Matthew 27:54 Sermons Preached By Enemies Of Christ
When the centurion and those who were guarding Jesus with him saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified and said, “Truly this was the Son of God."
It’s over. The story comes to an end. The crowds drift away from the skull-shaped hill and head back to their houses, eager to get home before the Sabbath officially begins at sunset. Golgotha is deserted except for a few Roman soldiers keeping watch over the bodies of the crucified, and a few stragglers, women standing at a distance, looking uncertain. There’s nothing left to see, nothing left to do.
The curtain has come down on the brief, incredible story of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s over. “We had thought he was the one who was going to redeem Israel,” his disciples would say on Sunday. But now he’s dead. Friday draws to a close as the sun sets and the official Sabbath Day begins. “And on the seventh day God rested.”
Those words from the creation story take on new meaning and significance on Holy Saturday. In the beginning, six days God labored, “for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. In this way the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” The Sabbath rest was meant as a symbol and foreshadowing of the rest God’s Son would give us by freeing us from the law and granting us peace with God. But here we see another foreshadowing that I had never actually thought about before. “On the seventh day God rested.”
The body that was laid hastily in a borrowed tomb on Friday was that of God’s Son. God himself rested in the darkness of the sepulcher, rested from all his labors because his work of redeeming us was done. Six days, from the glorious beginning on Palm Sunday—“Let there be light”—to the darkness of Good Friday, six days of labor, of sorrow, of suffering, and finally death. On the sixth day of creation, Friday, God first gave life and breath to man. On the sixth day of Holy Week, God’s Son breathed his last and gave up his spirit. And on the seventh day he rested.
This year in our Lenten meditations, we’ve been listening to sermons preached by the enemies of Christ. But on Good Friday he was surrounded by so many enemies, all of their angry voices blending together into a cacophony of barely intelligible shouting and muttering. Even passersby, who just happened to be walking down the road into or out of Jerusalem hurled insults and mockery at him. They may not even have recognized him or known who this man was, but their leaders on the scene obviously hated him. He deserved whatever he was getting for whatever it was he had done. They had no pity for losers. And if they did recognize him, they despised broken promises; they would have blamed him for not keeping a promise he never made, for a new and glorious earthly kingdom.
There are too many voices, some of them sermons with a kernel of wisdom and truth, others just blind hatred and lies. So I want to just briefly look at three who might have once been enemies, but no longer. There was a dying thief, who started out mocking Jesus just like his partner on the third cross: “Save yourself, and us, if you can, if you really are the Son of God.” But he saw how Jesus suffered, patiently, forgiving his enemies, and the words he was hearing started to sink in: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” “He claims to be the Son of God,” or perhaps the words of the prophecies Jesus was fulfilling by a death that was exactly what the prophets foretold. Something got through to him, and he preached a sermon in his brief prayer and request: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
A second sermon, preached by one who once was, or was thought to be, an enemy of Christ, was preached without words. Nicodemus, the man who had once come to Jesus secretly, at night, who was a member of the very Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus to death, came forward after Jesus died and helped Joseph of Arimathea bury his body in the tomb. He didn’t say anything—it was Joseph who asked Pilate for permission to bury Jesus—but by his actions he finally, publicly, showed his faith in Jesus and his love and devotion to the crucified one.
The hopes of a dying thief, the quiet devotion of a secret follower, and our third sermon, the testimony of a Roman centurion: “Truly this was the Son of God.” A Roman soldier, every Israelite’s enemy—we have no idea how he knew of Jesus or how much he knew. Was he merely including Jesus among all the gods and demigods and children of gods that Romans would have believed in? Was it just a superstitious reaction to the three hours of darkness and the earthquakes, or was this a true confession of faith? He wouldn’t be the first Roman centurion to come to put his faith and trust in Jesus of Nazareth; there had been another up in Galilee whose servant Jesus had healed, of whom Jesus had said, “I have not found such faith even in Israel.” I hope this was true faith, and another, like the dying thief, who found life on the day Jesus died, but I don’t know.
But his words were true. This was the Son of God. And not a son of some god like the Romans believed some of their heroes were offspring of a god and human parents, half-god and half-human, but God himself, true God and true man. God died on that cross. God was buried in a tomb. And on the seventh day, God rested.
Only God could save us from our sins. Only God could redeem us from death. Only the holy, precious blood of one who is equally God and man could be sufficient a price for all the sins of the world. He had to be true man to die, but he had to be true God to save us by his death. By his sacrifice and by his victory over sin and death, he has taken all of us, who were once his enemies through sin and unbelief, and made us his friends, to live with him forever in Paradise, the Kingdom of God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
When the centurion and those who were guarding Jesus with him saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified and said, “Truly this was the Son of God."
It’s over. The story comes to an end. The crowds drift away from the skull-shaped hill and head back to their houses, eager to get home before the Sabbath officially begins at sunset. Golgotha is deserted except for a few Roman soldiers keeping watch over the bodies of the crucified, and a few stragglers, women standing at a distance, looking uncertain. There’s nothing left to see, nothing left to do.
The curtain has come down on the brief, incredible story of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s over. “We had thought he was the one who was going to redeem Israel,” his disciples would say on Sunday. But now he’s dead. Friday draws to a close as the sun sets and the official Sabbath Day begins. “And on the seventh day God rested.”
Those words from the creation story take on new meaning and significance on Holy Saturday. In the beginning, six days God labored, “for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. In this way the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” The Sabbath rest was meant as a symbol and foreshadowing of the rest God’s Son would give us by freeing us from the law and granting us peace with God. But here we see another foreshadowing that I had never actually thought about before. “On the seventh day God rested.”
The body that was laid hastily in a borrowed tomb on Friday was that of God’s Son. God himself rested in the darkness of the sepulcher, rested from all his labors because his work of redeeming us was done. Six days, from the glorious beginning on Palm Sunday—“Let there be light”—to the darkness of Good Friday, six days of labor, of sorrow, of suffering, and finally death. On the sixth day of creation, Friday, God first gave life and breath to man. On the sixth day of Holy Week, God’s Son breathed his last and gave up his spirit. And on the seventh day he rested.
This year in our Lenten meditations, we’ve been listening to sermons preached by the enemies of Christ. But on Good Friday he was surrounded by so many enemies, all of their angry voices blending together into a cacophony of barely intelligible shouting and muttering. Even passersby, who just happened to be walking down the road into or out of Jerusalem hurled insults and mockery at him. They may not even have recognized him or known who this man was, but their leaders on the scene obviously hated him. He deserved whatever he was getting for whatever it was he had done. They had no pity for losers. And if they did recognize him, they despised broken promises; they would have blamed him for not keeping a promise he never made, for a new and glorious earthly kingdom.
There are too many voices, some of them sermons with a kernel of wisdom and truth, others just blind hatred and lies. So I want to just briefly look at three who might have once been enemies, but no longer. There was a dying thief, who started out mocking Jesus just like his partner on the third cross: “Save yourself, and us, if you can, if you really are the Son of God.” But he saw how Jesus suffered, patiently, forgiving his enemies, and the words he was hearing started to sink in: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” “He claims to be the Son of God,” or perhaps the words of the prophecies Jesus was fulfilling by a death that was exactly what the prophets foretold. Something got through to him, and he preached a sermon in his brief prayer and request: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
A second sermon, preached by one who once was, or was thought to be, an enemy of Christ, was preached without words. Nicodemus, the man who had once come to Jesus secretly, at night, who was a member of the very Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus to death, came forward after Jesus died and helped Joseph of Arimathea bury his body in the tomb. He didn’t say anything—it was Joseph who asked Pilate for permission to bury Jesus—but by his actions he finally, publicly, showed his faith in Jesus and his love and devotion to the crucified one.
The hopes of a dying thief, the quiet devotion of a secret follower, and our third sermon, the testimony of a Roman centurion: “Truly this was the Son of God.” A Roman soldier, every Israelite’s enemy—we have no idea how he knew of Jesus or how much he knew. Was he merely including Jesus among all the gods and demigods and children of gods that Romans would have believed in? Was it just a superstitious reaction to the three hours of darkness and the earthquakes, or was this a true confession of faith? He wouldn’t be the first Roman centurion to come to put his faith and trust in Jesus of Nazareth; there had been another up in Galilee whose servant Jesus had healed, of whom Jesus had said, “I have not found such faith even in Israel.” I hope this was true faith, and another, like the dying thief, who found life on the day Jesus died, but I don’t know.
But his words were true. This was the Son of God. And not a son of some god like the Romans believed some of their heroes were offspring of a god and human parents, half-god and half-human, but God himself, true God and true man. God died on that cross. God was buried in a tomb. And on the seventh day, God rested.
Only God could save us from our sins. Only God could redeem us from death. Only the holy, precious blood of one who is equally God and man could be sufficient a price for all the sins of the world. He had to be true man to die, but he had to be true God to save us by his death. By his sacrifice and by his victory over sin and death, he has taken all of us, who were once his enemies through sin and unbelief, and made us his friends, to live with him forever in Paradise, the Kingdom of God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
