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"Sentence is now being passed on this world; now the prince of this world is to be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself." With these words, says St. John, Jesus indicated the kind of death he would die. Why did Jesus die? The Scriptures provide a variety of answers to this question. Some of what we read tells us that Jesus died voluntarily. At his baptism, Jesus voluntarily identifies himself with a sinful and dying world, and the evangelist John later reports that Jesus insisted that no one takes his life from him, but that he lays down his life of his own accord. At the same time the Scriptures also seem to say that Jesus died because it was necessary that he die, that it was necessary in order to fulfill the Scriptures, necessary, in other words, because it was God's will. The servant of God "will bear the sin of many," says the prophet Isaiah, "and he will make intercession for their transgressions" because "it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, for "the Lord makes his life a guilt offering." We just heard the author of the Letter to the Hebrews say that no one, not even Jesus, presumes to be a high priest on his own. Being high priest, he reminds us, being priest of any kind, is not a right; it is by the calling and will of the Father. And the prophet Jeremiah lends support for the case of necessity with when he says that "the time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel, a covenant for the forgiveness of their wickedness and sin," a word which Jesus seems to recall, centuries later in that Upper Room in Jerusalem, when Jesus says to his disciples that "the time is now here. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you, "the covenant promised long ago for the forgiveness of sins." Over and over again, Jesus seems to have confirmed the necessity and inevitability of his death. "The appointed time is approaching," he says repeatedly, "the time when I will be with you no longer." And several times, Jesus speaks of his passion in advance in words like these: "Don't you know that it must happen this way, that the Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men, and will suffer and be killed, and will rise again?" So, why did Jesus die? It seems that Jesus died because it was necessary for him to die; it was part of God's plan. Or because Jesus himself chose to die. Or both. But there is another level to the story as well, our level. Why did Jesus die? Matthew lays the blame on Pilate and the leaders of the people. He says it was because of envy, or jealousy, that Jesus died. He says that Pilate knew that it was out of envy of Jesus' popularity with the people that the Jews and their high priests and leaders had handed Jesus over to him. But why were they envious? Well, certainly Jesus presented the leaders of the people with a challenge. At the very least, Jesus was an irregular. A rabbi, his disciples said. But he had few of the conventional credentials of a rabbi. He was always running around with the down-and-outers, with sinners. Sometimes he even seemed to have no respect for tradition or authority. He would do things the law forbade and not do things the law required, and he made outrageous claims about the Son of Man's being Lord of the Sabbath. Who ever heard of such a thing? And yet, despite all that, Jesus spoke with an authority that some recognized as genuine. And that was dangerous, because if Jesus is popular with the people, such independent authority would undermine the authority of the high priests and the teachers of the Law. That's why Caiaphas insisted that it was better that this one man should die for the sake of the nation. Perhaps it was envy that caused Jesus to die. Or was it greed that led to Jesus' death? That's what others have said. Because, after all, it was Judas who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. You'll recall that just before Jesus' arrest Judas and the other disciples had been upset that Mary had anointed Jesus with expensive oil. She had just poured out a whole pitcher of pure nard worth a whole year's wages. She had wasted it, the disciples said, for it could have been sold and the money given to the poor. And John says that Judas, the disciples' treasurer, went out to recoup as much of the loss as possible because he was a thief. Or was it ambition, ambition frustrated, that motivated Judas? Some say that Judas was indeed the guilty party, not because he was greedy but because he was frustrated with Jesus' refusal to lead a revolt against the Romans. And these people say that Judas was hoping that when push came to shove, that when Jesus realized he was actually going to be arrested, Jesus would seize the moment to start the rebellion. But he didn't, of course. In either case, as far as Judas was concerned, whether his kiss of betrayal was because of greed or because of frustrated ambition, Judas, having used a sign of friendship as a means of betrayal, saw himself as guilty, and in remorse he said, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." And he went out and hanged himself. Or was it fear that caused Jesus' death? Either Pilate's fear or Peter's fear. Peter was as close to his Lord as Judas was, maybe closer. And yet during that final night, while Jesus stood before Caiaphas and Pilate, Peter, in order to save his own skin, denied three times that he had ever laid eyes on Jesus. And what about Pilate, the Roman governor? Pilate knew Jesus was innocent of the charges. He knew that Jesus had done nothing deserving of death. So Pilate tried all kinds of finagling to escape responsibility. First, he sent Jesus to Herod, hoping to shift the heat for Jesus' arrest to the king. That would have gotten Pilate off the hook. But Herod, that fox, tossed Jesus back to Pilate like a hot potato. Then Pilate tried another ploy. He said, "I'll just give this man a good whipping and then let him go. Why don't you let me execute Barabbas instead? He's a real killer." But the crowds would have nothing to do with Pilate's evasions. "Crucify Jesus!" they demanded, "and let his blood be on us and on our children! If you let this man go, Pilate, you're no friend of Caesar!" So Pilate, seeing that he was getting nowhere fast and that the crowd was getting ugly, turned Jesus over to the soldiers to be crucified. And then he washed his hands of the matter. "I don't have anything to do with it," he said. Envy, greed, ambition, fear. Why did Jesus die? Fifty days later, on the Day of Pentecost, Peter knew that it was because of all these things that Jesus had died. In one of his sermons after the resurrection, Peter says: "Men of Israel, Jesus died because of you. You handed him over to be killed." And that, too, is true, isn't it? Throughout the Acts of the Apostles the apostles are reported as being quite certain why Jesus died: Herod, Caiaphas, Pilate, the crowds of Jews and Gentiles alike, all of them out of envy, greed, ambition, and fear were morally culpable. Having conspired against Jesus and demanded the release of Barabbas, having shouted "Crucify Jesus!" along with the crowds, the whole lot of them had ensured that Jesus would die on the Cross. "Let all of Israel be assured of this," said Peter, "that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." But in fingering Herod and Pilate and the crowds and the high priests, in assessing the responsibility for the death of his Lord, Peter never denied that he, too, was responsible. For Peter, too, had abandoned Jesus that night. Were you there, Peter? "Yes, yes, I was there, too," says Peter. After the resurrection, Peter never again denied the truth about himself and Jesus, even though he, too, would be dragged before courts and councils and powers great and small, and chained and thrown into dungeons. Were you there, Peter, when they crucified my Lord? "Yes, I was there," says Peter. "I was there hiding in the shadows." Why did Jesus die? Jesus died because of us. As we approach Holy Week and Good Friday, let us remember that it is we ourselves who will join in with the shouting of the crowd during Holy Week. "Crucify him!" we will shout with the crowds, "and let his blood be on us and on our children!" Why would we join in the drama of the Palm Sunday and Good Friday liturgies in this way except that we know that we, in fact, also join the conspirators in our lives? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Yes, I was there. I was there every time I deny Jesus by failing to hold him up before a world gone mad with its own way and its own power and tinhorn schemes and shabby goals. Yes, I was there every time I deny him by ignoring the claims of justice for those unfairly treated in my neighborhood, or in some other part of God's world. Yes, I was there every time I deny him by turning a deaf ear to the pleas for mercy by those who are hungry or sick or lonely or in prison, or without work or in need of a share of the prosperity I enjoy. Yes, I was there every time I refuse to seek reconciliation with a brother or sister whom Christ came to save, every time I wish that my brother or sister would just disappear so that the problem might seem to disappear. When we are estranged from each other, we are estranged from God, and we crucify Jesus all over again. We fall back on our rights, of course: "I've done all I can, by right. The ball is in his court now," we say, while Jesus, though he himself was in very nature God, did not count his right of equality with God something to be claimed, but appealed instead to love, and gave up his rights and made himself nothing. And taking the very nature of a servant he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a Cross, for the sake of our reconciliation with God and with each other. With reconciliation, you see, the ball is always in both courts. How else can we explain Jesus' choosing to walk his way to the Cross for our sake when he's going there because of us? Were you there? Yes, all of us were there. And all of us are there. For whenever we plot or scheme or bargain or equivocate or wash our hands of justice and mercy for the poor, whenever we reject the reconciliation life with God and each other Jesus died to bring, we deny him before the world and betray him once again, and hand him over to be crucified once again. Why did Jesus die? He died because of us. Because of our envy, because of our ambition, our indifference, our fear, maybe even because of our greed. But Jesus also died because of love. And this is the good news. Jesus died because of love, and that, too, is because of us. Because of his love for us. For even though we are guilty, like Judas and Peter and Herod and Pilate, God, too, had a hand in handing Jesus over to be crucified. Because of his love for us. And because God's Son Jesus shares God's own love for us, he was willing to make intercession for us, and to take our guilt upon himself, so that all who trust in him and accept that love might be redeemed from guilt and have everlasting life. Why did Jesus die? Because. Because of us. Because, first of all, from the beginning, his Father sent him to love us in such a way that the whole world might be drawn to him. And because the way of the Son of God is the same as the way of his Father, the way of grace, which is to lay down his own life for those he loves. As usual, it's the simple and the weak who seem to draw nearest to Jesus. Like the little boy in the wonderful story that made the rounds several years ago. As the story has it, a little girl named Lisa was taken to Stanford University Hospital. She was suffering from a rare and serious disease, and the only chance for her recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her younger brother, who had himself miraculously survived the same illness and had developed the antibodies needed to combat it. The attending physician explained the situation to Lisa's young brother, and he asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood for his sister. The boy, a little frightened, hesitated for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and said, "Yes, I'll do it for Lisa." As the transfusion progressed, the boy lay in a bed next to his sister, and he smiled as he watched his sister receive his blood in the bed next to him. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded, and he looked up at the doctor and asked, "Will I start to die soon?" This transfer of blood, the willingness to share life with life, is what Jesus was talking about when he said that the hour had come for Son of Man to be glorified, when he said that it was for this very reason that he came to this hour - to show the glory of God whose glory is to lay down his life for those he loves. So the news of Lent, the news of Holy Week, the news of Good Friday and the Cross, ultimately points us to the good news of Easter - to the incredible mercy of God who loves the world so much that he sent his own Son into the world, so that all who trust in him might not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that, through him, the world might be saved. In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |