses were just over a mile apart.
So now, this illegal arrest (made at night), this joke of a trial (with falsified trumped up witnesses) taking place not in the temple, not in a public place but at a private home, at night, was now bearing its fruit, the guilty Jesus of Nazareth, in a parade-like spectacle, in broad daylight.
Anybody else seeing the irony here?
A Duel Judgment
As we draw to a close this morning, I’d like to offer one final insight that I had myself not considered until I was reading Matthew Henry’s commentary in preparing this message.
Henry says:
They delivered him to Pontius Pilate; according to that which Christ had often said, that he should be delivered to the Gentiles. Both Jews and Gentiles were obnoxious to the judgment of God, and concluded under sin, and Christ was to be the Saviour both of Jews and Gentiles; and therefore Christ was brought into the judgment both of Jews and Gentiles, and both had a hand in his death
I thought this was a great point made by Henry. Christ was to be the savior of both the Jews and Gentiles, how appropriate then that he would be judged and condemned by both the holy institution (the Jews) and the secular magistrate (Gentile government).
He came to save all those who condemned him.
What a message of hope.
You can’t out sin the ability of Christ’s blood to redeem you.
Tell that to the young lady who cries herself to sleep over a recent abortion.
Tell that to the man that fell asleep at the steering wheel, drove into a construction site and killed a worker.
Tell that to the person who has struggled with their sexuality their entire lives and can’t talk to anybody about in their family for fear of rejection.
Tell that to the addict who can’t remember the last time they felt normal without being high or drunk.
Mostly, tell that to your children when they fail.
And tell yourself when you confuse self-hate and discipline.
He came for you. Live for you. Died for you. Rose for you.