July 30, 2006 - Lesson: Matthew 26.57-68

Sermon Title: Meeting the Opposition

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INTRODUCTION

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Frame 1: (Calvin speaking to teacher)

Teacher?:

You have a question, Calvin?

Calvin: Yes! What assurance do I have that this education is adequately preparing me for the 21st century?

Next frame:

Am I getting the skills I'll need to effectively compete in a tough, global economy?

I want a high-paying job when I get out of here!

I want opportunity!

Next frame:

Teacher leans over his desk and says, In that case, young man, I suggest you start working harder. What you get out of school depends on what you put into it.

Calvin says, Oh, then forget it.

  1. Work harder

    1. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

    2. Lot's of people would say, "Forget it."

  2. How do you meet a highly volatile and emotional organized opposition.

    1. How do you handle yourself?

    2. Is there something that we can learn to manage these situations in our own lives without saying "forget it"?

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MAIN BODY

  1. Jesus is confronted by a highly volatile and emotional organized opposition.

    1. How does he handle himself?

    2. Is this something that we can learn to manage similar situations in our own lives?

    3. If we examine the details perhaps we can learn from them.

  2. The council had gathered.

    1. They could not forget it.

    2. They would not forget it.

    3. They would use every means at their disposal to dispose of their opposition..

      1. They violated the rules of their own court.

      2. They met at night when criminal processes was forbidden..

      3. The meeting of the Sanhedrin was not a regular meeting.

      4. The trial was not held in the proper chamber.

      5. Assigned no counsel to the prisoner.

      6. They called no witnesses in the prisoner's favor.

      7. They passed judgement of death at once.

  3. The so-called witnesses perverted the words of the prisoner.

    1. They reported, wrongly, in Matthew 26:61 (NRSVA)

61and said, "This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.'"

      1. The temple of God was the Temple.

      2. Jesus never said that he would destroy the Temple.

    1. The incident under examination takes place in John 2:13-22 (NRSVA)

13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" 17His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." 18The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" 19Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 20The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

  1. Caiaphas now attempts to browbeat the prisoner with his power and power of persuasion.

    1. He stood up and said, "Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?"

    2. 63But Jesus was silent.

      1. This was to fulfill the prophecy and promise in the Old Testament

        1. Psalm 38:13-14 (NRSVA)

13But I am like the deaf, I do not hear;
        like the mute, who cannot speak.
14Truly, I am like one who does not hear,
        and in whose mouth is no retort.

        1. Isaiah 53:7 (NRSVA)

7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

      1. Jesus knows that it is of no use to explain the mystery of the words that he had used.

      2. It was unfair to ask him to explain the discrepancies in the alleged testimony.

      3. This was a show only of a court of justice.

      4. The truth of the matter is that this was an attack not unlike the attack of bandits and robbers assaulting him without cause on the road.

      5. The case was best met with a majestic silence.

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  1. Caiaphas now asks a question that requires and answer.

    1. Caiaphas does not intend to imply that Jesus is really the Son of Man and the Son of God.

      1. Caiaphas has his own bit of theology that sees the Messiah as one inferior to God though invested with certain divine attributes.

      2. He had heard that Jesus had on more than one occasion claimed God as his Father.

    2. He now hopes that he will force Jesus to answer a question that will end these phoney proceedings.

    3. You can see the legal precedent in Leviticus 5:1 (NRSVA)

1When any of you sin in that you have heard a public adjuration to testify and--though able to testify as one who has seen or learned of the matter--do not speak up, you are subject to punishment.

    1. I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God."

    2. Now Jesus answers, "You have said so.

    3. But Jesus also imparts a warning.

      1. But I tell you, From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven."

      2. There are numerous passages that strengthen Jesus position.

Psalm 110:1 (NRSVA)

1The LORD says to my lord,
    "Sit at my right hand
    until I make your enemies your footstool."

Daniel 7:13-14 (NRSVA)

13As I watched in the night visions,
I saw one like a human being
    coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
    and was presented before him.
14To him was given dominion
    and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
    should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
    that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
    that shall never be destroyed.

Matthew 24:30 (NRSVA)

30Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see 'the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven' with power and great glory.

      1. Jesus is saying, you are in power now, but your power is temporal and temporary

      2. I have a power that is divine and permeant.

      3. This you will learn in the Father's good time.

  1. 65Then the high priest tore his clothes and declares that "He has blasphemed!

    1. Why do we still need witnesses?

    2. You have now heard his blasphemy.

    3. 66What is your verdict?"

    4. They answered, "He deserves death."

  2. When the meeting ended Jesus was left at the mercy of the guards and servants.

    1. The scene that ensued upon the verdict being pronounced is beyond, measure hideous and unexampled.

    2. By their profanity and coarseness, they fulfilled the words of the prophet in Isaiah 50.6

"I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting," (Isaiah 50.6).

    1. They spit in his face.

      1. A monstrous indignity.

      2. So regarded by all people at all times.

Job 30:9-10 (NRSVA)

9"And now they mock me in song;
    I am a byword to them.
10They abhor me, they keep aloof from me;
    they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.

      1. They hammered him; struck him with fists.

        1. Smote him with the palms of their hands.

        2. They beat him with a stick.

      2. They had previously blindfolded him (Mark xiv. 65; Luke xxii. 64).

        1. Now in derision of his supernatural powers they mockingly bid him to name the person who struck him.

        2. "Thou Christ." They use the term sarcastically.

        3. "You call yourself Christ, the Prophet of God; well, then, divine miraculously, without seeing, who is he that smote thee."

    1. How cruel, how inhuman, how typical of the bullying tactics used by those in power.

  1. Jesus is confronted by a highly volatile and emotional organized opposition.

    1. How does he handle himself?

    2. Is this something that we can learn to manage similar situations in our own lives?

    3. He was prepared.

    4. Last Sunday the sermon title was, "The Disadvantages of being Unprepared."

    5. This week is might have been, "The Advantages of Being Prepared."

    6. Jesus prepared himself for this ordeal right from the beginning.

    7. But the intensity of preparation took place in the Garden before his arrest.

    8. Jesus worked very hard to achieve the degree of relationship with the Father that enabled him to successfully meet the violent and determined opposition.

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CONCLUSION:

  1. Jesus offered only the reality of life lived according to the truth of God.

    1. He offered no rationalizations

    2. He provided no excuses

    3. He gave no lame explanations

    4. He met the challenge with courage and faith.

  2. Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Public domain.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

    1. The Sanhedrin is like Ozymandias.

      1. They have passed away.

      2. All that remains is the story and the impending judgement.

    2. Jesus remains.

      1. All who put their trust in him will also remain.

      2. With him by our side we can meet the challenges of the opposition, whomever, or whatever that may be.

  1. Carl B. Rife of Baltimore, Maryland writes of a listening experience that helps to understand how we may remain.

When I was a teenager, while others were listening to the local radio stations that played popular music, I listened to a station in New York with the call letters of WOR. It featured two interesting persons late in the evening that I regularly listened to: Jean Shepherd and Barry Farber. It was a 50,000-watt station that drifted in and out on my little radio. But I learned to listen well and discern the distinct sound on that station from all the other sounds on the radio dial. Even when there was news or commercials or static, I could discern the voice of WOR because I knew the sound and listened hard. I learned how to tune in the station even in the dark. I knew generally where to turn the dial and then to fine tune to separate out the station from all the other competing stations.

    1. From his experience with the radio is concludes:

We need to learn to listen in such a way that we can discern God's voice in the midst of the myriad of messages coming at us in our society. We can do this by immersing ourselves in the places God has provided for us to hear his word: scripture, prayer, meditation, study, worship, fellowship with other Christians. Down through the years these have been called the means of grace. They prepare us to hear the Word of God that comes directly to us. We can more easily discern the Voice of God from all the voices that call to us.

    1. We not only discern the voice of God, we take the Son of God for an example.

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