Luke 23: Who do you say He is?

Presented to the Community Good Friday Service in Nipawin
at the Apostolic Church, April 10, 2009
By Captain Michael Ramsay

I remember many years ago when I was starting University. I was a janitor; I worked nights for a big janitorial company in Victoria. They have buildings all over the city and I worked for this company since before I went to university so when I did go back to school, they were kind enough to work around my schedule.

They made me a ‘floater’: now a floater is a very important position because we are given the keys and alarm codes to banks and other important businesses all over the city and our shifts often end late at night or early in the morning. Now break-ins aren’t uncommon in the city so one doesn’t want just anybody walking around some of these buildings in the middle of the night.

I remember one night. I’m on ‘floater’ duty. I have four buildings to clean. The first two buildings take me twice as long to clean as they should so when I get to my third building, it is well passed midnight and I have never been in this building before and I can’t find the light switch anywhere. As a result, I am late turning off the alarm and the thing goes off: it is loud. So while it is still ringing and the place is still dark I bang my leg as I trip over a desk running to turn it off. I turn it off and then the phone rings (the alarm company always calls to see why an alarm is going off to make sure it is a false alarm) so I’m off and running again and this time it is in the other direction -still in the dark - to find the phone before I miss the call and the alarm company phones the police. I get to the phone just in time but not before banging my leg again as I crash into another desk in the pitch black and yelling quite loudly.

I finally get this alarm mess sorted out on the phone but by now my leg that I have bashed twice is killing me as I am limping around the whole building still looking for the light switch in the pitch black. I am very lost in a maze of cubicles and I really can’t see anything and I am not feeling too happy at all when I hear something.

I hear something. I hear something growl…. I hear something growl and bark loudly! This is not good. So what do I do? I yell. I yell quite loudly as I hit the floor. Peering up I can see a couple of police dogs with teeth bared and a police officer staring down at me. I can tell you – I don’t know if you have ever encountered an angry police dog before but that was one of the scariest moments of my life.

What happened was when I spoke with the security company on the phone – remember I was just a spare, not the regular cleaner – my name wasn’t on the list of people who were approved to be in the building after midnight and instead of calling the company I worked for, like they are supposed to do, they called the police and so I almost got seriously hurt by a police dog.[1]

Even though I told them my name they didn’t really know who I was.

This is not unlike the predicament of Pilate in our text today. He has to think quick - who really is Jesus and what can he do with him. He has to think quick... he doesn't have forever to decide. Like a hockey game with the Romans on a Power Play as it were: It is like Jesus is the puck and the puck has been passed to Pilate. What does he do? The opponent is closing in, the Jews are pressing hard – does he shoot or does he pass? Does he shoot or does he pass? – Well, first he passes. He passes to Herod. Herod receives Jesus as he is passed to him but he is having trouble handling the pass; he now doesn't know what to do with him. The Jews are pressing hard. What does he do? – He looks. He passes back to Pilate quickly. Pilate receives the pass. He tries to deke out the opposition. He tries to distract them. He tries to distract them with Barabbas but it is no use...the Jews keep pressing. So he can't deke them out. He can't pass Jesus anymore...he can't find any other option. He looks. He looks, so he shoots aiming for under the crossbar...he nails the shot...he buries it...Pilot nails Jesus by decree to the cross and Jesus is buried. 1 nothing Rome, it seems.

Pilate was faced with a question that we have been looking at throughout this Lenten season at the lunches and that question is, 'Who is Jesus?' In our text today, Pilate passes on the question and Herod is faced with the question, who is Jesus? The Jews and the disciples who followed him up until his death are now faced anew with that same question, and we today are still faced with that question, who is Jesus.... Now this, of course is the same question that the John the Baptist just before he died asked of his cousin, who is Jesus?

The now deceased John, if you remember, was actually the one who baptizes Jesus. Do you remember the interchange between the two of them (you can flip to Matthew Chapter 3 if you want) when Jesus comes to be baptized? John says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? (Matt 3:14).” John obviously knows Jesus and he obviously knows something about Jesus, even before and right at the beginning of Jesus ministry

There is even more: remember the heavens open up and God declares, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased (Matt 3:16)” but then for some reason, when the chips are down for him he calls the alarm company. John asks of him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Who is Jesus?

If John knew Jesus so well who other than the Messiah, the expectant King, could John have been expecting? Who could Pilate be expecting? Who could Herod be expecting? Who could Peter - the one who said that he would never deny Jesus and on this Good Friday is right in the midst of doing so – and who could the women at the cross and who could the disciple whom Jesus loved, who could they all be expecting as Jesus is dying upon the cross?

Could they be expecting that Jesus is Elijah?[2] certainly some people did (cf. Matt 17:10-12; Mark 6:15, 8:28; Luke 9:19). After all – even though Jesus claimed that role for John the Baptist (Matt 11:14 cf. also 9:11-13; Luke 1:17), John himself denies that very claim (John 1:21) so could some of the cast of characters here today have thought Jesus was Elijah – maybe.

Jesus could be a prophet (Jeremiah; cf. Matt. 16:14)? Anyone who saw the dove at Jesus’ baptism may even recognize, as Peter did, that yes, Jesus is God’s son but maybe they just doesn’t know what that means? After all aren’t we all the children of God? Weren’t angels in the Genesis account sometimes referred to as ‘sons of God’ (Gen 6:2-4)? So then what does it mean to be the ‘Son of God’ and who, who is Jesus?

Well this is an important question for us on this Good Friday today then too, isn’t it? Who is Jesus? The most educated, religious people of Jesus day, the Pharisees and Sadducees did not accept him as the Messiah, the Christ, the King to come, or the Son of God. And in our text today Pilate isn’t convinced so he passes the question to Herod who doesn't know? Who do the disciples say he is on this Good Friday? After all they are about the scatter...Who do we on this Good Friday thousands of years later, who do we say he is?

Is he a good man? - I have heard people say that. An imaginary figure? - I have heard that too – this one is rather silly though since we have much better evidence for Jesus as Christ than we do for Julius Caesar as Roman Emperor or the even the very existence of Socrates.

Was Jesus just a prophet as some – such as the Muslims and the Jews – suggest? Was he a mere man? Much of the world today would say that he was some kind of the prophet.

Could he just have been a religious teacher from a minor Roman province who developed a cult following that continued to grow for well – thousands of years now – there are more Christians in the world than ever before and, of course, the Bible is the world’s best-selling book. But all that aside, could he be just a dead teacher?

These are all answers with which people today answer the question, ‘Who is Jesus?’

I think this is important because it changes everything doesn’t it? If Jesus is our Lord; if he is our king who died on Friday but will rise on Easter and his Kingdom is at hand; if he is our wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father and prince of peace (Isa 9:6) – then we will need to submit to his authority won’t we? So who is this Jesus?

Luke 23:56 tells us that the women in Jesus life prepared spices before the Sabbath[3] began but waited until after to anoint the body; so what is the purpose of anointing the body? Some have suggested that it has to do with an embalming practice of sorts but, of course, the Jewish people never practiced embalming;[4] however, it does still have to do with a burial rite of the first century Palestinians. The women are preparing to see a dead man. They don’t believe in the imminent resurrection.

Mark lets us listen to the women's conversation en route to the tomb. On the way to the grave, what are they talking about? What’s on their minds? Are they discussing the possibility of the resurrection? Are they wondering if…maybe…could he have risen from the dead? No. The text in Mark doesn’t even accord them enough faith to doubt here. What it records that they are concerned with here is the rock in front of tomb. Who’ll roll it away they wonder? They think they are going to see a dead man sealed in a tomb. They don’t know he’s alive. They don’t yet believe.

It must to them then seem like everything that the women and the disciples had pinned their hopes and dreams on was for nothing. Do we ever get like that? Do we ever get disillusioned? This must be what it feels like for the women on this Good Friday. Seeing as they headed out with these spices – everything must seem impossible, these 1 – 3 years must feel like they were for nothing.

This really must be a horrible day. That reminds me of a children’s book by Judith Viorst entitled “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”[5] Have you ever had one of those days, where it doesn’t matter what you do you just seem to get in trouble? … I remember Grade 2.

Now grade two admittedly was not my finest hour. It seemed that I was a permanent member of the detention club. And I remember one day, I just couldn’t win for losing. It was my birthday and many of the Grade Twos were coming to my party after school so we were told, ‘no dawdling’. We had to be home right after school.

Well, my Grade 2 teacher. Mrs. Leung gave me a detention – and it wasn’t even my fault! You see, Clinton had been chewing gum in school. Now, I hate gum. He gets in trouble for it and he tells Mrs. Leung that he isn’t actually chewing GUM; he is chewing his cheek. She believed him! I thought it was a strange thing to do - chew your cheek so, like any curious 8 year-old, I have to try it and, of course, … Mrs. Leung catches me and says “Michael no chewing gum” and I say, “I’m not – I’m chewing my cheek” (which I was) and do you think she believes me NOOOO! So I have a detention after school on my birthday and it wasn’t even my fault!

Now, it is my birthday so Mrs. Leung has pity on me and lets me get out at the regular time and this would be fine except two friends of mine in the class – Wade and Clinton – go and get detentions and Mrs. Leung isn’t going to let them go. So sure I get out at the normal time but we all have to wait anyway and then actually –to make a long story short- the rest of us got a detention too while we were waiting.

So more than ½ an hour later we all show up for my party…it was just like the children’s book says, “a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.”[6] It seems that this great birthday party where I get to be the centre of attention is not turning out quite right and back at the cross it seems like everything isn’t going so well either.

Many who have previously believed in Jesus don’t seem to know what to believe on Good Friday: Jesus was killed. So much for this powerful Messiah. They pinned all their hopes on Jesus and now those hopes must feel just as empty as … and today, in 2009, do we believe he had the power to set the captives free? Do we believe he is this powerful ‘Prince of Peace’? Who is he? What do we believe?

Jesus repeatedly tells his followers that indeed he is going to be raised from the dead (Mark 8:31, 9:9, 9:31,10:34,15:29). And as it says in Mark 9:10 and 31 that the disciples anyway heard exactly what he was teaching but they just did not understand and what they should have understood, they just did not believe.[7] After all, how can someone raise from the dead?

Now then the women who are preparing the spices in today's text will head to the tomb like many of us head to either a graveside or a memorial service in our day and age. They will head out to pay their last respects to a man – to a man that they had so much respect for, so much love for, so much hope for, for a man that they had faith in but now as they walk the road to the tomb, they do so, perfume in hand, worrying about the stone and who will move it from the grave. They do not believe that he has risen. They do not believe.

Do we ever get to a point where we do not believe any longer? Do we ever get to the point where we, by our actions, head out to bury Jesus? The world had told us through Time Magazine that ‘God is dead.’[8] John Lennon on Good Friday in 1962 relieved himself on nuns[9] and the rock group Oasis still not too many years ago now, announced to the world, like Lennon before them, that they were even more popular than Jesus. On this Good Friday, do we still believe? Who is Jesus?

We know that Adam and Eve were the first to transgress the will of God. We know that God first promised in Genesis Chapter 12: the Gospel, the good news that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through Abraham is presented in Scripture.... and we know that, as is foreshadowed in the ceremony of Genesis 15:7 – 21, that Jesus (as God) would have to die for our sins. Genesis 15 is Abram’s agreement with God. This covenant is a very significant one for us, even though we weren’t even born at the time of this agreement (cf. John 8, Mark 3, Luke 3, Romans 2). It is in Genesis 15 that God ratifies his good news to Abraham with a contract (v.18) and a strange and significant ceremony pointing to Jesus’ death that brings us back to the cross that we are standing before today on this Good Friday.[10]

Even if we confess that Jesus is the King of the Jews like Pilate and even if we recognize that Jesus is the Son of God, like Peter, like John, and even if we believe that he died for our sins like Genesis foreshadows he will, do we ever act as if we don’t believe that on Easter he’ll be alive? How do we do here today at recognizing that God, Jesus is actually alive and that it is he who we should be serving rather than ourselves? How do we make our daily decisions: do we base them on our finances and our own fleeting whims or do we base them on what God tells us? Do we ignore Him as if God is dead or do we serve a lord who is alive?

On this Good Friday, do we make our decisions through praying and reading the Bible? When we are planning for retirement and have to move money here or there, do we pray about how or even if we should invest? Do we look in the scriptures? What about for those of us in school? How do we decide what classes to take or what school to attend? Do we pray and fast? Do we believe that Jesus will help us? Do we act as though we believe he is alive on Easter or do we ignore him as if he’ll never raised from the dead?

What about us parents and grandparents? How do we decide to raise our children? Do we consult the Bible when making real every day decisions? Do we pray with our children when they have a serious issue on their mind? Do we help them in this way; do we believe in Jesus – or do we leave our family to their own devices and our decisions to our passing whims and fancies?

In our everyday real, tangible Monday to Friday and Saturday and Sunday lives, who do we say that Jesus is? And do we expect that Jesus will be alive on Easter and there for us? Do we believe that he is real and that he wants and will give us what is best or do we, by relying on our own devices, act as though he is still going to be dead and sealed in the tomb?

In our Sunday morning church gatherings, when we come here, are we expectantly seeking the risen Lord or are we doing nothing more than visiting the tomb to remember a dead Messiah, hoping that somehow through the service someone will roll away the stone so we can anoint his lifeless, powerless body with songs and a sermon? On Easter next will Jesus be dead or alive? Risen or fallen? Dead or alive? What do we really believe? Who is he?

I remember once when I was in my early to mid-twenties. I had a contract at Defence Research at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt. It was an exciting, yet a stressful time. I had some very skilled people working with me and the work sometimes was very precise and there was a lot that my staff could do and this was good because I personally couldn’t be there every day (I had other contracts to tend to as well) but, even though they could be trusted, there were inevitably aspects of the job that they could and should not do. There were aspects of the job that took my personal attention.

Our contract at Defence Research involved the physical relocation of the lab from the west coast of Canada to the east coast. It was very important that everything that was packed up was to be documented properly. There were things that the scientists were working on that, trust me, you just didn’t want to get loose or mixed up in the trip across the country; so we set up a detailed procedure of inventorying everything and after each box was packed I had to personally clear it before it was put on the truck; so I told them never to load the truck when I wasn’t there. Repeatedly, I told them how important it was never to load the truck when I wasn’t there and it was posted on the doors of the warehouse that they must never load the truck when I wasn’t there.

Well, one Thursday, when I wasn’t there, the truck arrives. Now some of my staff are quite eager workers and want to get everything done as soon as possible. They think that they know everything that needs to be done. I had told them never to load the truck when I wasn’t there - but…

I come into work the next day and the warehouse is empty[11] and there is the truck locked up, apparently ready to go and not a single inventory sheet was even sitting on my desk. I am so upset not only because that truck was not supposed to be loaded when I wasn’t there but also because they didn’t keep proper records so that whatever is in the truck and whatever is in every box in the truck now needs to be taken out and re-sorted and inventoried. I am upset. I start to raise my voice as I demand that Troy, the only one of my staff that I can find, I yell and demand Troy, I demand that he open the truck and start taking everything out of there. He opens the truck...and...inside is...

Well ...I can't tell you what is in it today. The answer to what is in the truck, like the answer to what is in the tomb will have to come on Sunday. Today it is still Friday. Today, you have to ask yourself the question…what do I believe is in the truck? Anything? Come to church somewhere on Sunday and find out[12]…

Today is Friday. Today is the day that they led our Saviour off to be crucified. Today we are there as they crucify our Lord. Today we are left standing at the cross or preparing the spices with the women and today we have the option of hope but before we can have that hope today we have to ask ourselves the question, what is in the truck? What is in the tomb? Who is Jesus and what do we believe?

Some of us here may never have asked these questions? Some may have answered one way but acted in entirely another? In a moment some of you will have the opportunity to take communion but that only matters one iota if indeed we know who Jesus is? So today standing, as we are on Good Friday, symbolically between the cross and the grave; I ask us to meditate on that very question – in our own life – do we really act as if we believe that tomb will be empty on Easter morning or are we still the captain of our own ship making our own decisions.... let us pray.

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[1] Captain Michael Ramsay, "Are You The One To Come Or Should We Expect Someone Else? (Matthew 11:1-11)" Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on December 16, 2007. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/are-you-one-to-come-or-should-we-expect.html
[2] Cf. The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM: Matthew/Exposition of Matthew/IV. Book Version: 4.0.2. re: Schweitzer.
[3] CF. RCH Lenski. The Interpretation of St. Mark’s Gospel. P. 737, for a different opinion: he believes that these indeed may be entirely different spices.
[4] W. Wessel: Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Mark, The Resurrection (16:1-8), Book Version: 4.0.2 : it was a single act of love and devotion probably meant to reduce the stench of the decomposing body. Palestine's hot climate causes corpses to decay rapidly. Thus the action of the women seems strange. Perhaps they thought that the coolness of the tomb would prevent the decomposition process from taking place as rapidly as it otherwise would.
[5] You can read an on-line version at: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/family/alexander/
[6] Captain Michael Ramsay, "Acts 23: 1-11: Punch in the Mouth ('The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day)" Presented to each the Nipawin and Tisdale Corps 23 September 2007. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/09/acts-23-1-11-punch-in-mouth-or-terrible.html
[7] They aren’t alone. NT Wright, The Bishop of Durham, http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm ‘Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins’ (Originally published in Gregorianum, 2002, 83/4, 615–635) makes this observation about the pagan beliefs in the ancient world: “whenever the question of bodily resurrection is raised in the ancient world the answer is negative. Homer does not imagine that there is a way back; Plato does not suppose anyone in their right mind would want one. There may or may not be various forms of life after death, but the one thing there isn’t is resurrection: the word anastasis refers to something that everybody knows doesn’t happen. The classic statement is in Aeschylus’s play Eumenides (647-8), in which, during the founding of the Court of the Areopagus, Apollo himself declares that when a man has died, and his blood is spilt on the ground, there is no resurrection. The language of resurrection, or something like it, was used in Egypt in connection with the very full and developed view of the world beyond death. But this new life was something that had, it was believed, already begun, and it did not involve actual bodily return to the present world. Nor was everybody fooled by the idea that the dead were already enjoying a full life beyond the grave. When the eager Egyptians tried to show their new ruler Augustus their hoard of wonderful mummies, he replied that he wanted to see kings, not corpses”
[8] Time Magazine. Cover: ‘Is God Dead?’ Vol. 97, No. 14: April 8, 1966. From the article, Toward a Hidden God: “Even within Christianity, now confidently renewing itself in spirit as well as form, a small band of radical theologians has seriously argued that the churches must accept the fact of God's death, and get along without him. How does the issue differ from the age-old assertion that God does not and never did exist? Nietzsche's thesis was that striving, self-centered man had killed God, and that settled that. The current death-of-God group* believes that God is indeed absolutely dead, but proposes to carry on and write a theology without theos, without God. Less radical Christian thinkers hold that at the very least God in the image of man, God sitting in heaven, is dead, and—in the central task of religion today—they seek to imagine and define a God who can touch men's emotions and engage men's minds.”
[9]
On Good Friday 1962, no less, after hanging a sacrileges image from his balcony: http://www.kakool.com/content/john-lennon-good-friday
[10] Death is the penalty meted out to those who violate this ceremony the only other time it is recorded as being enacted in the scriptures: Jeremiah 34:18-29. See Sarna, Genesis, PP. 114-115, Terence E. Fretheim, The Book of Genesis, 446. Cf. also, Anet, p.532 and John H. Sailhamer Abraham and the covenant (15:1-21). The Holiness Code in Leviticus (esp. Lev 25), as well as the prophecy of Amos (esp. 3-4) and numerous other portions of scripture testify that yes indeed the Lord was faithful in fulfilling this agreement but as the covenantal talks are re-opened with future generations who are looking for a permanent territorial blessing for their genetic offspring, it is granted to them albeit with conditions (pertaining to caring for the poor and the land) which they did not fulfill (cf. Gen 18:19; 26:5; Amos 3:1-2; Lev 25:2; 26:34-35; cf. also N.T. Wright, “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” Pauline Theology, Volume III, ed. David M. Hay & E. Elizabeth Johnson, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995): 37.) The blessing to the nations (12:3) that was offered through Abraham, however, still stands to this day. Remember also that the messianic prophecies to David are not tied to the physical land (2 Samuel 7) and of course are ultimately fulfilled in Christ. We should neither forget that God that he can raise up decedents of Abraham from stones if need be (cf. John 8:31-41; Hebrews 11:8-12). and indeed he does graft all the nations into the promises of Abraham (cf. Matthew 3:9, Luke 3:8, John 8, Romans 11). It is also interesting in this passage that God promises on his own life that Abraham’s decedents will receive this land; Abraham’s decedents are unfaithful and God pays with the life of his Son.
[11] They had moved the cargo to a different part of the warehouse and it turns out that none of it was any the worse for wear in the end.
[12] Captain Michael Ramsay, "Mark 16:1-8: Dead or Alive: what do you believe?" Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on March 23, 2008 (Resurrection Sunday). Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/03/mark-161-8-dead-or-alive-what-do-you.html