Responses to Jesus I: Enemies

I was preaching at a church this past weekend, Palm Sunday, and was given five texts to preach from in 10 minutes.  It was an Episcopal church, they cover a lot of text in a short amount of time.  Efficient.  Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 19:28-40; 22:14-23:56.  Only 148 verses.  About Jesus’ Passion and death.  In ten minutes.  No problem.

Now, to be fair, they told me I could just focus on one aspect, so being a good Old Testament scholar, I skipped the Old Testament (and Paul), and focused on the gospel, of Luke, in this case.  So that eliminated 21 verses; only 127 left.

I then decided to reflect on the question of how do people respond to Jesus, and I’ll divide my 10 minute sermon into 3 short blogs.  Today, we focus on how Jesus’ enemies respond to him during his final hours.

• The biggest question we have to face in this life is…
  1. How do we respond to Jesus?
  2. Over the course of his ministry people either loved or hated Jesus, which sounds a bit like the presidential candidates.
  3. But as Jesus’ ministry winds down during Passion Week, the responses to him shift from being both positive and negative, to being exclusively negative.

• How do Jesus’ enemies respond to him?
  1. One, they mock and beat Jesus (Luke 22:63-65; 23:11-12, 35-38).
     1. In three separate incidents, the solders, the chief priests, King Herod, and even one of the criminals hanging on a cross next to him take turns mocking and beating Jesus.
  2. Two, they interrogate and accuse Jesus (Luke 22:66-71; 23:1-10).
     1. In three separate incidents, the chief priests, Pilate, and King Herod interrogated and accused Jesus of perverting the nation and instigating a rebellion.
  3. Three, they crucify and kill Jesus (Luke 23:26-46).
     1. Three times the crowd tells Pilate to Crucify Jesus (Luke 23:21, 23), which was exactly what the chief priests were hoping for.
  4. Mocking, accusing, killing…that’s how Jesus’ enemies respond.

Jesus’ enemies are brutal, even vicious to him, before they kill him.  And we see a pattern of their brutality being repeated in threes.

Jesus wasn’t surprised by any of this.  As we read through the gospels, he predicted it all, and yet he still went ahead, enduring the cross, despising the shame, for the joy set before him (Heb. 12:1).

Next we focus on Jesus’ friends.  

Image: By Albrecht Dürer – http://www.conncoll.edu/visual/Durer-prints/smallpass2.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1005637