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Sunday, March 29, 2015

“Accidental Witness”



A Sermon Based Upon  Matthew 27: 45-54
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Sixth Sunday of Lent,   March 29, 2015

  "Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son!" (Mat 27:54 NRS)

A doctor examines a cowboy with back problems and asks if he’s had any recent accidents.
      ‘Nope,’ replies the cowboy.
‘That’s odd,’ says the doctor, ‘I thought a cowboy’s job was pretty dangerous.’
     ‘It sure is,’ replies the cowboy. ‘Last week I was kicked by a mule, thrown by a mustang, and bit by a snake.’ ‘And you don’t call those accidents?’ asks the doctor.
     ‘No, sir,’ replies the cowboy, ‘those varmints done it on purpose.’ http://manwalksintoajoke.com/accidents

Today we come to our final lesson around the cross which may be the most fascinating of all.   It is fascinating because it makes the cross look like an accident or a bad mistake, while we are also being told it’s all happening on purpose. 

If you think this is a rather strange way to put it, you need to read the story for yourself and consider all the other phenomena that Matthew tells us about.   We read that it’s noon, but there is ‘darkness over the whole land’.   Jesus has said he is God’s son, but now cries out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”   Jesus has claimed to ‘save others’, but he makes no effort whatsoever to save himself.    While being executed as a criminal, so he can’t cause any more trouble, all heaven breaks loose as the untouchable temple curtain is ripped in two and the earth shakes so violently that it splits rocks.   We are also told that tombs open up, so that some sleeping dead holy people are raised up, but surprisingly they don’t come out of their tombs until after Jesus’ own resurrection.  You just don’t make stuff like this up!  There are sure a lot of accidents happening, but they seem to be happening on purpose.

The last ‘accident’ around the cross is ‘accidental’ witness of the Roman centurion.   We can call this an accident because we can be sure that this centurion did not plan to see what he saw, nor say what he said.   What he saw was a ‘righteous (or innocent) man’ (Luk3 23.47) dying a most terrible death he should not have died---the cruel crucifixion of a criminal on the cross.     It was at this very moment that the Centurion came to say what no one would ever expect him to say; that this now dead, defeated, degraded man ‘truly was God’s Son!’   This was certainly not what you’d expect to hear a hardened solider of violence say.   Yet strangely enough, what we hear from him takes us straight to heart of the message of the cross.   This centurion is an ‘accidental’ witness inviting us to look directly into the deep, if not unfathomable, purposes of God.   

THE CROSS:  A LIFE TAKEN
What would we have seen, if we were this centurion, or one of his cohorts?   Mark’s gospel tells us that when the centurion watched ‘the way he breathed his last (breath)’ he spoke (15.39).   Certainly to watch anyone die is a moving, if not sobering experience.   But Matthew wants us to see more.  He wants us to see that it wasn’t just the sight of a dying man that triggers this witness, but it was also when they ‘saw the earthquake and what took place’ (54) and became terrified.   What they witnessed was quickly becoming less of an accident and more like something that was happening on purpose.

What do you see when you reflect upon the cross of Jesus Christ?   When as a college student, I spent a summer as a youth worker near Lake Lure, I was shown a place beside the road where the water ran into a rock and I was told that the hole was bottomless because no one had ever discovered how deep it was.  I was mystified and could help but stop by often to watch the water swirl down into the unfathomed abyss.  In much the same way, considering what this Centurion saw and said,  I am moved more by the mystery than any explanation.   Perhaps this is why the gospels give very little explanation but take us there to be witnesses ourselves.   The gospels are like a great vocal quartet singing: “Where you there, when they crucified my Lord…. Sometimes it makes me want to tremble, tremble, tremble.  Where you there…?”   It’s great for drama, but how could any of us have been there?   If you were, would you have trembled?

Three of the four gospels tell us the real drama began in ‘darkness’---a darkness that ‘came over the whole land’ (Mt 27:45).  This is more than a solar eclipse, heavy clouds, or as some have suggested, a violent sand storm.   The gospels want us to feel what is happening, not just see it.  The gospels take us to the cross so that we can feel the earth move, hear the jeering taunts, and watch this innocent person suffer and die.  Why do these most unique writings take us here to this awful, dreadful, God-forsaken place?  Who would want to watch anyone hang?    It is said years ago, in the old west, people used to pack their picnic baskets and take their families to watch a hanging as a social event.  In the absence of other social outlets, people would come together, spread their blankets on the ground, and watch the public hanging while children played and drank kool-aid.  Then, everyone would pack up and go home (As told by Carlyle Fielding Steward, III, in a sermon, “Hang Time” from Joy Songs, Trumpet Blasts, and Hallelujah Blasts,  CSS Press, 1997).

But who could find satisfaction is something as ugly as this?   Well, look at the people who were there.   Matthew tells us that besides those passing by, some of those who once listened to Jesus’ teaching came by just to watch Jesus die.  They used his own words to mock him: “You said you’d destroy the temples and build it back in three days…”    Others came to make fun of his plight as proof of his failure.  “He saved others, let him save himself”, they heckled.  The lack of an answer was reason enough to be glad he was dead.    

In watching such inhumanity, like that Centurion did, we might wonder why should we also be here?   Why should we join to watch this darkness overtake the light and listen to the jeers of those who are glad to see Jesus dying?   Do these gospels take us there just so we can politely pause to remember or invent our own theories about God’s purpose, or is there something else?   

Could it be that this story is still being told because this is not just something that happened once-upon-a-time, but this is something that still happens?  Luke’s Centurion says Jesus was ‘a righteous’ (KJV) or innocent (NRSV) person” (23:47).   In our world innocent people still suffer unjustly.  Good people are still taunted and mocked.   People who have power and money still do not want to be bothered.  People still stand back and watch evil take over.  Religious are still capable of being the most hateful and destructive in the name of God. 

Jesus was killed then, because Jesus is still being killed.   Jesus is killed when the majority demands its way no matter who gets hurt.  Jesus is killed every time disciples desert him.   Jesus is killed because the elite fear his call to holiness.  Jesus is killed because people don’t want to take responsibility for anything.   Jesus is killed, because ‘the people had nothing better to do.’ (Stanley Hauerwas).  The answer to who killed Jesus is that we all have killed him and still reject his way, his truth, and his life.  “He came to his own and they did would not receive him” (Jn. 1.11) is a saying that is still up-to-date?  Who really wants to have Jesus around? 

When Peter, Paul, Stephen, and the very first preachers preached the cross, they used the strongest language to call us all to tremble, because they of what the Centurion saw.   They preached: ‘This Jesus you crucified’ (Acts 2.36; 1 Thess. 2.14 f; Acts 7.52).  You cannot understand the cross without knowing how all human sin comes under divine judgment in the darkness of the cross.  

THE CROSS:  A LIFE GIVEN
This centurion and his cohorts are ‘terrified’ when they realize what has just happened, but their witness is not simply a word of fear or regret.    When the Centurion says “this was the Son of God,” he does not yet see what we can see, but he does see something.  He puts everything in past tense, saying ‘this was the Son of God” rather than ‘this is the Son of God’ because his observation is not yet faith, but he is rightly grappling with the facts right in front of him.   As an accidental witness, he is at the right place and the right time to see straight into the heart of God the gospels want us to see, not by accident, but this time on purpose.

So, what is God’s purpose being revealed in the death of Jesus?   Recently I read how a Methodist pastor was teaching a class on worship to young people and he sent them on a scavenger hunt in the sanctuary.  They were to look for all kinds of items that the church used in worship like hymnbooks, candles, musical instruments, stained-glass windows, a baptistery and a cross.   They found all these, but one child came back and counted 600 crosses, most of which were found on the front of their hymnbooks.  The pastor had only counted 8, including the one on top of the Christian Flag, but this child creatively found them on front of every hymnbook.  But this was not all, then they all remembered that a cross was on top of every offering envelope so that finally they reasoned that a thousand or more crosses were in that one sanctuary.   It was then that they all realized together that the Christian faith is a religion of the cross (From “What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be A Christian?”, by Marin Thielen, WJK Press, 2011, p. 113).

If the cross is the center, how do we move beyond merely observing the facts about his death to having saving faith in his death?   The first part of the answer, that we have already addressed, is that at the cross we must realize with this Centurion that Jesus was killed on the cross because he truly was God’s Son.   Jesus’s life was taken because he was who he said he was.   While we read that Jesus forgave those who did not know what they were doing, we must also realize that Jesus can only save those who realize what they did and what we still do.   This cross Jesus died so cruelly upon, reveals what we are all capable of doing to each other because we crucify the God who tells us the truth we don’t want to hear.

The other side to faith in the cross is that Jesus did not die only because the world wanted him dead, nor did Jesus die because God had to have him murdered in order to forgive us.   No, Jesus died to reveal the love God already has for us all so it is made clear once for all: “For God so loved that he gave his only son….”    This is why Jesus could not be our Savior until he was killed.   We could not know just how much God loves us until we realize that God will not stop loving us, even if it kills him, as it did.   God letting us kill him is a strange message that no one would make up, because it is true.  And this God who dies on the cross is the only kind of God who can save anybody, because he is the very God who gives his own life for the sake of love.   

THE CROSS:  GOD’S LOVE RECEIVED
Jesus gave his own life to reveal God’s love and forgiveness for us all because only dying love reveals the heart of God’s undying love in the message about the cross.   But we can’t receive this love as a saving love until we also realize just how much we still need love like this.   And how can we know God’s love will save us when the whole world is still not saved by it?   Here is where the apostle Paul comes in, who rightly said: “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.”  We can never convince everyone that the cross reveals God’s love, forgiveness and saving purpose, but those ‘who are being saved’ will do become convinced of God’s power to love.  But how will they know it?

The other day Teresa and I got a message from our German friend who is soon to retire from teaching English to German students in high school.  Teresa and just called her and had a long conversation on the phone, but the day after their conversation, she emailed back to tell us something that had just happened after her class. 
Before I tell you what happened, I need to remind you that this teacher teaches English in eastern Germany, where even less than 1% of the people have any affiliation with church at all.  

After her class was over, a certain student came up to and asked whether or not she was ‘religious’.   Our friend was taken by surprised with this personal question along this student’s curiosity, especially since the teacher had never mentioned her faith to this class. 
          “Yes, I am,  why do you ask?” our teacher friend responded.
          The student answered: “I can tell that you are a religious person because of who you are and how you teach.”
        After our friend told us this story, she thanked us again for bringing the kind of faith to her that her students could see, even without her ever having said a word.   I then asked Teresa to email our friend back to welcome her into the ‘accidental witness’ club.   I explained that like the centurion, she was accidently sharing the truth of Jesus by showing God’s love on purpose.  

This is the greatest witness to the cross, isn’t it?   It is not only when we talk about it, but it is also when we live the cross that the message comes through.   While people still need a preacher, the preacher’s message will have little impact without the ‘cloud of witnesses’ (Heb. 12:1) showing both by accident and on purpose, that the message of the cross is true.    Are you living proof, both by accident and on purpose, that the centurions words are true?  The world took Jesus’ life, while Jesus gave his life, and now we live his life, because “Truly, this was (and is) God’s Son!”  Amen!

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