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Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we enter into this this holy week, where we reflect on the passion that we just read, we pray, Father, that you would open our hearts, our minds, our eyes, our ears to see the love of Jesus Christ, our Savior, on display through his suffering and through the shedding of his blood for us. Amen. May be seated. On our Lenten journey through John's Gospel, which is a bit of a twist because we just got finished reading what feels like all of Matthew's Gospel. But through Lent so far this year, we've been journeying through John's Gospel on Sunday mornings. And that has taken us on a road to and from Jerusalem several times. And this morning we ventured again with Jesus into Jerusalem two more times. On that first trip into Jerusalem, Jesus was accompanied with shouts of Hosanna. Pray, save us, in other words, and naming Jesus as the Son of David. And that second trip, though, into Jerusalem was accompanied with shouts as well. However, this time Jesus is greeted with jeering and derision. And as we've made our way through John's gospel, back and forth through Jerusalem, we've witnessed Jesus as he's revealed himself to four people as the Son of God, whom the Father sent to give everlasting life to the world. Jesus revealed himself to the Samaritan woman at the well as the source of living water which wells up to eternal life. Jesus revealed himself as the light of the world that gives sight to the blind, whether that blindness be physical or spiritual. And last week we reflected on Lazarus' short stay in the grave and how Jesus called him back to life. And now as our attention shifts from John's gospel and the inspired witness that he gives to our Lord's life and ministry, we look at the Gospel of St. Matthew. St. Matthew doesn't use all of the deep theological coded language that St. John employs. Instead, he opts for simpler titles, Son of Man and Son of God. And he refers his readers to the coming kingdom of heaven. However, in those titles that we read about in John's Gospel, the light of the world, the living water, the resurrection and the life, all of those titles help us see more clearly what we mean by the words Christ and Son of God. The story that St. Matthew weaves for us is significant. He doesn't use all the theological richness of St. John, but what he does do is remind us that our Lord was profoundly and totally human in his suffering. The passion of Jesus is an incredible story of injustice. And really and truly the world's only unjust death that's ever occurred. And the suffering of death, the suffering and death of Jesus form the crux of human history. And as we prepare to enter into this holy week in these last days of Lent, let's go with Jesus one more time on these journeys into Jerusalem. If you can imagine, set yourself back in time a few years, imagine that you are in Israel preparing for the feast of the Passover. Now kind of zoom in, if you will, to Sikar in Samaria. They're all preparing for the Passover there. They've gotten together all the supplies they need for unleavened cakes and lambs without blemish. And every year, these Samaritans living in this small, insignificant town embark on the journey to Mount Gerizim. But this year, things are different. This year, Photine is joyfully part of the preparations and celebrations of the Passover. This woman who was married multiple times and out in the middle of the day in the heat of the day for her shame, all by herself at the well, is now part of this community. They are telling the story as they make their way to Mount Gerizen, the people from Sikar are telling the story of one who told them everything that they had ever done. The one in whom they had found the living waters. And all over that region, from Galilee to Judea, people were preparing for the annual celebration of the miracle of the Exodus. And if we could go in and out of those villages and all the area of Galilee and Judea, we would hear people talking of that historic event with all the testimonies of the power and the miracles of Jesus Christ on their lips. There would have been whispers and speculations all over Judea and Galilee about Jesus and whether he really was the Christ, the Messiah, or not. However, as we drop down once more into the village of Bethany, about two miles from Jerusalem, on the night before the opening week of Passover, Jesus is reclining at the table with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in their home. Mary comes in and anoints Jesus with a pound of expensive perfume. And that's a lot, I think. That's just that is a lot of perfume to be poured out at one time. And you break that bottle and you have to use it all, I suppose, but she poured it all out on Jesus. On the next day, on the Sunday of Passover week, Jesus arises early in the morning and sends his disciples to retrieve a young donkey for him to ride on to enter Jerusalem. And if you imagine Jesus riding into Jerusalem, accompanied by Lazarus, met by the man who had been born blind, Nicodemus hiding around a corner somewhere, observing. These people and so many others who are able to stand upright, stretch out their limbs, see Jesus with their own two eyes, people whose people who have demons cast out of them, leprosy healed, and many other ailments cured because of Jesus. All of these are walking with Jesus, shouting his praise. And others who have been listening to Jesus on and off for three years, all of these people who have who know of Jesus, everyone, it seems, knows about Jesus, even blind beggars in Jericho know about Jesus. And once the word goes out that he is on his way to Jerusalem, the people go out in droves to welcome him. People flocking to the road to lay their coats down to pave the way for Jesus. They would have caught wafts of that one pound of perfume poured on him the night before. They would have caught those wafts and thought, there's a king passing by. And the crowd shouting hosannas and waving palm branches were no doubt some of the people who would five days later be shouting, Crucify Him. How could they switch sides so quickly? How would it be possible for you to witness that triumphal entry into Jerusalem and then turn, turn the corner and immediately shout, Crucify Him, these next few days? I think the obvious answer is that some of the Palm Sunday crowd were simply caught up in the excitement. You know how crowds are. You get excited, everybody's standing in a line. I think there's a Geico commercial about that right now. What are you standing in line for? I have no idea, but it's really exciting. Right? People will do anything. If you just put a if you put a line out somewhere, people will start showing up. It's crazy. So I think people were caught up in the excitement. It's the beginning of a week of celebration, it's a beginning of this opportunity to rejoice in the stories that have been told about Jesus, and people are out there laying down their coats and shouting Hosanna with everyone else. But the last and obvious answer is that if Judas can betray Jesus, if Peter can deny Christ three times, if an entire religious hierarchy can conspire to kill the one they know to be the Messiah, then the crowds can also reject and despise their true Lord. The events of Holy Week that culminate on Maundy, Thursday, and Good Friday leave us with a strong sense of the injustice of Jesus' death. I don't know if you caught that as we were reading together the Passion of our Lord in Matthew's gospel. But that's what struck me this week as I was reading it, how incredibly unjust and how irrational it was for them to kill an innocent and righteous man. He was known to be innocent and righteous. He preached as one with authority and confounded scribes, lawyers, Pharisees, and Sadducees. The Roman officials knew he was innocent. They could see both with their own eyes and through the spiritual eyes of wives who testified to Jesus' innocence. They knew that Jesus was innocent. They knew who Jesus was. The shocking brutality of the passion cannot be passed over. Jesus experienced all the depths of human emotion. Through his life, of course, he had joy and happiness, he had tiredness, his hunger, all the kind of typical things that we experience, but he also had to endure the full brunt of betrayal, abandonment, and judgment in ways that we can never imagine. Particularly in these last moments before he heads to the cross. We have experienced betrayal and abandonment and judgment. But when we experience those things, we mix those feelings with our own guilt, our own shame, our own anger. It wasn't like that with Jesus. He grew up believing in the promises of God and relying on them fully. In his suffering, Jesus's only recourse leading up to the cross was the comfort of the Holy Spirit and the words of Scripture. Jesus wasn't tapping into some divine forbearance while he hung on the cross. In fact, he died faster than was expected. So exhausted and weighed down was he by our sin. When we see Jesus hanging on the cross, we are seeing a man suffering to the fullest extent that a human can suffer. Beaten, rejected by God and man, forsaken, exhausted, betrayed by a friend, shamed, denied by close friends, and mocked. And yet he never turned on his abusers and reviled them in return. And while his body suffered like no other, our Lord Jesus was trusting in the promises of God. And Jesus hanging on a cross, dying. But why? Why a cross? Why his death? Why does his blood need to be shed? Why does the does he need to be exposed to the ridicule of all of these people? Why is he hanging on that cross? And Jesus is hanging on that cross for so many reasons. And we read about many of them in Isaiah chapter 52 and chapter 53. We read about some in Philippians chapter 2. Jesus is hanging on that cross to bear our curse. Going back to the Garden of Eden, man was cursed for breaking God's law with death. Jesus dies in our place. He's bearing our sins. According to Isaiah chapter 52 and chapter 53, that explains with great painstaking detail how our transgressions were the reason for his piercedness, his crushedness. All of that chastisement that was laid on him was because of our sin. He was a lamb to be slaughtered for us. Jesus on that tree, cursed, is anyone who hangs on a tree. He is cursed, hanging on that tree for us, bearing our sins, and he is bearing our forsakenness. We who had rebelled against God were going to be cast out of God's presence forever. And Jesus takes that for us on that cross. And that's why he shouts out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In that moment he knows what we only partly know. He takes the punishment for all of our idolatry. And if you read the Old Testament regularly, which I recommend you do, you'll find a lot of blood being spilled in the Old Testament because of idolatry. So much blood is poured out in the Old Testament. I worked in a dialysis clinic for a little while, and so blood and needles don't bother me, but once you get enough blood on the ground, you can smell it. You can taste it. Can you imagine the blood being poured out in the Old Testament? Can you imagine all of the blood on a day of Passover when hundreds of lambs would be killed and all their blood would be let out and poured on the door, painted on the doorposts of houses? Can you imagine the smell of the cross that day as Jesus and the others who were crucified with him have their blood pouring down onto the ground? Why would he do such a thing? Why would he submit to that? Well, it's obedience to his Father, not my will, but yours, he said, three times. In Philippians chapter 2, Jesus goes to the cross, dies, becomes obedient to the point of death on the cross, even or point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow and every tongue confess in heaven and on earth that he is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. That confession and the testimony of so many other places and in the end of our reading from Isaiah 53, he was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sins of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. Those verses and so many other times in the gospels, Jesus talks about having a kingdom of people for himself. Jesus dies on that cross to save a people for his own possession. To bring us with him into the glory of his father. But why would he do all of that suffering just to have a kingdom? Doesn't he already have a kingdom? Doesn't Jesus already rule and reign over everything? Isn't he always obedient to his father? These details are true and they are right, and yet there's one other detail. Because he loves us. Jesus loves us, and so he goes to the cross. There's a simple message in the brutality of the cross. Jesus doesn't enjoy the pain. He is not a masochist. He endures the pain of the cross for the joy set before him that is greater than the pain. And what is the joy of Jesus? To bask in the love of his Father and to bring us into his kingdom as beloved fellow heirs. St. John says that we love God because he first loved us and gave himself up for us in 1 John chapter 4. Because God loved the world so much, he sent his only begotten Son into the world that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Our Lord Jesus, in whom we are baptized into life, in whom we find the source of living water, in whom we receive eyes to behold the truth of the gospel, and in whom we find the resurrection that leads to everlasting life, died because he loves us. Let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace. So clothe us in your spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not yet know you to the knowledge and love of you for the honor of your name. Amen.