On the Passion, Seventh Sermon

I know, dearly beloved, that the Easter festival shares in so lofty a mystery that it is beyond not only the slight understanding of my lowly self but even the powers of great minds. But I must not look at the greatness of the divine work in such a way as to lose confidence in, or be ashamed of, the service I owe. For we may not keep silent about the mystery of man’s salvation, even if it cannot be explained. But with your prayers helping us, we believe God’s grace will be given to water the barrenness of our heart with the dew of his inspiration, so that things useful to the ears of his holy flock may be proclaimed by the pastor’s mouth. For when the Lord, the Giver of all good things, says, “Open your mouth, and I will fill it,” we also dare to reply in the prophet’s words: “Lord, you will open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” So, dearly beloved, as we begin once more to handle the Gospel story of the Lord’s passion, we understand that it was part of the divine plan that the godless leaders of the Jews and the unholy priests, who had often looked for a chance to vent their rage on Christ, should be given the power to carry out their fury at no other time than the Passover festival. For the things that had long been promised under hidden figures had to be fulfilled in full clearness. The true Sheep, for instance, had to replace the sheep that foreshadowed it, and the one Sacrifice had to bring to an end the many different sacrifices. For everything that God had ordained through Moses about the sacrifice of the lamb had prophesied of Christ and truly announced his slaying. So, in order that the shadows should give way to the substance, and figures cease in the presence of the reality, the ancient observance is removed by a new sacrament: victim passes into Victim, blood is wiped away by Blood, and the feast the law ordained is fulfilled by being changed. [a]

And so, when the chief priests had gathered the scribes and elders of the people to their council, and the minds of all the priests were taken up with the plan of doing Jesus harm, the teachers of the law put themselves outside the law, and by their own deliberate neglect of duty abolished the ceremonies of their fathers. For when the Passover feast began, those who ought to have adorned the temple, cleansed the vessels, provided the victims, and given a holier zeal to the purifications the law commanded, were seized with the fury of treacherous hate. They give themselves up to one work and conspire with one cruelty for one crime, though they were bound to gain nothing from punishing innocence and condemning righteousness except their failure to grasp the new mysteries and their breaking of the old. The chiefs, then, in guarding against a riot on a holy day, showed zeal not for the festival but for a terrible crime, and their anxiety served not the cause of religion but their own guilt. For these careful pontiffs and anxious priests feared seditious riots on the principal feast day, not for fear that the people would do wrong, but for fear that Christ would escape. [c]

But Jesus, sure of his purpose and undaunted in carrying out his Father’s will, fulfilled the new covenant and founded a new Passover. For while the disciples were reclining with him at the mystical Supper, and while in the hall of Caiaphas they were discussing how Christ might be put to death, he was establishing the sacrament of his body and blood and teaching them what kind of Victim must be offered up to God. And not even from this mystery was the betrayer kept away. This showed that he was provoked by no personal wrong, but had settled on his treachery beforehand by his own free will. For he was his own source of ruin and the cause of his own faithlessness, following the devil’s lead and refusing to have Christ as his guide. And so when the Lord said, “Truly I say to you that one of you is about to betray me,” he showed that he knew his betrayer’s conscience well. He did not shame the traitor with harsh or open rebukes, but met him with mild and silent warnings, so that one who had never been driven astray by being rejected might be set right more easily by repentance. Why, unhappy Judas, do you not make use of such great patience? Look, the Lord spares your wicked plans; Christ betrays you to no one but yourself. Neither your name nor your person is revealed; only the secrets of your heart are touched by the word of truth and mercy. The honor of the apostles’ rank is not denied you, nor a share in the sacraments. Come back to your right mind; lay aside your madness and be wise. Mercy invites you, Salvation knocks at the door, Life calls you back to life. See, your spotless and guiltless fellow disciples shudder at the hint of your crime, and all tremble for themselves until the author of the treachery is made known. For they are saddened not by the accusations of conscience but by the uncertainty of human changeableness, afraid that what each knew against himself might be less true than what the Truth himself foresaw. But you abuse the Lord’s patience while the saints are in this alarm, and you believe your bold front hides you. You add shamelessness to guilt, and you are not frightened by so clear a test. And when the others hold back from the food in which the Lord had set his judgment, you do not draw your hand back from the dish, because your mind is not turned aside from the crime. [d]

And so it followed, dearly beloved, as John the evangelist has told, that when the Lord offered the bread he had dipped to his betrayer, to point him out more clearly, the devil seized Judas completely, and now, in the actual deed of wickedness, took possession of the man he had already bound by his evil plans. For only in body was Judas reclining with those at the table; in mind he was arming the hatred of the priests, the falseness of the witnesses and the fury of the ignorant mob. At last the Lord, seeing what a gross crime Judas was set on, says, “What you are doing, do quickly.” This is the voice not of command but of permission, not of fear but of readiness. He who has power over all times shows that he puts no obstacle in the traitor’s way, and he carries out the Father’s will for the redemption of the world in such a way as neither to encourage nor to fear the crime his persecutors were preparing. So when Judas, at the devil’s persuasion, left Christ and cut himself off from the unity of the apostles’ company, the Lord, undisturbed by any fear and anxious only for the salvation of those he came to redeem, spent all the time that was free from his persecutors’ attack in mystical discourse and holy teaching, as Saint John’s Gospel declares. He raised his eyes to heaven and prayed to the Father for the whole church, that all whom the Father had given and would give the Son might become one and remain undivided, to the Redeemer’s glory. And last of all he added the prayer in which he says, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” In this it must not be thought that the Lord Jesus wished to escape the passion and the death, whose sacraments he had already entrusted to his disciples’ keeping. For he himself forbids Peter to use the sword when Peter was burning with devoted faith and love, saying, “The cup that the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?” And certain too is what the Lord says in John’s Gospel, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life”; and what the apostle Paul says, “Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a victim to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” For the saving of all through the cross of Christ was the common will and the common plan of the Father and the Son; and what had been mercifully decided and unchangeably foreordained before the eternal ages could not by any means be disturbed. Therefore, in taking on true and complete manhood, he took on the true sensations of the body and the true feelings of the mind. And because everything in him was full of sacraments and full of miracles, it does not follow that he either shed false tears, or took food out of pretended hunger, or pretended to sleep. It was in our lowliness that he was despised, with our grief that he was saddened, with our pain that he was racked on the cross. For his compassion underwent the sufferings of our mortality in order to heal them, and his power met them in order to conquer them. Isaiah prophesied this most plainly, saying, “He carries our sins and is in pain for us, and we thought him to be in pain and in blows and in affliction. But he was wounded for our sins and was struck down for our offenses, and by his bruises we are healed.” [e]

And so, dearly beloved, when the Son of God says, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” he uses the cry of our nature and pleads the cause of human frailty and trembling, so that our patience may be strengthened and our fears driven away in the things we have to bear. Then, ceasing even to ask this, now that he had in some measure eased our weak fears, though it does not help us to hold on to them, he passes into another frame of mind and says, “Nevertheless, not as I will but as you will”; and again, “If this cup cannot pass from me unless I drink it, your will be done.” These words of the Head are the salvation of the whole Body. These words have instructed all the faithful, kindled the zeal of all the confessors and crowned all the martyrs. For who could overcome the world’s hatred, the storms of trials and the terrors of persecutors, if Christ had not said to the Father, in the name of all and for all, “Your will be done”? Then let these words be learned by all the church’s sons, who have been bought at so great a price and so freely justified. And when the shock of some violent trial has fallen on them, let them use the help of this powerful prayer, so that they may conquer their fear and trembling and learn to suffer patiently. From this point, dearly beloved, our sermon must pass on to consider the details of the Lord’s passion. So as not to burden you with too long a sermon, we will divide our common task and put off the rest until the fourth day of the week. God’s grace will be granted to you if you pray him to give me the power to carry out my duty, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. [h]