"Who Is My Accuser?"

  

"Because the Sovereign Lord helps me I will not be disgraced. He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Who are my accusers? It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who will condemn me?"

 

"Then the whole assembly rose and led him to Pilate. And they began to accuse him. 'He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a King.' "

 

            It is now Holy Week, a time for us to consider the cross, to reflect on its meaning, to experience its power, to embrace the salvation of God. We all come to Holy Week with some years of experience. We are familiar with some Scripture, we know some hymns of the cross, and we carry with us some remembrance from years past. There have been times in our lives when the claims of the cross spoke clearly to us: a communion service, or the time of our conversion, or maybe one of the movies on the life of Christ, or a piece of music. We come again to the cross, not empty-handed but with some experience, some memory, some understanding. Mostly we feel that we need to be here again. We have not forgotten it, and yet we know we need to hear the Gospel again. For each time we come to Holy Week, the cross speaks to our hearts and fills us with the love of God.

            One of the elements that we bring with us to the cross is the background from the servant songs in Isaiah. Today, we read the third song, in Isaiah 50. These songs do not fit Jesus exactly; for example, his beard was not pulled out on the cross. But the songs bring a depth and meaning to what otherwise can appear to be a random and brutal execution. The song says that the Sovereign Lord helps and vindicates the Servant. The Servant lives in obedience to the Lord and so suffers, but will be saved. We need to know that when we come to the cross.

            The Servant of the Lord in Isaiah says, "Who are my accusers?" The clear meaning there is that it is foolish to accuse or condemn the Servant of the Lord. For that would mean to oppose the Sovereign Lord.

            So today we consider the trial of Jesus. The Son of God, the servant who suffers in obedience, is accused of crimes, is put on trial, is condemned to death on a cross. Who are his accusers? Who looks at him and does not see the Sovereign Lord present to vindicate? Luke names many accusers: an assembly of leaders (elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law), Pilate, Herod and his guards, a crowd of people, soldiers, and criminals also being crucified. There are lots of accusers. We might find ourselves there.

            The two who have the most to do with Jesus' crucifixion are Pilate and Herod. We happen to know a bit about them from history. Herod the Great was given the title "King of the Jews" by the Romans, but none of his sons could ever live up to it or win enough trust from Rome to receive it. Herod Archelaus was removed from Judea and replaced by a Roman, Pontius Pilate.

At the time of Jesus, Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas. He was a shallow and morally depraved man, and no one respected him. He appears to have been in Jerusalem for Passover along with the pilgrims from Galilee. This is the one Pilate sends Jesus to meet. He ridiculed and mocked Jesus and sent him back to Pilate. This Herod is the King who was given authority to judge Jesus, the Son of God.

            Pilate ruled in Judea from 26 to 36 A.D., during which time there were at least ten revolts or major protests against him, until finally he was recalled to Rome. N.T. Wright says the scholarly opinion of him ranges from "he was an unmitigated disaster" to "he was not without very serious faults."

            This is what the ancient historian Philo writes about Pilate: "He was naturally inflexible, a blend of self-will and relentlessness. He put the peace at risk by bringing a statue of the emperor into Jerusalem, not so much to honor Tiberius as to annoy the multitudes. He finally removed it out of fear that they would expose the rest of his conduct as governor by stating in full the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injuries, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty." It was this man who was charged with justice in the trial of Jesus.

            These two are accusers of Jesus, and they find no charge against him. They could have set Jesus free, and yet the trial continued. In the end, neither Pilate nor Herod pronounces judgment on Jesus; the crowd does, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Pilate simply gives in to their will. He is ultimately responsible. He has the authority. He wants to save Jesus. First he offers to punish Jesus, to whip him. He tries to satisfy the crowd with Jesus blood. But they want the criminal Barabbas released, and Jesus put in his place. Darrell Bock writes, "Jesus dies in the place of an unjust person. And Barabbas lives because Jesus dies."

Romans 5:6: "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

            So here is the point. In this trial before evil men, Jesus has to die. Everyone realizes there is a price to pay, but no one understands that it is the price for sin. Pilate's sins, Herod's sins, the sins of Barabbas, the sin of the leaders – there is a price for it all.

            This spring we have been reading Timothy Keller's book, "The Reason for God," in adult Sunday School. He begins his chapter on the cross by asking "Why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn't God just forgive us?" His answer, which is not the whole answer, is that real forgiveness always involves costly suffering, and real love always involves a personal exchange, sharing or taking the place of another. For instance, you cannot really love your children and still do everything you want to do in your life. Having children means giving up some of your personal hopes, dreams, goals and activities for their sake. You exchange your desires for their good. If you want to help someone in need, you will share some of the danger they are in. To listen well requires energy; it is exhausting because you enter their struggle. John Stott writes, "The essence of sin is we human beings substituting ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us."

            This is what Keller says about forgiveness. Real forgiveness means that you bear the cost of someone's misdeed against you. When we are seriously wronged, we want the perpetrator to suffer in some way. We withhold relationship or we tell others what they did or we say hurtful things to them.

            But forgiveness means refusing to make the other person pay for what they did. We forego the consolation of inflicting pain on them. We refuse to take vengeance on the wrongdoer, especially in our inner fantasies. We do not rehearse what we would really like to say to them. Such forgiveness is costly, and it is painful. Someone offends you and you keep talking to them, you stay in relationship, you don't avoid them until they have made it right. In forgiveness, you bear the pain. Then you are free to confront, in order to protect others or to move them to repair their relationships. True forgiveness is costly. So, Keller writes, "Should it surprise us, then that when God determined to forgive us rather than punish us for all the ways we have wronged him and one another, that he went to the cross in the person of Jesus Christ and died there? Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive sin? There was a debt to be paid, and God himself paid it in full."

            We come to the cross to find ourselves. We also in many ways join in the trial of Jesus. We too realize there is a debt to be paid. At the cross we see that it is our debt. We see that in Christ, God refuses to make us pay for what we have done.

"I will sing of my redeemer and his wondrous love to me;

On the cruel cross he suffered, from the curse to set me free.

Sing, O sing of my Redeemer, with his blood he purchased me;

On the cross he sealed my pardon, paid the debt, and made me free."

      Amen.