Ash Wednesday – March 9, 2011

Psalm 110:1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

Psalm 110:2 The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies.

Psalm 110:3 Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth.

There were many things about Jesus’ life on earth that were probably not as we might first expect. We would expect that God would arrive on earth in majesty, but he came in humility. We might expect that God would be born the son of a king, but he was born of a virgin who was engaged to a carpenter.

Even as Jesus’ death drew near, one could say it was ironic that the things for which Jesus was ultimately convicted of, were things that were true. Jesus was accused of being something that he really was. And in each case Jesus answered those accusations with a simple, “Yes, it is as you say.”

Tonight we see that the truths Jesus stood behind were prophesied long before his trial in one of the psalms that portray our Savior’s passion. To use the words of our Savior within the passion, we can say that Psalm 110 shows us that, yes, it was as they said. Jesus, that man, was God; and Jesus, the so-called “criminal,” was King.

The outcome of Jesus’ trial was in many ways determined before it even began. The Jewish leaders were not going to be satisfied until they had found something against Jesus that was worthy of the death penalty. So serious were they, in fact, that they actively went out and sought false testimony against Jesus so he would have to be put to death. The trouble was that the accusers couldn’t find two false witnesses to agree with one another. Finally, the high priest decided to confront Jesus with this statement: “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Matthew 26:63).

The high priest’s statement is not born from faith. It was not as if the high priest was hoping with eager anticipation that Jesus might be the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior, so that he might believe in him. No, these were words of unbelief. Caiaphas wanted Jesus to answer yes because then he could accuse him of blasphemy, a crime punishable by death. Caiaphas assumed a yes answer to be blasphemy because he considered Jesus only a mere human being, and for a mere human being to claim to be God was a direct assault on the majesty and authority of God.

The thing is, Caiaphas was exactly right. It was as he said. Jesus, that man standing before him was the divine Son of God - God himself. Jesus had made this claim throughout his ministry. His first sermon in Nazareth had clearly implied that Jesus considered himself the Messiah whom God had promised through the mouth of Isaiah.

And maybe the Jewish religious leaders would have accepted Jesus or at least let him be if he had left his Messianic claims on a purely earthly level. After all, many of them were waiting for a human messiah who would free them from the oppression of the Romans. But in the minds of the religious leaders Jesus went too far when he explained and preached that, as the Messiah, he was not just a human being but also God.

Jesus points that out by using the words of Psalm 110. On one occasion, Jesus asked the religious leaders point blank, “ ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’ ‘The son of David,’ they replied. He said to them, ‘How is it then that David . . . calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” If then David calls him “Lord,” how can he be his son?’ ” (Matthew 22:42-45). The implications of Jesus words, based on David’s own words from the psalm, were inescapable. If the Messiah was only a human son of David, then why would David call him Lord? But David does call him Lord! That means the Messiah must be greater than a mere human son of David; he must also be the Son of God. David, who never saw Jesus, understood better than the religious leaders before whom Jesus stood. There was no blasphemy. The man Jesus was God. It was as they said.

One would think, with all the evidence that the Scriptures and history provide us, that Jesus’ claim to be divine would no longer meet such enmity. But it does. Some will hold him up as a great teacher; some will say he’s a good example to follow – but that’s where they stop.

And the finger can be pointed at us too. Few, if any of us, would deny Jesus’ divinity with our lips, but our hearts condemn us. Careless and flippant uses of Jesus’ name in our casual and often cursing conversations are no way to express our belief in Jesus’ divinity. Lack of trust or even anger at God in the midst of crises is no way to tell others that we think Jesus is divine. Whenever we make something else more important that our Savior and his Word we sin and in effect attack Jesus divinity. A bimonthly worship routine is no way of letting Jesus know that you think he is divine.

But then remember, dear friends, why it is that Jesus is the divine Messiah. The man Jesus is also the Christ, the Son of the Living God, for one purpose and one purpose alone—to take away the sins of the world; yes your sins and mine. If Jesus had said, “No, I am not the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I am merely one human descendant of David,” then we would still be in our sins, and hell would be our eternal home. But because it was as they had said, because Jesus was the divine Messiah and therefore David’s Lord, because this man was God, because he went to the cross to pay for the sins of the entire world - we have a Savior who truly saved us from our sins.

Now, these Jewish religious leaders may have been spiritually dull but they were politically perceptive. They knew that only the Romans could put someone to death, but they also knew that accusing Jesus of blasphemy would be meaningless in the Roman court, so they concocted a new accusation: “Jesus claims to be a king and is therefore a rebel and a threat to Caesar.” They brought him to Pilate and Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, and for the second time during his trials, Jesus answered, “Yes, it is as you say.” How ironic, it was as they had said—this “criminal” was a king.

Jesus had already hinted at his kingship when he told the Sanhedrin, “In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). Those words bear a striking resemblance to the words of David in our psalm, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth.”

Jesus didn’t look like much of a king standing there bound before the courts. What king would offer no defense for himself? What king would have no army to come to his aid? What king would let himself be beaten and humiliated? But then again, Jesus never did look much like a king. He was born in a barn; he lived in obscurity most of his life; and his closest followers were fishermen. It takes the words written by David to show us that things are not as they appear: “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ ” Even before Jesus’ enemies were defeated, God the Father had invited him to sit at his right hand. Sitting at the right hand is a position of power and authority. In other words, what we see with our eyes—a humble and humiliated defendant—is different than what Jesus actually is—a King who wields the power and authority of God himself.

We see little glimpses of that in Jesus’ life: the angels’ song on Christmas, commanding the weather and driving out demons, healing the sick and raising the dead. But the greatest display of Jesus’ divine power was right in front of the Sanhedrin and Pilate—his humble submission to his Father’s will that he should die for the sins of the world. Jesus was willing to suffer; was willing to be condemned to die on a cross; was willing to be forsaken by his Father, breathe his last and give up his spirit; he was willing to rise to life three days later because, by those actions, Jesus the King would make all his enemies a footstool for his feet. In that suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus shattered the power of the devil, sin and death. If only the Sanhedrin had listened to David, they would have believed in their hearts what their eyes could not see—it was as they said, this “criminal” was King.

But neither Pilate nor the Jewish leaders believed Jesus to be King. But the time is coming when all those who side with the enemy will submit to Jesus’ rule. In fact even the enemy himself will be forced to acknowledge Jesus as King. Paul says to the Philippians, “Therefore God exalted him [Jesus] to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11) It won’t be willing submission, but all will have to confess that it was as they had said.

When that day comes, it will be too late. That day presents no one with second chances. When David writes about Jesus’ victory over his enemies, centuries before it would even happen, he is sounding a warning. When Jesus announces the same victory, before the Sanhedrin, he is sounding a warning. The warning is: Repent! Flee from foolish notions about taking Jesus seriously later. Run away from loving this world. Stop ignoring the King’s offering of grace.

The bad news is that we often like spending time in the enemy’s camp. Sometimes taking Jesus seriously is just too inconvenient for what King Me wants to do. Sometimes the pleasures this world has to offer seem more appealing than the tribulations King Jesus gives me in this life. All the time I lack the power to respond to Jesus’ call to repentance on my own.

The good news is that Jesus came to suffer and die to defeat our sinful nature, crush the head of Satan, and undo the world’s stranglehold. The good news is that King Jesus ascended into heaven because he promised to send his Holy Spirit from there, who by his power makes us willing to respond to Jesus’ call. We are part of the other camp under Jesus’ rule. Now we gladly bow the knee to Jesus. Now we gladly engage in the battle of faith. On the Last Day we will bend the knee in honor not in horror, for Christ the King will take us triumphantly to our eternal home in heaven.

You and I can speak confidently as subjects of Christ’s kingdom only because Jesus first waged the battle for us as individuals. He waged the battle for us in front of the Sanhedrin and in front of Pilate—unwilling to give in to the temptation to make his power visible and stop the nonsense. Jesus waged the battle on the cross—unwilling to give in to the temptation to come down from the cross and save himself, instead willing to bear the cross and save us. Jesus didn’t just want to be King, he wanted to be your King.

We don’t know if any of the religious leaders who stood as Jesus’ accusers ever came to realize the irony of their accusations. Our hope is that some did. But for us, let us be confident that as we enter the Lenten Season, it was as they said: Jesus is true God and he is our King. Amen.