Word of Salvation – Vol. 47 No.11 – March 2002

 

Jesus the King

 

Sermon by Rev C Kavanagh

on Matthew 27:11

Scripture Readings: Matthew 27:11-31; Isaiah 53

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Introduction

In the sequence of events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ, we have come to the morning of the last day of His life on earth.  Christ has celebrated the Last Supper with His disciples the evening before.  He has prayed in agony in the moonlight of the Garden of Gethsemane and has been arrested in the Garden, too.

There was a trial before the religious authorities, who pronounced Jesus guilty of capital blasphemy.  Then they bring Him before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, for trial and sentencing to death, because only the civil authority at this time in the history of God’s people could sentence and execute the death penalty.

So Jesus is brought before the Governor, and questioned by him.  The other Gospels give an expanded account of the questioning, but in Matthew the minimum is recorded.  Are you the King of the Jews?  Jesus answers Pilate’s question – He is indeed the King of Israel.  Let us pause a moment here.

The Lord had promised King David that his line should never lack a man to sit on his throne and be a King of His people.  Further the ‘Son of David’ would reign forever.  The one promised so long before was Jesus Christ, the Descendant, or Son of David, who was yet David’s Lord.

Here the King promised to God’s people stood before an Imperial Governor, standing trial, facing death.  How could He be a King to God’s people, His own people?  How does standing trial before the foreign governor of His country fit with Him being the King?  What would He say or do as the King of Israel?

There was no reason He should be put to death.  Yet He did not defend Himself, or bring down a condemnation upon His false accusers, or try to escape.  His real Kingship lay in what He would do that day.  That Friday we commemorate, and we call the day “Good Friday”.

He would lay down His life for His people.  He would save His people.  That is what He would do as the King.  Jesus, the King, was rejected, innocent, and a substitute for His people.

1.  Rejected

Jesus faced rejection from every quarter.

He was rejected by the religious leaders of His day.  You don’t have to read very far in the Gospels to discover this.  Even early on, as it says in Mark chapter two, there was a plot to kill Jesus started by the religious leaders.  Almost from the beginning, their venom against Him spilled over in a desire to do away with Him.

But they, of all people, should have recognised the King when they saw Him.  After all, they were experts in the law of God.  They should have recognised the Messiah when they met Him, having read all about Him in the Old Testament.

But they rejected Him out of envy – He drew the crowds; the crowds would have run away from them.  They rejected Him because their own hearts were evil, and not converted to God, and He exposed them; He showed them up for what they were.  And they couldn’t bear to have this back blocks preacher tell them they had to repent.

The religious leaders rejected Jesus.

He was rejected by His own people.  As it says in John 1, “He came to his own, but his own did not receive him.”

Now it was true they flocked to Him, and while everything was going well, He was the darling of the crowds.  He multiplied loaves and fishes for them.  That was equivalent to them to having a man who pulled a hundred dollar note out every time he put his hand in his pocket.  There was nothing such a man couldn’t do for them, so they wanted to make Him King.  But Jesus told them His Kingdom was not of this world.  He was a spiritual King, not a material one, and they deserted Him in droves.

At His trial He was finally rejected by the people.  What a change around by the fickle crowds.  Not so long before they had led Him into Jerusalem as a King, but now they shouted for His blood.

They were vehement: they would settle for nothing less.  They were insistent.  Even when Pilate saw how it was going and tried to give the crowd an excuse to let Jesus go, they refused and shouted for His blood all the more.

The King was rejected by the people.

Jesus was rejected by the civil authority.  The law of the land should protect the innocent, and condemn the guilty.  That is why it is there.  But in Jesus’ case, it condemned the innocent Man to death.  It should protect its own citizens, and we naturally recoil at the thought of fascist and communist governments who have killed their own citizens by the millions.

Now Pilate as the Governor should have pronounced Jesus innocent – yet went on to crucify Him.  He found no justice, and was rejected by the very authority that should have pronounced Him innocent and set Him free.

The King was rejected by the law.

Jesus was rejected by His own disciples.  They had sworn to stand by Him, but Jesus in His warm compassion for them had warned them what was coming.  Right up to the end, He was telling them: This is what will happen – “Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered.  One of you will betray me.  Before the cock crows twice, you will have denied me three times.

And when it came to it, when Jesus was arrested in the garden, they scattered like a flock of sparrows that has seen a cat.

Judas came to betray Him.  And when Jesus met Him in the garden, he spoke some of the most poignant words in Scripture to him: “Friend, why are you here?”  Judas was a friend, who had lived with Jesus and the others for three years.  He knew why He had come, but He wanted to give him one last chance.

Peter followed on at a distance.  But he denied Jesus, saying he did not know Him.  And in the firelight, and the torchlight, his eye caught Jesus’ eye.  Peter, in that horrifying and sickening instant, knew what he done.  He could never be the same man again.  And Jesus knew that He was utterly alone and rejected, even by His own disciples.

Intensely alone.  Rejected by all.  He was a King without a people, yet about to save His people.  For that was why He was rejected by all, it was that He alone might go into battle with the enemies of God’s people, and that He alone, with no aid from man, could be victorious.  It was that He alone could bear the sins of God’s people, and suffer the dreadful effects, so that the people would not have to.

He was rejected by the religious leaders, by His own people, by the ruling authority and the law, by His own disciples, and finally, by God.

Jesus was rejected by God.

He cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  It was the cry of a derelict man, rejected by all, and deprived of the comfort of acceptance with God.  Jesus was a King rejected by all, and ultimately forsaken by God.  But a king who is redeeming His people, through this very rejection.

II.  Innocent

It was obvious to Pilate that Jesus was innocent.  A man like him would recognise a political insurgent when he saw one.  And the man that stood before him now wasn’t like any rebel he knew.

Pilate was wise to the schemes of the religious leaders.  He knew they were jealous of Jesus.  He knew they wanted to use him to get rid of Jesus.  He went about with his eyes open, and this had all the marks of an innocent man framed.

And then there was his wife.  She had had a dream that night and she thought it important enough to interrupt him with it in his official business.  “Have nothing to do with this innocent man.”  Innocent man – yes, but what could he do?

He declared Jesus innocent – yet still condemned Him to death.  Jesus was truly innocent.  He was innocent in Himself.  He was guilty of no sin.  It was not just that He was a good man, who had not done the things He was charged with, but He was the only man who ever lived who never sinned.  He met God’s standards in everything.  He even asked his enemies one time, in a tense situation, “which of you convicts me of sin?”  And none of them did.

There was a woman caught in the act of adultery once, whom they hauled up before Jesus.  She was guilty, guilty as sin, and open to the penalty of stoning to death.  “Let him who is without sin throw the first stone,” said Jesus.  An open invitation that no one took up.  The oldest, and wisest moved away first.

Are you wise enough to know that you are a guilty sinner?  How wise?  Enough to be one of the first to admit it?  Can you think of a sin that would stop you from throwing that first stone?  That sin is enough to damn you, and would do, if God had not provided His only Son, perfectly sinless and innocent to be your Saviour.  None of us is without sin.

Jesus could have thrown the first stone.  But He didn’t.  He was the only sinless human being who ever lived meeting God’s standards in everything.  But He came to save from sin, not to bring judgment on sin.

To be the sacrifice for sin, Jesus had to be perfect God and perfect man.  No ordinary human being could save us from sin, because only a sinless human being was good enough.  Jesus was innocent, not only of the crime of rebellion He was accused of, but He was innocent, full stop.  He was sinless.

III.  A Substitute

Jesus stood before Pilate as a King, rejected by all, yet innocent.  And thirdly, He was a substitute for a guilty man.

No more is known of the custom of releasing a prisoner at the time of the Passover.  The secular historians have omitted this detail, along with many others from their accounts.  But there can often be a gesture of “Good Will” by an occupying power, towards the population they rule.  And this is what it was, an attempt to win some favour with the Jews.  Pilate used it as an attempt to defuse a volatile situation, and a last ditch attempt to free a man he knew to be innocent.

The prisoner he picked was the notorious Barabbas.  He would give the crowd the choice between him and Jesus.  Everybody knew Barabbas.  Maybe everybody felt safe he was behind bars.  No one would mourn for him when he was executed, which was going to be soon.

Barabbas was a real criminal.  He was genuinely bad – really guilty.  He had no heart of gold beating beneath a rough exterior.  Just a hard heart of stone, that would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, that liked violence.  Surely, there would be no doubt whom the crowd would choose.

At this point, Jesus could have come quickly to His own defence, and seized the opportunity He was being given by Pilate.  He could have argued His own defence, and run rings round His opponents, as He had often done before.  He could have worked a miracle to get the crowd on His side.  He could have just walked free out of the place, by sheer strength of character, as He had done on previous occasions.  But He didn’t, He chose to stay, to be condemned, even be rejected and let Barabbas be the one who went free.

Now remember – Barabbas was a real criminal – he had no redeeming features.  No heart of gold, nothing to make him likeable.

But for him, Christ substituted Himself!  He let Barabbas go free, while He stayed to be put to death.  It was a substitution – He could have freed Himself.  He chose not to, so that Barabbas could be free.

Christ has substituted for us in just the same way.  We have real guilt, enough to damn us, but still Jesus refuses to go free for us.  He substitutes Himself for us.  We go free – He goes to death.  He is the innocent King, who was rejected by all His own people, by all the world, and even by God.  But He is a King who is killed for His own people, even the ones who were guilty of rejecting Him – and who saves His own people through His death.

CONCLUSION

“He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.”

This is not a simple transaction, as if He cancelled out our sin by taking them away from us, and having them Himself.  Being pierced for our transgressions means that He bore the guilt of our sin on the cross, so that God, His Father, judged and condemned the guilt in Jesus.  It meant a rejection by God, not just turning away from Jesus, but pouring His anger on Him.  Jesus drank to the dregs the anger of God, all of it, so there is none left over for us.

This is what Isaiah 53 tells us in the familiar words, and what the New Testament confirms.  Jesus was:

• Rejected – by God – for my sin;
• Innocent – of sin Himself – it was my sin that caused His pain and sorrow;
• A Substitute – my substitute. We are guilty – like Barabbas – we have no redeeming features before God. We deserve death ourselves.

In His death is our life!  Worship and adore Him!  Repent of the sin that caused His death.  Believe He died for you.  Do not turn your back on Him or His death.  Say yes to Him, to be your substitute.

Do not reject the King, who was rejected for you, and who proved He was a King by dying to save His people.

Ask yourself – He has done all this for me, what can I do for Him?

Say: I will love Him.  I will believe Him.  I will serve Him.

He is a King, once despised, rejected, though innocent, and passed over in favour of a common criminal.  But as the King of His people, He did this to save them.  He is a King.  Now serve Him.  Give your whole self to Him in service, as His freed man or woman.

Amen.