It is Hidden in the Savior’s Rejection by the World
Passage: John 18:33-19:21
Date: March 12, 2025
Pastor: Pastor Horton
Up and under. Up to Jesus’ cross. And under our own. As we continue the Lenten journey, we consider the cross bearing that we share with Christ and that he shares with us: The cross always brings rejection, and to our astonishment, that rejection has glory hidden in it. And tonight we find rejection from the world. The world does not understand the cross and does not want to. Listen to a portion of Jesus’ trial before the world in the court of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate: “‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate. Jesus answered, ‘You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’ ‘What is truth?’” Pilate asked.”
Could there be a sharper contrast? On the one side is Jesus. He testifies that he is a king and that all who are on the side of truth listen to him. Yes, listen to him in the sense of hearing and holding to his Word, in the sense of believing him, trusting him, and following after him.
But on the other side, what does the world see? A pathetic sight! Ridiculous claim! This Jesus a king? Handed over by his own people who scream for his death? Jesus’ kingdom consists of those who love the truth—and yet there is not one person who defends him, or speaks out for him, or is willing to come forward and declare himself a follower of this King? Not one? The world even prefers option B for Barabbas, a rebel and a murderer. After all, how is it that this king is captive to a petty Roman official? Beaten and spat upon by his own people. Soon about to endure far worse at the hands of Pilate’s soldiers. “Some king!” The world says. “Some kingdom! Some truth!”
And there stands Pilate, vocal representative for the world. He views and judges this Jesus through his eyes of human reason. Will he uphold justice? He listens to Jesus. But no, justice would lose out to his love of his position and convenience. His reason rules, and it finds the whole message to be nothing but foolishness, and a nuisance, and bother, and inconvenient, and sparking a troublesome mob. Pilate sees no criminal in Jesus and yet punishes him anyways with flogging, a gruesome and painful torture that often killed its victims, and then the execution of this king.
Why such hostility? Such anger? Such violence against someone that on the outside seems so weak and frail, even foolish? It all hinges on that one little word that Jesus spoke to Pilate, the word “truth.” Jesus said that he was the King of truth, who had come into the world to bear witness to the truth! Pilate, however, wanted no truth from this Jesus. He had already made up his mind. He was not going to hear this guy preach about truth. He reasoned, “there is only me; there is only the moment. My truth is that I already have my needs, my wants, my will, my goals, my ambition, my pleasure, my power. And we understand Pilate, because by nature we want what he does. Any other truth is bound to get in the way of those things. Something else? Something more? Such a truth would challenge me to give up my single-minded devotion to me.
If Pilate would have listened, would things have turned out different? No. For the message of Jesus and his cross always provokes hatred and hostility from the world. The truth of the law calling out my devotion to myself was there in fallen Eden and every day since. This truth is that even in our best works and on our best days, we still offend the holiness and justice of God. That truth is irritating. We recoil at it. Because we want divine truth to be about me in the moment. This is evident over the pages of history, evident when I look into the honest mirror of God’s law, and evident from the mouth of Jesus. And I still don’t want to hear it. You and I declare with Pilate: “Away with this truth and the King who proclaims it!”
But wait! Thankfully there is more to the message from the King of truth than the guilty verdict over all of us and all our works. He comes chiefly and primarily with this greatest truth of all: that he himself is the solution to the problem of our sin. He is our only solution.
And how will he solve the problem of sin? Will he give us a new law to keep? Will he tell us that our sin doesn’t matter after all? Will he bid us to just do the best we can and God will be satisfied and overlook the rest? Is that the great truth that he brings? No! If that were the truth that Jesus brought, the people would not have flogged and crucified him. But the King declares himself to be the only solution to the problem of sin, of death and hell that all deserve. Christ alone will embrace all the sin and guilt of the world as our substitute. The solution is that salvation will be a free gift, won by the crucified, secured for us by the crucified, and given in the message of the crucified. But, tragically, the truth of the gospel that saves is even more despised than the truth of the law that condemns.
So here is the great mystery and the profound truth: So depraved is mankind that by nature we hate to be told the truth that we are depraved; and so great is our corruption that by nature we hate still more the truth that the only solution to the punishment we deserve is Jesus, the King of truth. You would think that people would stampede to this Jesus who delivers from death and hell. Not so. Now if we offered them free gas or free health care or free money, we would be trampled in the stampede. But free salvation? Free heaven? Free rescue from hell? No, not that! “Away with him! Crucify him! Give us Barabbas!”
Jesus’ cross alone saves. Up we go to follow. Yet those who follow to the cross must also follow under the cross. That is the mark of the Christian, the sign of the cross. For wherever the King of truth appears with the message of truth, there will be hostility, opposition, and at times even violence.
As a cross has two beams, so the hostility to the cross has two beams as well. The first beam is the one that we carry from our own nature. Our own flesh, along with Pilate, dismissed Jesus’ truth. By nature we don’t want an answer outside of ourselves. “Right and wrong that come from God? I already have me” we reason. “I’m going to value this today and that tomorrow.” People shouldn’t commit adultery; but if my children or my friends live together before marriage. “But I’ll just look the other way.” People shouldn’t hold grudges or gossip. “But, God, you don’t know what was done to me!” People shouldn’t steal or cheat. “But the prices are too high and people have stolen from and cheated me!” People shouldn’t be arrogant and self-righteous, “but let’s face it, we really are better than most, aren’t we?”
Then comes the confession in the liturgy: “I, a poor miserable sinner.” “No, no,” objects our flesh, “I don’t want to hear about that. It’s so depressing!.” Then comes the message of forgiveness: “In the cross of Christ you have all you need. You are forgiven. Your sin washed away. You are redeemed by Jesus and restored as a dear child of God!’” But the inborn flesh likes that news even less! “Well, yea but I work hard. I deserve what I get. God is at least a little bit lucky that I’m on his side, and be at least a little flattered that I believe in him at all, given the world we live in today. And if he doesn’t treat me right, I’ll show him and walk away from him, his church, and his truth.”
So the first beam of the cross that we Christians carry is the beam of our own sinful nature that hates the truth of the law and despises the truth of the gospel. The second beam is the hostility of the world, who simply can’t stand the message of truth about Jesus. Our world wallows in vice and wears corruption as if it were a badge of honor. Perversions demand honor and respect in the world. And woe to anyone who says, “But the Bible shares truth.” And woe to anyone who says, “Jesus is the only solution and the only way to heaven.” “No, no! Away with such a one,” the world declares. “Away with such a one from the earth!”
So we see Jesus today in our reading. The King. The one who brings truth, the only truth. His glory and the glory of the truth that saves is hidden under the cross. The world wants no part of him. And still, watch his reaction! You might expect a lightning bolt from heaven to strike the crowd or earthquake under Pilate’s to make the world listen to the truth that Jesus has come to proclaim. He endures it! He takes it!
Truth from the King is enough. The time will come for his awe and wonder – for his exaltation and for judgment. But that is all in his hands and not ours. We journey under the cross as we go up to the cross. We share the weakness and the humiliation until the Last Day. And why is that? Because our glory too is hidden under the cross of rejection. Jesus works his Word quietly in hearts creating faith when and where the Spirit wills it. It is a miracle brought on by the gospel message, not by our theatrics, cleverness, might, or merit.
The whole world may want to get rid of the cross and its truth – and the world has tried for almost two thousand years. Yet gospel truth remains in the world, creating faith as God wills. The truth still creates saints who lay their whole lives of sin and shame at the foot of Jesus’ cross. Thousands still rise up while under the cross, to sing the praises of the Lamb that was slain and has redeemed us by his blood. They rejoice in Christ. They do not depend on a poll or public opinion or the views of human intellect. No, their certainty rests on the Word of God and the work of God, even under the cross of hostility and persecution. Heaven and earth may pass away. But what Jesus gives will last forever! Oh, may we always remain in the blessed number of those who know that glory hidden under the cross. Amen.
