September 3, Labor Sunday, Sunday School Rally Day

Lesson: Matthew 27.11-26

Sermon Title: He Washed His Hands!

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INTRODUCTION:

Tim Riter, Deep Down (Wheaton, Ill.:Tyndale House, 1995), 51.

George's first job as a landscape contractor was to remove a large oak stump from a farmer's field. He also was using dynamite for the first time.

With the farmer watching, George tried to hide his nervousness by carefully calculating the size of the stump, the proper amount of dynamite, and where to place it.

Finally, he and the farmer moved to the detonator behind his pickup truck. With a silent prayer, George plunged the detonator. The stump gracefully rose through the air and then crashed on the cab of the truck. George gazed in despair at the ruined cab, but the farmer was all admiration.

Son, with a little more practice, those stumps will land in the bed of the truck every time!

  1. George lacks experience.

  2. George wasn't playing with dynamite, but people do.

    1. Pilate is playing with dynamite

    2. The chief priests and the elders are playing with dynamite.

    3. The people are playing with dynamite.

  3. You and I, in our own ways, are playing with dynamite.

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MAIN BODY

  1. Pilate is playing with dynamite.

    1. He does not want to be involved

    2. He is confronted with a situation that is charged with pressure.

    3. There is enough pressure to blow up his whole career.

  2. Pilate asks Jesus a question:

"Are you the king of the Jews?"

    1. Jesus answers:

"You say so."

    1. Jesus is the king of the Jews.

      1. At his birth the Wise men asked, "Where is he born king of the Jews, (Matthew 2.2).

      2. At the beginning of his ministry, Nathaniel addresses Jesus as "King of Israel, (John 1.49).

      3. A few days earlier than this Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem and the public had declared, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord," (Luke 19.38).

    2. Jesus does emphatically affirms his position.

    3. He also reminds Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world, (John 18.36).

  1. Pilate finds no basis for the accusations that are being made against Jesus.

    1. Pilate is desperate to let Jesus go free.

    2. The chief priests and the elders ratchet up the pressure.

"If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor," (John 19.12).

    1. Charge after charge is hurled against Jesus.

    2. Pilate challenges with another question:

"Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?"

    1. Jesus does not respond.

      1. Why should Jesus answer the false charges.

      2. He will not respond to the false charges that are thrown at him.

    2. Pilate is determined to let Jesus go.

    3. Peter makes this abundantly clear as he is speaking to the crowd in Solomon's Portico.

"The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him," (Acts 3.13).

    1. Pilate declares Jesus innocence.

      1. He sends him to Herod.

      2. Herod sends him back.

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  1. Pilate now appeals to the people.

    1. It was his custom, at the time of the festival. to release a prisoner.

    2. So Pilate waits until the a multitude of people have gathered.

    3. Then he gives the crowd a choice between Barabbas, a thief and murderer, and the innocent One.

      1. The people left to themselves might have made the right choice.

        1. Barabbas was well-known.

        2. Jesus is also well-known.

          1. He is the teacher.

          2. He is the compassionate healer.

          3. He is the embodiment of all that is God.

      2. The people are influenced by the chief priests and the elders.

        1. They are fully committed to their cause.

        2. They use all their persuasive powers.

        3. They appeal to the Jewish prejudices.

        4. They succeed in turning the tide of public opinion.

      3. Thursday even, Helga and I went to see the American Players Theater's production of Julius Caesar.

        1. After the murder of Caesar, Brutus makes a passionate speech defending the reasons for the assignation of Caesar.

        2. Brutus withdraws and allows Marc Antony to speak.

        3. Antony uses a play on words

Antony (Act III, Scene 2).

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil things that men do live on after them;
The good things are often buried with their bones.
Let it be this way with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Has told you that Caesar was ambitious.
If that were true, it was a terrible fault,
And Caesar has paid for it terribly.
Here, with the permission of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men),
I come to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He has brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms filled the government treasury.
Did this seem ambitious in Caesar?
Whenever the poor have cried, Caesar has wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all saw that on the Lupercal
I offered him a kingly crown three times,
Which he refused three times. Was this ambition?
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And surely he is an honorable man.
I am speaking not to disprove what Brutus said,
But I am here to say what I do know.
You all loved him once, for good reasons.
What reason keeps you from mourning for him, then?
O judgment, you have run away to dumb animals,
And men have lost their intelligence! Bear with me,
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause until it comes back to me

        1. Antony uses his persuasive powers of speech to turn the crowd against Brutus and Cassius.

      1. The crowd chooses Barabbas over Jesus.

    1. Pilate wants to know what he ought to do with Jesus.

      1. Let him be crucified.

    2. Pilate makes an attempt to check the growing violent nature of the crowd.

      1. "What evil has he done?"

      2. It makes no difference.

      3. The crowd responds "Crucify him! Crucify him!

    3. Pilate now playing with dynamite, reaches an explosive conclusion.

      1. He calls for a basin of water and washes his hands.

      2. "I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves."

    4. He is not innocent.

      1. Like the conspirators in Julius Caesar whose hands are stained with the blood of Caesar, his hands are stained with the blood of Jesus.

      2. He has washed his hands, but he cannot wash is conscience.

      3. He has washed his hands, but he cannot wash his mind of the events of this present hour.

      4. His world explodes with violence against an innocent man.

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  1. Pilate is not the only one playing with dynamite.

    1. The chief priests and the elders have played with dynamite.

      1. The immediate effects are not known.

      2. Their world is in process of disintegration and dissolution.

      3. They have played with hand and lost.

    2. The people have played with dynamite and lost.

      1. The greatest losers are the people.

      2. They have lost, at least for the present, the power of a transformed life.

  2. We have been talking about dynamite.

    1. How do you withstand pressure?

      1. This is a pressure packed moment for the participants.

      2. Does evaluating their responses help us to stand the heat?

    2. The "Good News", the Gospel, is dynamite.

äýíáìéò, dunamis--doo'-nam-is: From G1410; force (literally or figuratively); specifically miraculous power (usually by implication a miracle itself):--ability, abundance, meaning, might (-ily, -y, -y deed), (worker of) miracle (-s), power, strength, violence, mighty (wonderful) work.

      1. Listen to what Peter says in Acts 3:11-16 (NRSVA)

11While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's Portico, utterly astonished. 12When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, 15and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. 16And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

      1. The Gospel and the communicator of the Good News are powerful.

      2. The News is not only about life in the present, but also life for the future.

      3. The Good News is about freedom.

      4. The Communicator of the Gospel has the power to free.

  1. Playing with dynamite is dangerous.

    1. Pilate is playing with dynamite.

    2. The chief priests and the elders are playing with dynamite.

    3. The people are playing with dynamite.

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CONCLUSION:

  1. So here we are!

    1. What have we learned from them about the dangers of playing with dynamite?

    2. We have the power.

Calvin Miller writes in The Table of Inwardness of an antique wooden dynamite box in his home.

Crafted in the 19th century, the box was built to withstand the shock of moving its contents from the manufacturer to the field.

On the lid of the box were large red and black letters which read: Danger! Dynamite!

But the last I saw it, Miller wrote, it was filled with common paraphernalia that could be found in any workroom.

He observes:

How many of us, designed by God to store and release tremendous creative energies, have settled for collecting common paraphernalia and are discharging scarcely any spiritual dynamite?

  1. Are we going to use it?

    1. We cannot play with it.

    2. To be beneficial it must be used.

Amen!

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