We have a murder mystery….
Someone brutally murdered Jesus, but who?
Romans
There is an obviousness to this murder in the three or four or five Roman soldiers at the summit of Golgotha, throwing dice for the clothes of a naked man up on a cross.
This man, Jesus, whom they had just nailed to His cross, condemning Him to die this very day.
The Crowd
What about the crowd gathered around this cross that bayed against Jesus, cheering his death?
Who before Pilate just an hour ago, cheering for Barabbas.
This angry crowd, that just days before was praising Jesus, today what him dead and got what they wanted.
A dead Jesus.
Pilate
And how complicated is Pilate, even as he tried to wash his hands of Jesus?
No amount of water can remove that spot.
Caiaphas
The Sanhedrin and Caiaphas may have looked upon the whipped and bloody body with a sense of triumph, but not for long.
Their victory at getting Jesus killed will be short-lived.
They are prime suspects in the murder of Jesus.
False Witnesses
In a sham of a trial, you have false witnesses perjuring themselves, breaking the ninth word of God, given to Moses for all of Israel.
Is bearing false witness becoming an accessory in this murder?
This was a false trial, with false witnesses, held illegally in the middle of the night, held illegally quickly, held illegally with not a quorum present.
This false trial became a false verdict, with a false conviction and a false sentence.
And a dead Jesus.
Temple Guards
The temple guards, more than the people in the courtyard, tortured Jesus with fists and a whip, and even Peter, warming his hands, betrayed Jesus; these all contributed to Jesus’ murder.
No one spoke out on his behalf.
All of us
Even those not present that day can not escape the implications of an innocent man being murdered. Peter made a condemning accusation to people gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:23, this Man (Jesus), delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you (we all) nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
This accusation is to people who were in Jerusalem 52 days ago when Jesus was crucified, and who were in Jerusalem 50 days before when Jesus was resurrected. This accusation also applies to people who were not in Jerusalem at the time. The culpability of Jesus’ death is upon them all, in accepting this culpability, in entering into the repentance and baptism Peter presents to them we all get to enter in to the resurrection as well, we get to be eternally alive to day, even though one day this mortal coil will fail, not from life to death but life to life, for in jesus we get to say, death where is your sting?
God’s foreknowledge does not eliminate our willfulness.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” was not a cry of despair but a call to Psalm 22. It was not of Jesus alone on the cross but of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all present at the murder of the Son of Man.
For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross. What a way to go. What a manifestation of the forbearance of God, who passes over sins previously committed and currently being committed.
Did God need Jesus to die on the cross?
How much did God need to see justice served, how much did we need to see justice served, or how much did we not know that we needed to see? The cross, the outworking of our corrupt tenancy of God’s vineyard (Mark 12:1-12), and the murder of his son, and God not acting with wrath, but acting with mercy, bringing resurrected life where we brought death. And more than that, where we intended the cross for harm, God intended the cross for our good. But not the cross, rather an empty tomb.
But still, we have a mystery.
Who murdered Jesus?
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost may have known what would happen.
But does that make them complicit?
What need did God have, if any, in the death of an innocent man on the cross?
Did God need a litre of blood spilled on the ground at the temple, through Pilate court, on the road to Calvary, and up on the cross, dripping down to the soil of Golgotha?
Does God delight in sacrifices or a repentant and contrite heart?
Is the atonement, in what did happen, the death of an innocent man? Or, in what did not happen, a justified God who could have rightly smeared all of humanity off the face of the earth as guilty parties to the murder of Jesus. But God did not spill his wrath on us; instead, he extended mercy.
For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, and what did we do with what God did? We murdered this Son. What did God do with what we did? God rose Jesus from the dead.
The cross is not a final act of a God-needed sacrifice, but the opening of a mercy, of not getting what we deserve and grace of getting something we do not deserve. Acceptance before Father, eternal life with Jesus
Psalm 22
A Cry of Anguish and a Song of Praise.
For the choir director; upon [a]Aijeleth Hashshahar. A Psalm of David.
22 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
[b]Far from my deliverance are the words of my [c]groaning.
2 O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;
And by night, but [d]I have no rest.
3 Yet You are holy,
O You who [e]are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
4 In You our fathers trusted;
They trusted and You delivered them.
5 To You they cried out and were delivered;
In You they trusted and were not [f]disappointed.
6 But I am a worm and not a man,
A reproach of men and despised by the people.
7 All who see me [g]sneer at me;
They [h]separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,
8 “[i]Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him;
Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.”
9 Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb;
You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts.
10 Upon You I was cast from [j]birth;
You have been my God from my mother’s womb.
11 Be not far from me, for [k]trouble is near;
For there is none to help.
12 Many bulls have surrounded me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
13 They open wide their mouth at me,
As a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within [l]me.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
And You lay me [m]in the dust of death.
16 For dogs have surrounded me;
[n]A band of evildoers has encompassed me;
[o]They pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I can count all my bones.
They look, they stare at me;
18 They divide my garments among them,
And for my clothing they cast lots.
19 But You, O Lord, be not far off;
O You my help, hasten to my assistance.
20 Deliver my [p]soul from the sword,
My only life from the [q]power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion’s mouth;
From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me.
22 I will tell of Your name to my brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.
23 You who fear the Lord, praise Him;
All you [r]descendants of Jacob, glorify Him,
And stand in awe of Him, all you [s]descendants of Israel.
24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
Nor has He hidden His face from him;
But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.
25 From You comes my praise in the great assembly;
I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him.
26 The [t]afflicted will eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek Him will praise the Lord.
Let your heart live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,
And all the families of the nations will worship before [u]You.
28 For the kingdom is the Lord’s
And He rules over the nations.
29 All the [v]prosperous of the earth will eat and worship,
All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him,
Even he who [w]cannot keep his soul alive.
30 [x]Posterity will serve Him;
It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation.
31 They will come and will declare His righteousness
To a people who will be born, that He has performed it.
Acts 2
14 But Peter, [o]taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. 15 For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the [p]third hour of the day; 16 but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel:
17 ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says,
‘That I will pour forth of My Spirit on all [q]mankind;
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
And your young men shall see visions,
And your old men shall dream dreams;
18 Even on My bondslaves, both men and women,
I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit
And they shall prophesy.
19 ‘And I will grant wonders in the sky above
And signs on the earth below,
Blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke.
20 ‘The sun will be turned into darkness
And the moon into blood,
Before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come.
21 ‘And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man [r]attested to you by God with [s]miracles and wonders and [t]signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— 23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of [u]godless men and put Him to death. 24 [v]But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the [w]agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held [x]in its power. 25 For David says of Him,
‘I saw the Lord always in my presence;
For He is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken.
26 ‘Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue exulted;
Moreover my flesh also will live in hope;
27 Because You will not abandon my soul to Hades,
Nor [y]allow Your [z]Holy One to [aa]undergo decay.
28 ‘You have made known to me the ways of life;
You will make me full of gladness with Your presence.’
29 “[ab]Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is [ac]with us to this day. 30 And so, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one [ad]of his descendants on his throne, 31 he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of [ae]the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh [af]suffer decay. 32 This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. 33 Therefore having been exalted [ag]to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. 34 For it was not David who ascended into [ah]heaven, but he himself says:
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
35 Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and [ai]Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Mark 12
1 And He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard and put a [a]wall around it, and dug a vat under the wine press and built a tower, and rented it out to [b]vine-growers and went on a journey. 2 At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. 3 They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others. 6 He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ 8 They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the [c]owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not even read this Scripture:
‘The stone which the builders rejected,
This became the chief corner stone;
11 This came about from the Lord,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
12 And they were seeking to seize Him, and yet they feared the [d]people, for they understood that He spoke the parable against them. And so they left Him and went away.