“Commandment Eight,” Matthew 26.59–61, Feb. ’18 Lenten Sermon Series

1.                                    Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word today focuses on the 8^th Commandment.  Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                                    Well, there he is! The Lord Jesus. Accused, arrested, and handcuffed in the courtroom of the very religious Sanhedrin! He was swiftly hauled into the Sanhedrin’s court.  It’s up to these leaders to provide justice. So, when you have a trial in the Sanhedrin’s courtroom with the high priest, Caiaphas, presiding, you’d never expect there to be false witnesses and false testimony. After all, mouths are to be used properly in court! Only the truth should be told in court. No lies. Not even little white lies! No slander, falsehood, or tall tales of any kind. Not even a fib! After all, God gave the Eighth Commandment to protect and enhance the reputation of your neighbor. (Recite the Eighth Commandment and its explanation together from pg. 321 in the hymnal).

3.                                    Have you ever been called to be a witness in a court case? Before you sit in the witness stand, you have to raise your right hand, put your left hand on the Bible, and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—so help you God. Serious stuff. In the end, someone’s standing, reputation, name, character—and maybe someone’s life—are on the line. So, as God is your witness, you’d better tell the truth and nothing but the truth in court—or anywhere, for that matter.

4.                                    Surely the Sanhedrin court wants to hear the truth about Jesus, right? The whole truth and nothing but the truth, right?  Listen carefully to what happens. “Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death” (v 59).  Did you hear that? Yes, the authorities want to hear witnesses. But what they deliberately want are false witnesses! They want liars to provide false testimony against Jesus so that they can put him on death row! The trial is rigged! Highly illegal! Flat out criminal!

5.                                    The authorities, even the very religious authorities and the best of Israel’s society, would do that? To Jesus? Sure. Without blinking an eye! And so would you. Their story is your story. Their sin is your sin. You’re experts in giving false witness. You’ve got it down pat. It’s part of who you are. Betraying, slandering, and saying the worst about people—especially those who are the closest to you. Even Jesus!

6.                                    Yes, even Jesus! Even if it kills him! You probably don’t even realize how you do it. And you probably don’t even mean to do it. I sure hope you don’t mean to. But you do it. In the courtroom of everyday life. How? One of the most prominent ways is this: when your heart, body, and mouth are perpetually missing from the Sunday Worship Service, you bear false witness against Jesus. You ruin and murder his reputation. Really, you do. Chronic absence from church speaks volumes not only to your fellow Christians but also to the world.

7.                                    Persistent nonattendance at the Worship Service slanderously preaches that Jesus really doesn’t matter to you. That his Good Friday dying and Easter rising are nothing as far as you’re concerned. That he really isn’t God for you. So, his reputation in your family, in your community, and in this congregation is harmed if not ruined by such false witness against him.

8.                                    Well, in the Sanhedrin courtroom, false witness after false witness comes forward. Lie after lie is spewed against completely innocent Jesus. No one cares to defend his reputation or speak well of him. But all their misinformation are not clinching Jesus’ execution.  Finally, two false witnesses come forward. False, but different from the others. They figure it’s best just to quote Jesus verbatim. They refer to one of Jesus’ recent sermons. A confrontational sermon. A sermon that, no doubt, raised many an eyebrow. A discourse that made the hair on the back of many a religious and political Jerusalem VIP’s neck stand up.

9.                                    The bribed false witnesses say that Jesus’ sermon went like this: “This fellow [Jesus] categorically and audaciously declared, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days’ ” (v 61).  You’d think Jesus would object. But he doesn’t! Why? Well, he actually did preach that sermon! The false witnesses actually tell the truth! Oh, they fudged a little. Jesus actually said, “Destroy this temple,” as in, “you destroy this temple” (Jn 2:19). Okay, the better to accuse him, making him claim to destroy the temple. But then Jesus really did say, “and in three days I will raise it up.” Isn’t that something? The court desperately wants false witness, but the liars actually tell the truth! Jesus did say those words in a sermon!

10.                              Only Jesus wasn’t referring to the brick-and-mortar temple building in Jerusalem that King Herod built. Instead, Jesus was preaching about himself in that sermon. The “temple” that would be destroyed and rebuilt in three days was his body. In other words, Jesus was preaching his death and resurrection! “Destroy this temple [my body] and in three days I’ll rebuild it [raise it from the dead].” A Good Friday and Easter Sunday sermon!

11.                              Additionally, when Jesus declares that his body is the temple, he is declaring that he is God. That his body—his flesh—is the dwelling of God on the earth! Or to put it quite bluntly—that he is Immanuel—God with us—tabernacling in the flesh! That in his body born of the Virgin Mary, all the fullness of the deity temples or tabernacles in the world.

12.                              Well, this truth that Jesus did in fact preach—that came from mouths in the courtroom that were paid to break the Eighth Commandment—is just too much for the Sanhedrin’s ears, especially the high priest Caiaphas. They take what is true and twist it. Make Jesus to be the liar, the deceiver. They cannot and will not stomach the truth! This preacher’s body cannot be God’s dwelling on the earth! There’s just no way in . . . you know . . . that this man’s body can be the divine temple in the flesh! He can’t be God in the flesh! He can’t be Immanuel! No preacher man can say that! It’s got to be a lie. The biggest religious lie ever told! Blasphemy

13.                              So, the court concludes that Jesus must die!  Jesus Must Die Just as He in Truth Said . . . for Those Who in False Witness Break the Eighth Commandment.  What the court meant for evil, Jesus turns and uses for good. Your good. Your eternal good. For your salvation. All your breaking of the Eighth Commandment—all your slandering, gossiping, false witnessing, and lying because you do not fear, love, or trust in God above all things—Jesus willingly takes from you.  All your sin is now his. It all belongs to him because he carries it and answers for it in his temple—that is, his body on the cross.

14.                              Jesus does what must be done with your sin. In order to save you, the sinner. In his temple (that is, his body), he wraps himself with all your sin and gets damned with it. Then he pulls off an Easter Sunday on the third day. In order to tell you the truth! And the truth is this: You, yes, you, sinner, are forgiven. He doesn’t count your sin against you anymore. For it was all counted against him.

15.                              Brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you that Jesus is God in the flesh for you! For your salvation. His Good Friday “destroy this temple” death and his “in three days I will rebuild it” Easter Sunday resurrection mean that he speaks no evil of you. Refuses to!  Since he shed his divine blood for you and covered you with it, he has only good things to say about you. Like this: “You see my servants here.”  Oh sure, they’re sinners. But they’re my sinners! I died for them! I’ve forgiven them. I’ve put my name on them in Holy Baptism. They are my forgiven holy ones!”

16.                              Now the Lord Jesus has Eighth Commandment good use for you. You want to be used for good, don’t you? Of course you do. His good word of forgiveness enlivens you to have Eighth Commandment mouths and tongues. That means you use your lips to defend your neighbor’s reputation. To stand up for your neighbor’s character. To speak well of your neighbor. To explain everything about your neighbor in the kindest way. To use your mouth and tongue differently—to build up folks, to tell the truth about individuals.

17.                              And most especially to tell the truth of Jesus! To stand up for his reputation. Yes, Jesus, whose temple body was destroyed/died on the Friday we all call good and then rebuilt/resurrected in three days for you. That’s what it took for Jesus to save you!  You tell the truth that Jesus is your Savior by what you say and by what you do. One way is that you will now go to church on Sunday to worship him. That with your mouth you’ll confess loud and clear what’s in your heart. That Jesus is Lord! Who redeemed you, a lost and condemned person, with his holy precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.  With your mouth, you will pray to him—depending on him alone to be God for you. Looking to him for all your good—bodily and spiritually. With your mouth, you will eat and drink his crucified and risen body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. You will confess what is true—that his body and blood are truly for you, for your forgiveness.  That’s speaking well of Jesus. Telling the truth of Jesus. His divine reputation as the Savior of sinners. You. Me. The whole world.  Amen.

“Seasons of Lifting Up the Lord,” First Petition, Lenten Midweek #2, Feb. ‘18

1.        Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  “The Lord’s Prayer: A Prayer for All Seasons.” No matter in what season of life you find yourself. That’s how this Lenten series began last week. There was the encouragement to pray the Lord’s Prayer not only at weekly worship but throughout the week, more than once per day—three times, as a Lenten ritual or discipline, noting that the more we pray the Lord’s Prayer, the more we begin to insert petitions with personal needs or thoughts or fears. Last week, Ash Wednesday, the encouragement was to pray the Lord’s Prayer through seasons of needing forgiveness—either needing to be forgiven for our sins against the Lord and our neighbor or needing to forgive someone who’s brought pain to your heart and mind.  Now this day, we pray the First Petition: “Hallowed be Thy name,” for The Lord’s Prayer Is for Our Seasons of Lifting Up the Lord.

2.       The relationship between the Father and the Son was intimate and divine, and on more than one occasion Jesus declared that He and the Father are one (Jn 10:30; 17:21–22). So when the Lord taught us His prayer, He began at the beginning—by lifting up the name of the Father in heaven. This petition is an act of adoration. It is to confess with the apostle Paul, “Therefore God [the Father] has highly exalted [Jesus, his Son] and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9–11).

3.       To hallow the name of the Lord is to acknowledge His matchless power: “Holy is your name, Lord, more powerful than the most devastating earthquakes and tsunamis, more powerful than the most ruthless dictator, more powerful than the wealthiest of the wealthy.” To hallow the name of the Lord is to confess that the Lord is, certainly, Lord of all that is and will be, that the Lord is in absolute control of all of life and eternity! Luther’s brief explanation is choice: “God’s name is certainly holy in itself”—God is God and there is no other. We’re not in ultimate control of our lives or livelihoods—God is! We’re not in control of our church, our community, our world—God is! We’re not in control of our eternal destinies—God is! That’s good stuff!

4.       By contrast, when you are in the season, the time of your life, that seems “out of control,” when “everything nailed down is coming loose,” when your dreams and plans and hopes are dashed, and when your future looks grim, the petition becomes a source of power and promise, for we are in the hands of a mighty God. His name is holy, in and of itself, quite apart from anything in us.

5.       “But,” the catechism goes on, “we pray in this petition that [God’s name] may be kept holy among us also.” And Luther explains, “How is God’s name kept holy? . . . When the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it.” So while His name is already holy, we are to hallow it, that is keep it holy, too.

6.       That means when among us God’s Word is preached, taught, spoken—by pastor to people, by Sunday School teacher to students, by parent to child, member to friend at work or on the golf course—purely as the Bible presents it to us. Not to be twisted or manipulated to fit into our biases and personal opinions, not to be compromised, and not to be put on the shelf, but to the Word of God is to read with trembling, humility, hope, and promise, with confidence and wonder.

7.       And then there’s the matter of life—leading holy lives according to God’s Word. Lives that are sexually pure. Lives that use our money, our energies, our every hour for Him and for our neighbor, not for ourselves. Lives that don’t bend to the sinful views of society, no matter what courts or politicians or the voices of secular wisdom tell us. All these things reflect on the name of God, and our every sin against God’s Word, Luther writes, “profanes the name of God among us.”

8.       I remember when I first became a Pastor, having just graduated from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO back in 2007, my Grandpa Eugene Taggatz, who is now with the Lord, saying to me in love and warm fuzzies before I’d preach, “Don’t embarrass the family name.” We’d laugh, but speaking or living other than according to God’s pure Word is no laughing matter. Whatever we do, whatever we say, we reflect the name of our Father in heaven. That’s a daunting task and privilege!

9.       Still, it remains true that God’s name is hallowed above all by something to which we contributed nothing. As Jesus was teaching us this prayer, He was looking ahead to the cross, to His sole mission on this earth to save a world from sin. On the heels of Palm Sunday, Jesus was left alone with His thoughts, knowing what lay ahead, fully aware that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and chief priests hated Him so much that they wanted Him dead, hanging on a cross, aware also that Roman soldiers spared no pain, were relentless in their scorn, brutal in their scourging. And so Jesus prayed with a clear mind and a heavy heart in John chapter 12, “What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Hallowed be thy name. “Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have glorified it’ ” (Jn 12:27–28)—the Father referring to His Son, who began His journey on this earth in Bethlehem’s stable, was raised a carpenter’s son in Nazareth, was baptized by His cousin in the Jordan River, preached to multitudes, healed the lame and deaf and blind, rid the temple of easy, meaningless worship, called the impious “hypocrites like whitewashed tombs,” raised a little girl and his good friend from the dead, and proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom. Through all of that, the name of the Father has been glorified.

10.   And the Father says, “And I will glorify it again” (John 12:28). In the Upper Room, in communion with Jesus’ disciples, in the garden, greeted with a kiss of betrayal, at court, with chilling shouts of “Crucify him!” echoing through the chambers, on the Via Dolorosa, carrying the weight of the cross and the sins of the world on His bloodied back, all the way to Golgotha, “Place of a Skull.”

11.   Through the cross, the name of the Father is made holy. Through this selfless sacrifice, the name of the Father is made holy. Through the unbounded love of God revealed so dramatically on the hill called Calvary, the name of the Father is made holy.  “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” Amen.