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 on this Good Friday is taken from Psalm 74, Deut.
21.22-23, and Gal. 3:1-14. It’s entitled,
“Tree of the Cross,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Terrible chapters in our Nation’s history teach us to be
careful in talking about being “hanged on a tree,” as mob actions
outside the law may come to mind too easily. Experts estimate that over about
seven decades spanning the turn of the twentieth century, about four thousand
people were lynched in the United States.23 But, despite the need to
be particularly careful, Jesus Christ’s “being hanged” for us under
the law is what we need to talk about on this most holy day. As our special
Lenten sermon series nears its end, we consider the 8th of the
Bible’s trees among which we live, none other than the tree of the cross. Considering the Tree of the Cross, we realize
that, although we fail to keep God’s law and deserve the cross’s shame, Jesus became
accursed for us and so redeems us.
3.
In our First Reading for this Good Friday (Deut.
21:22–23), we heard the Lord through Moses in his final “sermon” command
the people of Israel to bury on the same day criminals who were hung on a tree.
This hanging was after the criminal had already been executed by stoning
or some other method. Hanging on a tree after execution publicly displayed the
criminal’s shame24 and prevented others from committing the same
crime.25 Such criminals were cursed by God, and being displayed on a
tree showed the shame of God’s judgment and rejection. But there was to be a
limit: God said that leaving them hanging overnight would defile the land he
was giving the Israelites.
4.
The people of Israel weren’t the first or only ones to
use trees or their wood. The Book of Genesis reports that the Egyptian
Pharaoh’s onetime chief baker, who was imprisoned with Joseph, was hung from a
tree (Gen 40:19, 22). The Book of Esther reports that the Persian king hung two
of his rebellious eunuchs (Esth 2:23). And the Bible reports at least two
additional cases where the people of Israel under Joshua did obey this
particular commandment to bury those so hung on the same day (Josh 8:29;
10:26–27).
5.
Of course, the Israelites could hardly boast that they
obeyed that particular commandment or any of God’s commandments all the time. In
today’s Second Reading (Gal 3:1–14), we heard St. Paul, by divine inspiration
writing to the Galatians about salvation by faith, quote from elsewhere in
Deuteronomy (Deut 27:26) that everyone who does not abide by and do all the
things written in the Book of the Law is cursed. So, St. Paul says, no one is
justified (or “righteous”) before God by keeping the Law, and that
includes you and me. In thoughts, words, and deeds, we fail to love God with
all our heart, soul, and mind, and we fail to love our neighbors as ourselves
(e.g., Mt 22:37–40). We each know our own failures better than others know
them, and God knows them best of all! Such failures flow from the sinful nature
we inherited from the first man and woman who ate of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, and for such failures and sinful nature we deserve to be cut
off from God’s presence for all eternity (Mt 27:46). We all deserve to be hung
accursed from the accursed tree!
6.
Do we think of such an outcome as shameful? Are we
ashamed of our sin? Do people today even feel shame anymore? What do we
consider to be insulting? Are we more concerned about embarrassment or a loss
of respect or reputation from something posted on Facebook or Instagram than we
are of the guilt of our sins?
7.
As we heard in the Second Reading, sinless and righteous
Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, being
hanged on the tree of the cross. For some 700 years before Jesus, the
Assyrians, Persians, Jews, and Romans crucified people, whipping them, using
crosses of different shapes, and sometimes impaling them in parts of their
bodies that I won’t mention. For us and for our salvation, Jesus humbly endured
the shame of crucifixion, the greatest possible insult—stripped, beaten, and
left hanging naked to the world—so that you and I might be sinless and
righteous (2 Cor 5:21), not by the Law, but by faith in him. Jesus took to
the cross our sins and the ancient curse that afflicts us.
8.
Drawing on the Old Testament (Is 53:4, 12), not only St.
Paul but also St. Peter repeatedly preached and wrote about Jesus’ hanging on
the tree of the cross for us (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; 1 Pet 2:24). After
them, at least one Early Church writer also understood the ram caught by its
horns in the thicket when Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac as a prophetic
image pointing to Jesus’ hanging on the tree (Gen 22:13).26 Such is
God’s use of hanging on a tree for us!
9.
One author says well:
It is no accident that human sin which began at the foot of a tree,
the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9ff), found its resolution
on another tree, the cross of Calvary. There is a poetic justice in the use of
trees in [salvation history]. . . . Satan’s victory over the woman
(and the man!) beneath the branches of that primal tree led to his own defeat
beneath the crossed beams of another tree.27
10.
And the Proper Preface that the Divine Service uses for
Holy Week confesses that truth: “the serpent who overcame by the tree of the
garden” was overcome “by the tree of the cross” (LSB Altar Book,
151, 190, 231). Our Psalm today likely
dates to the time after the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and its temple,
where pillars were decorated to look like trees.28 The divinely
inspired psalmist described this destruction of God’s temple as if God’s
enemies were, “those who swing axes in a forest of trees” (Ps 74:5).
They are also those who scoff at God and revile the name (v 10) of him who
brings salvation (v 12). The temple of Jesus’ body was mocked and destroyed but
ultimately raised back up (Jn 2:18–22). Jesus didn’t hang on the tree of the
cross overnight that first Good Friday but was taken down before the Sabbath
(Jn 19:31). And later God revealed the majesty and glory of the crucified
Christ by raising him from the dead and exalting him to his right hand. So, now
Jesus Christ works through his Holy Spirit in all those who believe, through
such means as the reading and preaching of his Word, Holy Baptism, individual
Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar. Especially in the Sacrament of the
Altar, we eat the fruit and receive the blessings of the tree of the cross. So,
the cross in effect becomes for us a tree of life (but more about that on
Easter Sunday). For now, considering the tree of the cross, we realize that,
although we fail to keep God’s Law and deserve the cross’s shame, Jesus became
accursed for us and so redeems us.
11.
Long before thousands of people in our country were
killed through the detestable crimes of mobs—taking the law into their own
hands and hanging people on trees—our Lord Jesus was hung from a tree, under
the Law, for the sake of us all. Jesus became accursed for us on the tree of
the cross and so redeemed us. So, by God’s mercy and grace, we are “Living
among the Bible’s Trees,” now and for eternity. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life
everlasting. Amen.
Notes—
23. “Lynching in
America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror,” Equal Justice Initiative,
https://eji.org/reports/lynching-in-america, accessed March 21, 2019.
24. Johannes
Schneider, “xylon,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,
ed. Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 5 (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1967), 39. See also Nielsen, Ringgren, and Fabry, “‘ets,” TDOT,
11:277.
25. TLSB,
Deuteronomy 21:22–23 textual note, 312.
26. The Early Church
Father who understood Gen 22:13 in this way was Melito of Sardis, according to
Georg Bertram, “kremannymi,” Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 3 (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), 919.
27. Allen, “1670a
Tree,” TWOT, 2:689. Used by permission.
28. Nielsen,
Ringgren, and Fabry, “‘ets,” TDOT, 11:271.
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