On the Passion, Eleventh Sermon

The feast of the Lord’s passion has come, the feast we have longed for and the whole world may well desire, and it does not let us keep silent amid the stir of our spiritual joys. For though it is hard to speak often on the same subject worthily and fittingly, the priest is still not free to withhold from the people’s ears the teaching of a sermon on this great mystery of God’s mercy. For the subject itself, being beyond words, makes speaking easy, and what is said cannot wholly fail where what is said can never be enough. Let human frailty, then, give way before God’s glory, and always confess that it is unequal to unfolding his works of mercy. Let us labor in thought, fall short in insight, falter in speech: it is good that even our right thoughts about the Lord’s majesty should fall short. For we remember what the prophet says: “Seek the Lord and be strengthened; seek his face always.” So no one must suppose that he has found all he seeks, or he will fail to come near if he stops trying. And among all the works of God that wear out the wondering gaze of the human mind, what so delights and so baffles our mind’s eye as the Savior’s passion? Ponder as we may his almighty power, which is of one and equal substance with the Father, the humility in God is more astonishing than the power, and it is harder to grasp the complete emptying of the divine majesty than the infinite raising up of “the form of a slave” in him. But we are much helped in understanding it by remembering this. The Creator and the creature, the God who cannot be harmed and the flesh that can suffer, are utterly different. Yet the properties of both substances meet together in the one person of Christ in such a way that, in his acts of weakness and of power alike, the humiliation belongs to the same person as the glory. [a]

In that rule of faith, dearly beloved, which we received at the very beginning of the creed on the authority of the apostles’ teaching, we confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we call the only Son of God the Father Almighty, was also born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. Nor do we deny his majesty when we state our belief in his crucifixion, death and resurrection on the third day. For all that belongs to God and all that belongs to man are fulfilled together by his manhood and his Godhead. So, through the union of what can suffer with what cannot, his power cannot be harmed by his weakness, nor his weakness overcome by his power. And rightly was the blessed apostle Peter praised for confessing this union. When the Lord asked what the disciples knew of him, Peter quickly got ahead of the rest and said, “You are Christ, the Son of the living God.” And this he certainly saw, not by the revelation of flesh or blood, which might have hindered his inner sight, but by the very Spirit of the Father working in his believing heart. So, in preparation for ruling the whole church, he would first learn what he would have to teach; and to make firm the faith he was destined to preach, he would receive the assurance, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The strength of the Christian faith, therefore, which is built on an unshakable rock and does not fear the gates of death, confesses the one Lord Jesus Christ to be both true God and true man. It believes him likewise to be the Virgin’s Son, who is his mother’s Creator; born at the end of the ages, though he is the Creator of time; Lord of all power, and yet one of mortal stock; knowing no sin, and yet sacrificed for sinners in the likeness of sinful flesh. [c]

And to set the human race free from the bonds of deadly transgression, he hid the power of his majesty from the raging devil and set against him our frail and lowly nature. For if the cruel and proud enemy could have known the plan of God’s mercy, he would have tried to soothe the minds of the Jews into gentleness rather than inflame them with unjust hatred, so as not to lose his hold over all his captives by attacking the freedom of one who owed him nothing. So he was defeated by his own malice. He inflicted a punishment on the Son of God that was turned into the healing of all the sons of men. He shed righteous blood, which became the ransom and the drink for the world’s atonement. The Lord took on what he chose, according to the purpose of his own will. He allowed madmen to lay their wicked hands on him: hands that, while working their own doom, served the Redeemer’s work. And yet so great was his loving compassion even for his murderers that on the cross he prayed to the Father and asked, not for vengeance for himself, but for their forgiveness, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And such was the power of that prayer that the hearts of many of those who had said, “His blood be on us and on our sons,” were turned to repentance by the apostle Peter’s preaching. On one day about three thousand Jews were baptized, and they were all “of one heart and one soul,” ready now to die for the one whose crucifixion they had demanded. [d]

The traitor Judas could not reach this forgiveness. For he, the son of destruction, at whose right hand the devil stood, gave himself up to despair before Christ had accomplished the mystery of the redemption of all. Since the Lord died for sinners, perhaps even he might have found salvation if he had not hurried to hang himself. But that evil heart, given over now to thieving frauds and now busy with treacherous plans, had never taken in any of the proofs of the Savior’s mercy. Those wicked ears had heard the Lord’s words when he said, “I came not to call the righteous but sinners,” and, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” But they did not carry to his understanding the kindness of Christ, which not only healed bodily illnesses but also cured the wounds of sick souls. For he said to the paralyzed man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven,” and to the woman caught in adultery who was brought to him, “Neither will I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.” So he showed in all his works that he had come as the Savior, not the Judge, of the world. But the wicked traitor refused to understand this. He turned against himself, not in the self-condemnation of repentance but in the madness of destruction. And so the one who had sold the Author of life to his murderers added, even in dying, to the sum of the sins that condemned him. [e]

So what false witnesses, cruel leaders of the people and wicked priests did against the Lord Jesus Christ, by the hands of a cowardly governor and an ignorant band of soldiers, has been at once the horror and the rejoicing of all ages. For though the Lord’s cross was part of the cruel purpose of the Jews, it has wonderful power through the one they crucified. The fury of the people was aimed at one, and the mercy of Christ is for all humankind. What their cruelty inflicts, he willingly undergoes, so that the work of his eternal will might be carried out through their unhindered crime. Hence the whole course of events, which is told most fully in the Gospels, must be received by the faithful in such a way that, through unquestioning belief in what happened at the time of the Lord’s passion, we understand that not only was the forgiveness of sins accomplished by Christ, but the standard of justice was also satisfied. But so that this may be discussed more thoroughly with the Lord’s help, let us keep this part of the subject for the fourth day of the week. God’s grace, we hope, will be granted at your prayers to help us keep our promise, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. [g]