04012012 Palm Sunday

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  AMEN.

Let us pray, Lord Jesus Christ, You took our guilt and punishment to set us free from our sins.  In humility You offered Yourself freely as the sacrificial lamb that takes away the sins of the world.  For You became our guilt offering for us to free us from the bonds of sin, death and the devil for all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel.  AMEN.

In the movie, X-Men: First Class, it begins with a child who is being separated from his parents in a German Concentration Camp during World War II.  And in the anger of the moment the boy is capable of performing Herculean feats with his mind causing gates to buckle, metal to bend and the soldiers fighting in vain to prevent the separation of mother and child.  It is not a matter that he has become anything, but this boy is someone special that the main villain of Sebastian Shaw wants to ‘harness’ for his own evil and nefarious purposes.

From our text this evening, we hear how Jesus Christ our suffering servant becomes something as well.  Here from Isaiah:

¹⁰ But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.

As we have journeyed during our Lenten pilgrimage, Isaiah has opened to us the understanding of the suffering servant Jesus Christ.  From our reading today we begin to understand that Jesus Christ became guilt for us.  This was a conscious choice and decision that Jesus Christ made to become guilt for us.  What is interesting is that Jesus Christ in becoming guilt suffered the torment we should have endured.  Isaiah says, “But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief”. In Jesus Christ being crushed for our iniquities He Who knew no sin was perfect and had our sin and guilt placed upon His Head like the goats that the priests of the Old Testament would impart to the animal the sins of the people and then let the goat go into the wilderness as the sacrifice.  Jesus Christ takes our guilt and the guilt of the entire world and bears it on the Cross of Calvary.

Jesus Christ offered Himself and placed squarely all blame, all consequences and all the iniquities of the entire world on His own shoulders.  Today though we celebrate the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem where we the people shout, “Hosanna to the King” the burdens that are borne upon Jesus Christ shoulders are monumental.  Wide are Jesus Christ shoulders and deep is the pain He suffers on our behalf, but this choice He made to offer Himself up for us freely and without cost or expectation.  For it is only through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary that we receive eternal life.

For Jesus Christ was our guilt offering for us.  Jesus Christ endured Maundy Thursday and Good Friday in order to offer to all of us the joy of eternal life.  Jesus Christ in His humility and humanity offers us the gift of salvation and became our guilt offering by choice.  From the first bite of the forbidden fruit the plan of salvation had been set in action and today as we celebrate one more milestone on this tragic, but triumphant journey, Jesus Christ as He enters Jerusalem we journey closer to His ultimate sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary.

For this was the plan of salvation complete in the simple, yet profound act of the Word of God incarnate in the flesh of Jesus Christ as He rode into Jerusalem and offered Himself as the guilt offering for us all.  Jesus Christ kept silent and bore our griefs and cares and was taken on this journey between rulers to the Cross of Calvary.  He was marred, despised, forsaken and afflicted was questioned, but endured scourging, bruising, piercing and having our iniquity and sin fall upon Him.  But in true servant fashion, Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but by being offered as our guilt offering, saved us from our wickedness and through His death on the Cross of Calvary for the entire world, offers all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel eternal life.  AMEN.