Hands of Hypocrisy.

 

Sermon for 4^th midweek Lent, March 10, 2021

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.

Mark 14:55-65  ⁵⁵The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for testimony against Jesus in order to put him to death, but they did not find any.  ⁵⁶Many testified falsely against him, but their testimonies did not agree.  ⁵⁷Some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: ⁵⁸“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’”  ⁵⁹Yet even on this point, their testimony did not agree.  ⁶⁰The high priest stepped forward and questioned Jesus, “Have you no answer?  What is this they are testifying against you?”  ⁶¹But Jesus was silent and did not answer anything.  Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”  ⁶²“I am,” Jesus said.  “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”  ⁶³The high priest tore his robes and said, “Why do we need any more witnesses?  ⁶⁴You have heard the blasphemy!  What do you think?”  They all condemned him as being worthy of death.  ⁶⁵Then some began to spit on him.  They covered his face and struck him with their fists, saying, “Prophesy!”  The guards also took him and beat him. (EHV)

Hands of Hypocrisy.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

            Oh, what a show the devil puts on.  It’s like actors in a play—when they are really good at their part, you see those actors and actresses not as they are in real life, but as if they inhabit the character they play.  The devil was a really good actor in the Garden of Eden.  He convinced Eve and Adam that God was the bad guy, that the Lord was withholding something good from His people, and that the devil just wanted to help them.  In our text this evening, we meet some more great actors, who wore the masks of God-fearing, righteous men, but oh their Hands of Hypocrisy.

People have wondered what motivated the members of the Sanhedrin as they put Jesus on trial.  Some say they were politically motivated in their desire to destroy Jesus.  The men of the Sanhedrin ruled their area of Palestine with much authority granted to them by their Roman overlords.  The members of that Jewish ruling council didn’t want to lose their lucrative and powerful positions.  In fact, in planning this arrest, the high priest, Caiaphas, had berated his colleagues, “You know nothing at all.  You do not even consider that it is better for us that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (John 11:49-50)  Rather than risk Rome putting down any perceived rebellion, which might put their positions at risk, those priests and leaders thought to eliminate that danger by eliminating Jesus.

A second possible motivation was religious.  The Pharisees, especially, prided themselves on obeying the laws as they saw them.  Some of that was the Mosaic law, but they went further.  In their work-righteous assumptions, they imagined that they did much more than regular folk to serve the God of their forefathers.  The truth, however, is that the bulk of their obedience was only a show.  It looked good on the outside, but inwardly, they were as hateful, scheming, and deceitful as the worst heathen. 

What really got their goat, however, is that Jesus publicly branded them as hypocrites, such as when He warned them, “Woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You travel the sea and the land to make one convert, and then when he is converted, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” (Matthew 23:15)  More infuriating for those works-righteous pretenders, Jesus, this carpenter from Nazareth, had the audacity to tell them that to be saved they must believe in Him.  He told them, “You are of this world.  I am not of this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.  For if you do not believe that I am the one, you will die in your sins.” (John 8:23-24)  For every time Jesus indicated that He is the Son of God, they jealously plotted His end.

A good case can be made for each of these motivations, but perhaps the greatest motivation was a personal, family hatred of the Lord.  Jesus understood what was driving those men.  He knew they were not members of His kingdom and though they pretended to be children of Abraham, Jesus had explained why they rejected Him when He told them, “You belong to your father, the Devil, and you want to do your father’s desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning and did not remain standing in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” (John 8:44)

Because Jesus’ enemies didn’t believe in Him, they remained under the devil’s deceptive control.  As Paul would later write, “No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3)  Apart from faith worked by the word of our Savior, no one can believe in Him.  All of this should serve as a warning for us.  How often don’t we face the danger of these three motivations to reject Jesus?  As a political motivation, it could be the opposition of our neighbors who refuse the Bible’s teachings and enjoy mocking those of us who do believe.  That peer pressure might get us to question reality and turn us against the Savior who loves us enough to die for us.

Perhaps an even greater danger for us is the religious motivation.  Our old sinful nature loves to imagine how well we obey God.  It takes a perverse pleasure in comparing ourselves to our neighbors.  It is always easy to find some heretic, or criminal, or just a poor soul that stumbles who makes us look pretty good in our own eyes, especially if we fail to hold our own sins and weaknesses up to the mirror of God’s law. 

However, as it was for those men, the devil’s influence is obviously the most dangerous threat for us.  Satan still tells the same lies he has always told, and people still listen.  It can be subtle lies.  Suggestions like: God isn’t being fair to you; it doesn’t matter if you come to church; God doesn’t need your praise; or He just wants to use your money to build fancy buildings or make the preachers fat.  More insidious, though, is when the old evil foe convinces us that we are good enough and strong enough to get by without God’s help.  Why worry about what God says when we seem to be doing fine on our own?  Oh yes, if we are honest, we can identify our own hypocrisies. 

Those seventy-one men that ruled on Jesus’ life, and all the servants and attendants that assisted them, were playing the parts their demonic master had assigned them.  Some tried to come up with accusations that could be used against Jesus.  Many lies were told that night, but no two could agree on anything, so there was nothing that could be used in court. 

Finally, an exasperated Caiaphas took the matter into his own hands.  Remember, this man made his living and staked his reputation on pretending to be a faithful believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Like an actor on a stage, the high priest pretended only a desire to protect his people, yet with Jesus’ cooperation and in accord with the Father’s will, Caiaphas asked the question that would set Jesus up to die.

“The high priest stepped forward and questioned Jesus, ‘Have you no answer?  What is this they are testifying against you?’  But Jesus was silent and did not answer anything.  Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’  ‘I am,’ Jesus said.  ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’” 

Caiaphas had already understood that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and the promised Messiah.  He just wouldn’t believe it.  Caiaphas was the leading religious teacher of Israel’s people, a man who knew the Scriptures, who portrayed himself as a faithful God-fearing leader.  Yet, he despised the very Savior God had promised to send into the world for his sins.  In doing so, Caiaphas rejected the prophecies, the miracles, and Jesus’ own words.  So, imagine the high priest’s glee at getting the response he desired for the wrong reason.  To be sure, Caiaphas kept up his sham of piety as he expressed shock at Jesus’ truthful answer.  “The high priest tore his robes and said, ‘Why do we need any more witnesses?  You have heard the blasphemy!  What do you think?’  They all condemned him as being worthy of death.”

Hands of Hypocrisy voted to kill the Son of God.  The same hands that had often been lifted up in prayer to the Holy One of Israel were now raised against Him.  “Then some began to spit on him.  They covered his face and struck him with their fists, saying, ‘Prophesy!’  The guards also took him and beat him.”  If we now allow self-righteousness into our hearts, we might be tempted to think that we would never be so hypocritical, but don’t be so sure of yourself.  St. John later wrote, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)  Every time we sin against God, every time we don’t trust Him completely, we too vote against His love.

Yet, we have a Savior in whom there was never anything false.  Jesus was always exactly who He claims to be, and He always lived exactly as His Father desires.  The Man, Jesus Christ, was in that place and position of weakness, because it was God’s will that His Son, Jesus, should suffer and die on our behalf.  Through Isaiah, God had prophesied, “He was taken away without a fair trial and without justice, and of his generation, who even cared?  So, he was cut off from the land of the living.  He was struck because of the rebellion of my people.” (Isaiah 53:8)

Our heavenly Father used the hypocrisy and wickedness of those men, and others like them, so that Jesus could carry out our redemption and the reconciliation between us and God.  Jesus willingly endured the wicked treatment He didn’t deserve, so that you and I will never have to pay the price for our sins.  The men with Hands of Hypocrisy thought they were saving themselves, yet God used their foolishness to bring salvation to the world. 

St John wrote in his letter, “If we walk in the light, just as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)  When those hypocritical actors carried out their devious schemes, they were doing only what God had known all along they would do, so God used them to move His Son to the cross, so that Jesus’ blood and righteousness would cover you and me.  Amen.

May God be gracious to us and bless us.  May his face shine upon us and keep us in His mercy.  Amen.