“A Double Dose of Joe”

Second Presbyterian Church

Roanoke, Virginia

March 9, 2008

"A Double Dose of Joe"

Luke 23:44-56

George C. Anderson

Though much of the contemporary American Church is forgetting it, with its desire to make Christianity more user-friendly, entertaining, and supportive of one’s self-esteem and personal goals, the central significance of the cross cannot be understated. Paul says we "preach Christ and him crucified." When he gives us the Words of Institution for the sacrament of The Lord’s Supper, he says, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink from this cup, you do proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes."

It would be a mistake to think Paul proclaims the cross over the resurrection, the crucified Christ over the risen Christ. No, the resurrection means everything to Paul and to God’s Church. But we do not really see the risen Christ until we see the marks in his hands. We do not understand what it means that Christ is risen until we, in our awe, and in a holy shame that leads to a life-shaping gratitude born of joy, understand what it means that Christ was executed on the cross. The triumph of God cannot be seen anywhere else than in the powerful and redeeming love of a dying Savior.

For this reason, I tend to pull Good Friday into the end of Lent. No sermon is preached at our Good Friday Service- unless you somehow understand how a powerful sermon can be preached through music and silence. I am not preaching next Sunday; Palm Sunday. Our Edmunds Lecturer, Greg Jones, will be here, and there will be no better way to begin observing Holy Week, then attending his lectures on forgiveness.

Still, I will not be preaching. And so, today, 12 days before Good Friday, I ask you to kneel before the cross, and then try to raise your heads to see a Savior dying there.

Then I want us to consider a good man who gives us a glimpse of how it might be possible to stand back up and leave the scene with some sense of hope and purpose.

Listen for the Word of God in the reading of Luke 23, beginning with verse 44:

^{44It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, ⁴⁵while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. ⁴⁶Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, he breathed his last. ⁴⁷When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, "Certainly this man was innocent." ⁴⁸And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. ⁴⁹But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
^{50Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, ⁵¹had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. ⁵²This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. ⁵³Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. ⁵⁴It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. ⁵⁵The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. ⁵⁶Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.}}

Who said that?

It is dark and hard to see, but we heard the voice. We know who said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Who could have missed that, fixated as we were on the dying body, listening as we were for what he might say as last words?

When we enter the Holy of Holies that is this passage, we, who sit in this sanctuary in Roanoke, Virginia, do not join those who mock Jesus or have come for the sport of watching someone die. And we do not join with those who stand in judgment over this execution, enjoying the death in the ignorant belief that it is deserved…as if any execution should ever be enjoyed, no matter the crime.

At least I don’t think we belong in that crowd, though part of us might; that part of us that would watch video clips of people shamed or humiliated; or that part of us that delights in stories of revenge. But most of us, I think, or most of what we are, I think,

belong more with the crowd of those who cannot believe a good and righteous man sould end up dying on a cross like this. We are scandalized by a world that would bring about such a thing, and we are ashamed.

We are ashamed because we know there are sins of commission (wrongs committed) and sins of omission (wrongs that come of doing nothing). If we have studied the Gospels enough, and studied ourselves enough, we know that in some way we have a part in the tragedy of a righteous man crucified by an unrighteous community. More for what we have not done in the face of injustice and need, than what we have done to create and foster injustice and need, we are among those who find it hard to look at the cross.

While standing with the crowd who is scandalized and ashamed, we have been fixated on the dying man, both looking and looking away in turn. We hope against realistic hope for there to be a rescue by someone else (angels perhaps), or a change of heart by the powers that be. While hoping always knowing the end of this story even as it is being played out before us; and certainly listening. Yes, we heard Jesus say those words of trust that amaze and will eventually encourage us, despite the shame we bear:

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

The words that catch us completely by surprise do not fall from the cross but rise up from its foot. The language is Latin and the accent is Italian. (Actually, a Roman centurion can be of a variety of nationalities, but the point is that the voice is not of a fellow Jew.) The voice is of a Gentile, an outsider, and most amazingly, a member of the company whose job it is to carry out the order of the State and crucify this criminal. In Luke’s telling, what the centurion says is, “Surely that man was righteous.” The translation I read earlier said “innocent,” but the word in Greek is δίκαιος which is best translated as “righteous.”

Certainly, innocence is part of what the centurion is saying, but he is saying more than that. Not only is Jesus innocent of what he was executed for, but the centurion has decided he is also a good man.

Notice what happens shortly thereafter: A man called Joseph of Arimathea enters into the scene. Did you notice how Joseph is described? He is described as a good and righteous man; the word; “δίκαιος” again is used. This good and righteous man is a member of the Sanhedrin, and yet he disagrees with how the Sanhedrin cooperated in this travesty. Earlier, Luke reported that the body of Sanhedrin “all shouted together, “‘Away with this fellow!’" but Luke now makes clear that this member of the Sanhedrin did not join in that shout.

Joseph puts his standing with the Sanhedrin, and even his life, at risk by going to Pilate and requesting that Jesus’ body be turned over to him. The Romans make it a practice not to turn over the body of a crucified criminal to family or supporters. They leave the body to rot as an example. However, Joseph is a member of the council who had first brought Jesus to Pilate, and Jesus was one whom Pilate was never convinced of guilt. Pilate allows Joseph to retrieve the body himself, and have it placed in his own tomb.

Joseph makes room in his grave for Jesus. He adopts Jesus into his death, just like an earlier Joseph adopted Jesus at his birth into his life. This is narrative theology and Luke is communicating something in story that Paul communicates more directly.

In Philippians, Paul puts it this way:

"Jesus did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped."

Jesus emptied himself into us, becoming one of us. He was God taking our humanity into himself. And because God in Jesus did that, "It is no longer I who lives."

It is no longer my righteousness that reigns, for my sense of righteousness was leading me on a path of harm and revenge. Did you see the article in Friday’s paper? It was horrible: a gunman walked into a seminary in Jerusalem and opened fire. Eight seminarians were killed, and others wounded. Did you notice how other seminarians reacted? They gathered outside the library and chanted over and over again: "Death to Arabs!"

Who could blame them? It is a chant out of the righteous rage of victims. One might even spot Saul in the crowd-the Saul before he became Paul, before Jesus stopped him in his righteous tracks-yelling, "Death to Christians!"

But will that kind of response lead to the righteousness of the Kingdom of God they had been studying in that seminary? Paul says it is no longer my righteousness that lives but God’s kind of righteousness living in me. In saying this, Paul is giving up all his claims to righteousness. Now it is God’s kind of righteousness, seen in Jesus, that is living in him.

This claim can sound esoteric, but let’s remember where that goodness and righteousness is seen. It is seen most clearly at the cross, illumined brightly in darkness, with its life-giving power bestowed in a death. The goodness and righteousness of God is seen in sacrificial love that works for the reconciliation of the world. The centurion knew he had participated in a wrongful death, and said so. His confession, I think, as Jesus-like righteousness now growing in him. It was a selfless confession of sin.

Thirty-three years before, Joseph of Nazareth learned that Mary was pregnant, and it was not his child. He heard her sing of how this one to be born will be born for the lowly and those of poor estate. And so Joseph decided to take care of this child and adopt the one, who would one day grow to take care of others. His adoption, I think, was God’s righteousness growing in him. It was a selfless adoption of another as a child of God.

Joseph of Arimathea knew that Jesus did not deserve his death, and so he selflessly risked his life, and shared his grave. Do you remember how, at Jesus’ birth, Mary wrapped Jesus in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger? Did you hear how, after Jesus died, Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Jesus in linen cloths, and laid him in his tomb?

His burying Jesus was, I think, Jesus kind of righteousness growing in him.

Francis of Assisi, grew up as the fun loving son of a wealthy father, and a party-loving mother. But, a serious illness awakened young Francis to the world’s needs. And so, he got married. He married Lady Poverty. He preached, taught, and lived among the poor, the outcast and the sick. He didn’t choose poverty for poverty’s sake. He didn’t believe in that. But he emptied himself among the poor, because he wanted them to know what he believed Christ had done for him. His doing so, I think, was Jesus’ righteousness growing in him.

Oscar Romero was a conservative priest in El Salvador, who was named bishop with the expectation that he would be quiet about state injustices. He wasn’t. He saw the corruption and saw how the poor suffered, and he spoke out. For that he was assassinated, while standing in front of the table where Christ’s death is remembered. He died like Jesus, I think, because Jesus’ righteousness was growing in him.

In the 1960s, a Presbyterian minister and his wife in Mississippi pulled a stunt like that of Joseph of Arimathea. Their church almost fired a nursery worker on trumped up charges, because they discovered she was an officer in the local NAACP. She resigned because she didn’t want to cause discord in the church. The minister and his wife went against many of the church of which they were a part, and hired the woman to help with their home and children. Bringing her into their home resulted from Jesus bringing them into his, and was, I think, a result of Jesus’ righteousness was growing in them.

In our church, there was Judge Fitzpatrick. He remained on the circuit court, and sentenced alcoholics to meet with him every Thursday night. There was Mrs. Macy, serving all those meals. There was Dr. and Mrs. Walter Michael, who started that Sunday School class for children in the neighborhood where they believed the child lived who stole their son Johnny’s bike. There are all those in the church today who give of themselves, so that others can be helped. It was, and is, I think, Jesus’ righteousness growing in them… and us.

Goodness, I even think that when we see those who do not claim to be Christian;like Ghandi, for instance, giving of themselves sacrificially so that the world will be a more grace-filled place. That is, I think, God’s righteousness we see revealed in Jesus, working in them. After all, the centurion and Joseph of Arimathea do not witness a resurrection. They witness a crucifixion. In how they respond to a death; not to a rising, but a dying. We see Jesus’ righteousness already resurrecting within them. It is the power of sacrificial love that cannot be killed, because that sacrificial love is God himself. It is the power of the cross. That is, I think, the heart of the Gospel.

So, kneel down before the cross. Then, force yourself to look up to see a savior dying. It will be one of the most awful and beautiful sights you’ll ever see.