God’s Son: “Buried”

 “I believe in Jesus Christ -- who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” The Apostles’ Creed

This is a sermon based on a word that doesn’t seem necessary. We know Jesus died. We know he rose from the dead. If we know what happened on Friday and we know what happened on Sunday, why bother adding the word “buried?” And besides I’m tired of this Apostles Creed preaching series – so what pastor?

Yes of course Jesus was buried—that makes sense. That’s what you do with dead bodies. You bury them. But nobody else has ever died like Jesus did!

Jesus died for our sins. He rose on the third day. Surely that’s the part that matters to us. But we assume that he was only buried for approximately 40 hours.

In a Creed where words are used sparingly, where whole areas of doctrine are either assumed or passed over in silence, where the whole of Christ’s teaching ministry and all of his miracles are not even mentioned, why does the Creed say he was buried? Why state the obvious when so much else is left out?

If the writers thought it important to include the word “buried” in the Creed, then it must be important, and there must be something here we need to think about. As I think about it, it occurs to me that I’ve never actually heard a sermon on the burial of Jesus.

Most of us, when we read the story of Jesus’ life, tend to go straight from his death to his resurrection. Almost without thinking, we go from “He gave up his spirit” to “Early on the first day of the week ¼” as if nothing important happened in between.

But it is precisely at this point that the Creed forces us to stop and take another look at the biblical text. The simple word “buried” tells us more than what happened to the body of Jesus. It alerts us to an area of biblical truth that we might otherwise overlook.

I Corinthians 15: 1-6 contains a concise summary of the gospel. Paul even says in verse 1, “I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you.” Then he goes on to spell out the gospel in verses 4-5, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.” Notice how clearly he lays out the gospel message:

He was crucified. He was buried. He was raised on the third day. He appeared.

1. He was crucified. Proof: He was buried.

2. He was raised. Proof: He was seen.

Either way the result is the same. Paul regarded the burial of Jesus as an essential part of the gospel message. When he preached the gospel, he included the burial of Jesus in his message.

So his burial is more than the fact that he was placed in the tomb. It is a part of prophecy and part of the gospel message. And that’s why it appears in the Apostles’ Creed.

The details of Jesus’ burial appear in all four gospels: Matthew 27: 57-61; Mark 15: 42-47; Luke 23: 50-56; John 19: 38-42.

>Jesus is dead by 3:00 p.m. Sundown (marking the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath) begins at 6:00 p.m. when Jesus’ would have to be buried due to Sabboth.

>Eventually a man called Joseph of Arimathea steps forward to help bury the body. (Mark tells us that Joseph bravely went to Pilate to ask for Jesus’ body.)

>Joseph and Nicodemus take down the body of Jesus from the cross. These two who take care of Jesus’ body are Jewish leaders who are also secret believers.

After cleaning the body, Joseph and Nicodemus began to wrap it tightly with a linen cloth. John tells us that they had 75 pounds of aloes and myrrh that they interspersed with the linen as it wrapped around his body. All of that would have taken the better part of two hours.

Remarkably, two ancient pieces of cloth, the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo, exist today. Both are revered as relics, and each bears the name of the city where it currently resides.

First and foremost is the Shroud of Turin. Secured in a vault in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, the Shroud is believed by millions to be the burial cloth of Jesus.

It is a fine linen cloth, measuring 14.5 feet by 3.5 feet, and mysteriously displays a finely detailed negative photographic image — front and back, head to toe, of an anatomically correct man who appears to have been tortured, beaten, and crucified. Note that, in their accounts of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, the Gospels mention a “fine linen cloth.” And the Bible references Jesus as a “Man of Linen.”

Perhaps it is a coincidence, but clearly seen on the body of the crucified man in the Shroud are gruesome markings consistent with the Gospel accounts of Christ’s Passion.

You can count over 100 whip marks, possibly from scourging by Roman flagra, and identify on his wrists and feet obvious wounds that could have been from large spikes.

Other markings are compatible with what could have been a crown of thorns. On closer examination, you can spot bruises (from beatings?) on his face, knees (from falling?), and the back of his shoulders (from carrying a heavy cross?), and a large bloody mark (from a spear?) in his side. Like the crucified Jesus in Gospel accounts, the man in the Shroud had no broken bones.

Then there is the Sudarium of Oviedo. It resides in the Cathedral of Oviedo, in Spain. The Sudarium is a piece of linen cloth, 34 by 21 inches, thought to have been used to cover the head of Jesus immediately after the crucifixion (John 20: 7).

Unlike the Shroud, the Sudarium does not display an image. The Sudarium contains male blood of type AB, however, which matches the blood on the Shroud. Moreover, the patterns of blood flow on the Sudarium are consistent with those of a crucified man.

Indeed, the Sudarium and the Shroud covered the same person, as Juan Manuel Miñarro, the author of a study sponsored by the Spanish Center of Sindonology, recently concluded. “We have come to a point where it seems absurd to suggest that ‘by happenstance’ all of the wounds, lesions and swelling coincides on both cloths,” said the center’s president, Jorge-Manuel Rodríguez. “Logic requires that we conclude that we are speaking of the same person.”

>So now it is past 5:00 p.m. They have less than 60 minutes to finish their work.

Joseph uses a tomb he had reserved for his own use just down over the hill.

>The two men—secret disciples—carry the dead body of Jesus to the tomb. Close behind are Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, weeping. They laid the body of Jesus on a ledge and turned to go. When they got outside, Joseph and Nicodemus rolled a great stone over the entrance. The women sat by the side watching.

Then Joseph and Nicodemus leave. Then the two Marys’ leave. Darkness fell on the garden cemetery. Everyone had left, Jesus’ body was alone.

Why are we given so much detail about Jesus’ burial?

I can think of five answers to that question.

To prove that he really died. This was a huge issue in the early church—and remains so to this very day. The details of his burial reinforce the central truth—that Jesus really and truly died on the cross.

To show the true cost our salvation. We are accustomed to saying, “Our sins put Jesus on the cross.” That’s true, but we can say it stronger than that. “Our sins sent him to the grave.” He was buried because he died carrying the heavy burden of our guilt and shame.

To teach us that God does not forsake us when we die. We know that “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Our Lord was cut off by the Father’s decree. It pleased the Lord to crush his only Son (Isaiah 53:10). Yet in that crushing, God did not abandon his Son forever.

The ministrations of Joseph and Nicodemus and the kind care of the sorrowing women were God’s way of saying, “I have not forsaken my Son in his death.” We learn from this that burying the dead is a Christian duty and a Christian service to our loved ones. We do well to care for the dying and to provide for a decent burial for the dead. If God cared enough for his Son to see that he was properly buried, even so we should do the same for those we love.

To sanctify death so that we will not be afraid to die. Here we come even closer to the heart of the gospel. Is there any fear more fundamental than the fear of death? But Jesus has transformed death for those who follow him. What happens to us, happened first to him. What happened to him will one day happen to us.

He entered death’s dark realm and not only subdued it. He conquered it once and for all. By his victory over death he has sanctified it so that we no longer need to fear it. He went into the tomb and then he came out. Thus we will not fear to go in, knowing that one day by God’s grace, we too will come out.

To picture the complete removal of our sins. We know that Jesus died so that our sins might be forgiven. But there is an aspect of this truth that we often overlook. John the Baptist said of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” (John 1: 29). One of the primary Hebrew words for forgiveness means to “lift and take away.” That’s forgiveness. God removes the burden of our sin, and then he takes it far, far away.

When Christ went into the tomb, he carried our sins with him. When he came out of the tomb, our sins were gone forever.

When our sins are forgiven and removed, we see them no more. The burden is not only “lifted at Calvary,” it is rolled away so that we will never have to carry that burden again. The Bible uses a number of images to describe how God deals with our sins:

God blots out our sins as a thick cloud (Isaiah 44:22).

God forgets our sins and remembers them no more (Jeremiah 31:34).

God puts our sins behind His back (Isaiah 38:17).

God buries our sins in the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).

God removes our sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

There is an almost forgotten Hymn that directly connects the removal of our sins with the burial of Christ. In 1910 an evangelist named J. Wilbur Chapman (he was one of Billy Sunday’s teachers) wrote a gospel song that traces the story of Christ’s life from his birth through his life, death, resurrection, and his second coming. The song is called “One Day” and the chorus goes like this:

Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me;

Buried He carried my sins far away;

Rising, He justified freely forever;

One day He’s coming—O glorious day!

That second line connects the burial of Jesus with the complete removal of our sins.

Charles Spurgeon called Jesus Christ the “great Scapegoat” who stands in our place, bearing our sins, taking them far away. Have you laid your sins on Jesus?

Have you trusted in him who died to forgive your sins and take them far away? Rejoice in your deliverance from sin, and adore the Redeemer who paid the price and took the heavy load, who went to the cross and then to the grave, that you might be set free. Amen.

The Day God Died: “Crucified, Dead” Hebrews 9-10

There’s a joke told about Jesus that may be in bad taste but illustrates exactly what I want to talk about this week:

After Christ rose from the dead he was on a stroll with some of his disciples. One of them said, "Say Jesus, do you mind showing us how you walked on water?"

Jesus said, "Well, these were miracles, not exactly parlor tricks. But you know what, I don't mind." (Another disciple asked, "What's a parlor?")

Jesus and the disciples go down to a nearby river. Jesus takes a few steps out but halfway through starts to sink and immediately falls in the water. Jesus reemerges, laughs it off and decides to try a different part of the water, but unfortunately he falls in again after a few steps.

Jesus emerges and tries once more in a different part of the river but as expected, he falls right in. After coming back on land, the disciples are stunned. They can't believe their prophet has failed at a miracle.

One of the disciples says, "Jesus, why weren't you able to stand on water as you did before." Jesus replies, "Well, it was a lot easier before I got these holes in my feet."

Most of the time we gloss over the tremendous suffering, injury, and pain Jesus suffered when He was crucified. It was real, it happened, and real people got hurt, but lives were changed afterward.

The Creed contains four phrases that refer to the death of Jesus Christ:

Crucified, Dead, Buried, and Descended into Hell.

If you think about it, this may seem a little too harsh, particularly when you think how hard it is for us to talk about death particularly in our nice cave like churches.

Add in a Creed where the entire Christian faith is presented in approximately 110 words. Why are six words used to describe the death of Christ when one would have told the story—"dead.”

Why doesn’t the Creed simply say “suffered under Pontius Pilate, died, on the third day he rose from the dead?” What additional truth is added by the piling up of phrases relating to his death? Consider the first three phrases: “crucified, dead, buried.” Repeat that out loud several times:

Crucified…Dead…Buried. 

Crucified…Dead…Buried. 

Crucified…Dead…Buried.

If you say it rapidly, it sounds like a hammer nailing the lid of a coffin. It’s meant to sound that way so that we will pause to think about what actually happened to our Lord. Since the Creed uses four phrases to describe the death of Christ, we’re going to take our time to consider what they mean. Today we’ll consider the first two words: “crucified, dead.”

Next week we’ll look at just one word: “buried.” Then in two weeks we’ll discuss the most controversial phrase in the entire Creed: “descended into hell/hades.”

But for the moment let’s ask again why the Creed describes the death of Christ in four different ways.

If you study the history of the Christian church, you discover that from the very beginning, there have always been critics and skeptics who attacked Christianity by claiming that Jesus never rose from the dead.

The claim is made in various ways; one of them being that Jesus was never really dead. While that may sound odd to us, in the early church a group of people called the Gnostics claimed that Jesus never really died in the literal sense. They said the Spirit of God entered Jesus at his baptism and left before his crucifixion. They concocted this theory because they couldn’t conceive of the Son of God literally dying on the cross.

Hundreds of years later the prophet Mohammed gave birth to the religion of Islam, which teaches that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. The Koran supposedly states that Jesus only appeared to die on the cross. This of course means that since he didn’t really die, he didn’t really rise from the dead.

Muslim scholars differ over what exactly happened to Jesus. Some say that at the last second, another person took his place on the cross—perhaps Judas, perhaps Simon of Cyrene.

They even suggest that God cast a spell over the enemies of Jesus so the switch could take place without them knowing about it. That’s a clever idea with absolutely no basis in historical fact.

In 1965 a man named Hugh Schonfield wrote a widely-read book called “The Passover Plot” that was made into a movie in 1975. He claims that Jesus never really died on the cross. He fainted or swooned or passed out from the beatings and the crucifixion so that the disciples and the Jews and the Romans all thought he was dead when his body was taken down from the cross.

Later when his body was placed in the cool tomb, he revived, regained his strength, cleaned himself off, and then somehow rolled the massive stone away.

Jesus then walked out f the tomb on Sunday morning, looking fresh, healthy, strong, revived, and totally recovered, “obviously” risen from the dead.

That theory is both ingenious and preposterous. If you understand the brutal nature of crucifixion, you must conclude that it takes more faith to believe that than to believe than Jesus actually died and rose from the dead.

The Certainty of His Death - Isaiah 53—the greatest Old Testament description of our Lord’s death. That chapter emphasizes God’s activity in the events surrounding the crucifixion. It was the Lord who laid on Jesus the sins of us all.

Isaiah 53:10 says that the Lord was pleased to crush his own Son. I ponder that word “pleased” and wonder what it means. What sort of father would be pleased to crush his son? There are only two choices here. Either the father hates his own son and wishes to see him suffer, or the father understands that the suffering is necessary to gain some greater good that cannot come any other way.

In the case of Christ, the Father ordains the death of his Son in order that salvation might come to the world. And the Son willingly goes as a lamb to the slaughter.

He endures the cross and despises the shame, He enters the crucible of eternal pain because in the end, “when he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11 NLT).

It came to pass by God’s predetermined plan. He was crucified because God willed that his Son be crucified. He died because God willed it to be so. He was buried because God ordained that his Son be buried. He fully entered into the realm of death—not by accident but by divine design. The writers of the Apostles’ Creed understood this and that’s why they used four phrases to describe his death.

In the end we are left to know that the Romans were good at killing people. It was one of their specialties. They knew the difference between a dead man and an unconscious man.

The Significance of His Death - Let’s take a quick look at six verses from Hebrews 9 & 10 that reveal the true significance of Jesus’ death.

>No blood, no forgiveness. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9: 22).

> Animal blood won’t do. “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Hebrews 10: 4).

> Jesus sacrificed himself for us. “But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9: 26).

> His sacrifice takes away our sin. “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people.” (Hebrews 9: 28).

> There is only one sacrifice for sin. “But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” (Hebrews 10: 12).

> His sacrifice makes us holy. “By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Hebrews 10: 14).

Ponder these verses and consider what they mean: No blood, no forgiveness … animal blood won’t do … Christ took away sin by sacrificing himself … His sacrifice takes away our sin forever … He died once to take away our sin … His sacrifice makes us holy. Thus we see the centrality of the cross. Start anywhere in the Bible and the result is the same—all roads lead inexorably to the cross.

The cross is God’s solution to man’s sin. And since sin is the ultimate problem of the human race, the cross is God’s ultimate answer. There is one sacrifice for sin—and only one.

That sacrifice was offered once for all time—never to be repeated. Jesus offered himself to take away sin—no one else could do what he did. His sacrifice solves the sin problem—there is no other solution. His sacrifice makes us holy—there is no other way to be holy.

The death of Jesus Christ is therefore the most important event in world history. 

Everything before it leads up to it. Everything after it looks back upon it. That’s the Christian worldview.

Let’s wrap things up with three statements of application:

>God only has one plan of salvation for the whole human race. There is one plan—and only one.

>There is only one way to heaven—Jesus Christ our Lord. There is one plan and one way—no other plan, no other way.

3) There is only one sacrifice that can take away our sin and make us holy.

One plan, one way, one man, one sacrifice. That’s the real meaning of these verses in Hebrews 9 & 10. That’s why the writer of Hebrews repeats it over and over again.

Jesus was offered once for all as God’s perfect sacrifice that takes away our sin. He alone can make us holy. In case we miss the point, Hebrews 10 even quotes a famous passage (famous to first-century Jews, at least) from Jeremiah 31, where God promises two wonderful gifts to his people:

“‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time,’ says the Lord. ‘I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.’” Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” (Hebrews 10: 16-17).

Since this may not be as clear to us as it was to the original readers, let me lay it out this way:

Jeremiah 31 (written 500 years before the birth of Christ) is quoted in Hebrews 10 (written around AD 65) to help us understand what the cross of Christ (AD 33)
means in 2016.

Here’s a question for you:  “What can wash away my sin?”

I pray your answer is: “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

“What can make me whole again?”

Again the answer: “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

Oh, precious is the flow,
That makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

That’s why Jesus was crucified to death. Amen.

APOSTLES CREED: “Suffered Under Pontius Pilate”

Another Lawyer joke: A defense attorney was cross examining a coroner about the death of a lawyer in the community. The attorney asks, "Before you signed the death certificate had you taken the man's pulse?" The coroner says, "No." The attorney then asks, "Did you listen for a heart beat?" "No." "So when you signed the death certificate you had not taken any steps to make sure the man was dead, had you?"

The corner, now tired of the brow beating says, "Well, let meput it this way. The man's brain was sitting in a jar on my desk, but for all I know he could be out there practicing law somewhere in a government agency."

Our topic today covers a government official named Pontius Pilate.

Have you ever reasoned out for yourself who really is responsible for killing Jesus? Was it the Jews? Was it the religious establishment (the Pharisees, Sadduccees, and the priests?), was it Herod the King, or was it the Romans?

Could it be called suicide? Or even worse could it have been Almighty God himself?

Let’s wrestle a little with these questions today.

Each Sunday Christians everywhere say two human names as they profess their faith: Mary and Pontius Pilate. That Mary’s name should be included as part of the Apostle’s Creed should come as no surprise. The Virgin Birth has long been a centerpiece of Christology, even though we protestants stay away from declaring that Mary is “god-like” in her articipation.

However, there is something jarring about the inclusion of Pilate in the creeds.

Theologian Karl Barth claimed that running into Pilate’s name in the recitation of the creed was akin to the movement of “a dog into a nice room.” Yet we must take the inclusion as necessary. 

The significance of Pilate’s inclusion comes into focus when one considers that the creeds bypass the life and deeds of Christ’s life, and go straight to his death and resurrection.

We don’t talk miracles, His walking on water; changing water into wine, raising the dead, or His wonderful sermon on the Mount. Those are not part of the creed.

All the aspects of contemporary “Jesus-ology” by asking “what Jesus would do,” the premise to take his words as a code for life, and so forth, are ignored in favor of the simple declaration that, after he was born, He suffered under Pontius Pilate, casting a disgraceful  pall over the that name. 

Reciting Pilate’s name requires we face the challenge of faith which asks us to see a prisoner as God and to identify ourselves with Pilate, who historically says: “Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? Alas my treason, Jesus hath undone thee. ‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied Thee. I crucified Thee.”

Placing Pilate in the creed forces us to face our own fault in Christ’s suffering, and the frailty of our own faith. 

We don’t know much about Pilate, at least not from the Biblical narrative itself. We know that he was a Roman prefect in charge of Judea, and we know that he was married.

There did emerge, in the first century after Christ’s death, stories concerning Pilate’s fate. St. Justin Martyr, Origen, and Tertullian all give due credence to these reports, which include stories about Pilate’s death by his own hand. 

While the early Church struggled against paganism, confidence was given to the stories that show Pilate affirming the miracles of Christ, proclaiming His deeds as greater than those performed by Rome’s own gods. Such proclamations, even if slightly mythological, point to the central purpose of Pilate’s inclusion in the creeds: as providing an historical record for the man Jesus Christ. 

“Ecce Homo:” behold the man. In beholding the man, we behold God.

Dorothy Sayers wrote that the importance of Christ in front of Pilate is that we no longer behold God-in-his-thusness, as transcendent, abstract, one, and universal, but rather God-in-his-thisness, as embodied in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, as immanent, concrete, triune, and particular. Indeed, we are brought face-to-face with the scandalous particularity of the Christian faith, made more scandalous by God’s weakness and poverty. 

Christ’s passion before Pilate reveals the other side of the dynamic of human sinfulness and Divine Justice, for in taking upon himself the wrath of God, Christ removes our guilt.

But now the roles are reversed: we are Pilate, and Christ judges us. Even as Socrates turns the table on his Athenian accusers so it is they who are really on trial, so also Christ turns the tables on Pilate, letting him know that Pilate has no authority “except it has been given from above.”

Also like Socrates, the threats of those in power mean nothing to those prepared to die, to those who know that dying and suffering is not the worst thing we do as human beings. The truth rests with those who, in humility, are not afraid because they know what is beyond life. 

In the process, a new and different history is revealed, one where Pilate’s free action, works not in the interest of justice but cowers under the influence of both Caesar and the mob, is brought into the economy of salvation.

We see many actions coming together to accomplish Jesus’ crucifixion.

Given, as we read in John 18: 4, that Jesus knew what was to befall him, we now face the mysteries of God’s Will.

Karl Barth wrote, “He suffers, but he does not protest against Pilate having to utter the judgment upon Him. In other words, the State order, the polis, is the area in which his action too, the action of the Eternal Word of God, takes place.” 

In the confrontation between Christ and Pilate, the battle between the powers of this world and divine power comes to a climax, with Christ recognizing Pilate’s limited culpability. Indeed, when Christ tells Pilate “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above,” Pilate takes this not as insolence but as innocence (“Upon this Pilate sought to release him.”). 

The testimony of Christ confused Pilate, who couldn’t take the words of the man in front of him to be either sedition or blasphemy. Conflicted by his belief in the prisoner’s innocence, his wonder at the strange answers he receives, and his inability to see Christ as God, Pilate’s reflections turn back on themselves and the only pole he can grasp is the fear generated when the crowd accuses him of not being Caesar’s friend.

Oliver O’Donovan has argued that only the pathology of the modern mind could relate to Pilate, but I think he is wrong about that. Who of us would not behave like Pilate? 

Christ tells Pilate he came to the world to give witness to the truth about God Himself, and thus then, the truth about who we are: that we only know ourselves when we know God, and only know God when we know the man Jesus Christ.

Pilate’s mystification does not excuse him. But we, knowing the Truth, know that Pilate too suffered: from illusion, performing injustice, and, we imagine, self-contempt. Pilate’s attempt to wash himself clean of his own sin must have looked pitiable to the condemned Man, who alone knew that Pilate, like us, could only be cleansed by the blood of the cross.

It is noteworthy that the Bible never tells us that Jesus smiled or laughed. I’m sure that he did—but the gospels never mention it.

Isaiah 53:3 calls him “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” When he was born, Herod tried to kill him. When he began his ministry, the people in his hometown took offense at him (Mark 6: 3). In the closing hours of his life, he was betrayed by Judas and denied by Peter.

His sufferings did not begin on the cross, but it was his suffering that led him to the cross.

So why then single out Pontius Pilate? Why not Caiaphas or Herod or Judas or the Roman soldiers or the howling mob?

The answer comes from a scene Mel Gibson captured with great power in the movie “The Passion of Christ.” Jesus has just been scourged. He stands before Pilate, covered with blood, his flesh in tatters, his eyes nearly swollen shut, his face so marred that he barely looks human. Pilate looks at him in shock and pity and in a near-whisper says, “Don’t you know I have the power to put to you to death or to free you?”

That wasn’t a boast—it was a statement of sober fact. As the Roman governor of Judea, he alone could condemn a man to death. If it is true that many of the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead, it’s also true that they could do nothing without Pilate’s permission.

In the end, Pilate must be held accountable for the death of Jesus. If the Jewish leaders loaded the gun, it was Pilate who pulled the trigger.

In the film, and in the gospels, Pilate comes across as a man who knows that Jesus is innocent yet lacks the courage to set him free. Three times he says, “I find no fault in him.” Pilate knew Jesus had committed no crime worthy of death. But like many a politician caught between a rock and a hard place, he caved in to pressure from his bosses in Rome and from the Jews who wanted Jesus dead.

The path of faith that leads to salvation opened up before Pilate: choose Christ, or choose Caesar (the things of this world). So also it remains open for us, for we stand in Pilate’s place, bear his guilt, share his fears, and think we can extend grace to ourselves.

The final truth is that Christ did not just suffer under Pilate, he suffered for him as well. Just as Jesus suffered for us all. Pilate is a historical figure who lived and puts truth to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Ponder these words from Isaiah 53: 4-5: “Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,and by his wounds we are healed.”

Four times the prophet uses the word “our.” 

Our infirmities. 

Our sorrows. 

Our transgressions. 

Our iniquities.

In some profound way we were all there that day; it was our sins that nailed Christ to the cross. “And the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6).

It is as if our hands held the nails to bind His hands and feet, for we are all guilty and we all receive the grace. 

What character would we have been at the foot of the cross? Amen.

“Conceived of the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary,” or WHY the Virgin Birth Matters:

Let’s begin our study with what should be two familiar verses of Scripture:

“But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’” (Matthew 1: 20).

“The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.’” (Luke 1: 35).

The first verse tells us what the angel said to Joseph to reassure him about Mary’s pregnancy.

The second verse is part of what the angel Gabriel said to Mary when he announced that she would give birth to Jesus.

Taken together, these verses form a fitting introduction to the next section of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in Jesus Christ … who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.”

Here we come face to face with the Virgin Birth of Christ—a doctrine we tend not to think about except during December, but still essential the week after Easter.

We are considering it today because the early Christians considered this truth so necessary that they included it in the first Christian creed. Therefore, it must be of paramount importance as a foundation doctrine of our faith. Here are three simple statements about the Virgin Birth of Christ:

First, it is clearly taught in the Bible. Isaiah prophesied it 700 years before Christ’s birth. Matthew and Luke explicitly included it in their gospels.

Second, it has been universally believed. This doctrine reaches across the various divisions of Christendom—Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical.

Third, it has been hotly debated, but up until the last 150 years, few people challenged this teaching.

With the rise of liberal Christianity, some theologians have attacked this doctrine as superstition, or they have branded it a legend created to make Jesus seem divine, or they have said the church borrowed a pagan myth or a Jewish tradition.

They will go on to declare that the silence of the New Testament outside of Matthew and Luke’s Gospel regarding the Virgin Birth must mean that either it doesn’t matter or it didn’t happen.

If you go all the way back to the gospel accounts, you can find hints here and there that even in Jesus’ lifetime, there were rumors about his having an “unusual parentage.”

Some people thought he was illegitimate. Others suggested an act of immorality. A pagan opponent of the early church said that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier. That slander has been repeated across the generations down to the present day.

The Virgin Birth falls on one of the great fault lines of the Christian faith. It rests on the “great divide” that separates those who believe the Bible is God’s Word, and those who don’t.

It separates those who believe in a supernatural Christ from those who believe he was just a good man, a moral teacher, a revolutionary, a prophet perhaps, but not the Son of God from heaven.

Because these issues are essential doctrine, it’s crucial that we state plainly what we believe about the birth of Christ. Christians make a claim for Jesus that cannot be made for any other person: His life did not begin with his birth or with his conception.

Unlike every other human whose beginning can be traced to a specific moment in time, we declare that the true life of Jesus Christ had no beginning. Because he is eternal, he existed forever with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. This is an utterly supernatural claim that could not be made about anyone else. To help us think through the implications of this doctrine, here are three questions about the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.

1) What Does This Mean? What exactly do we mean when we say that Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” and “born of the virgin Mary?”

We mean at least five things:

First, Jesus was born by the direct action of God (because he chose to do it this way). A virgin gives birth by the sovereign choice of Almighty God. There is no other explanation.

Second, no man was involved in the process. Not Joseph. Not a Roman soldier. Not any other man.

Third, Jesus had a human mother and no human father.

Fourth, Jesus is and was and thus fully human and fully divine. He is fully human because he comes forth from Mary’s womb. He is fully divine because he is conceived by the Holy Spirit. He is not half-human and half-divine. He is the God-man—one person possessing two natures, God incarnate in human flesh.

Fifth, he is therefore without sin. Luke 1:35 calls him “the holy one,” meaning that he will be born without any taint of sin. He has no inherited sin from Adam, no sin nature, nothing in him that will cause him to sin. He is holy in the truest and deepest meaning of that term. There is no sin in him or about him.

Here is another way to state the same truth. In order for Christ to be our Savior, (to qualify as redeemer) three conditions must be met:

1) He must be a man. An angel could not die for our sins. He must truly share our humanity.

2) He must be an infinite man. A mere mortal could not bear the infinite price that must be paid for our sins.

3) He must be an innocent man. A sinner could not die for the sins of others.

The Virgin Birth guarantees that our Lord fulfills all three conditions. Because he is born of Mary, he is fully human. Because he is conceived by the Holy Spirit, he is fully God. Because he is born holy, he is sinless in thought, word and deed. Thus he is fully qualified to be our Savior.

2) How Did It Happen? The second question revolves around the process. The virginal conception of Jesus was a direct creative miracle of God. That also means it is a mystery we will never fully understand.

In these days of amazing technological advancement, we occasionally hear talk about science reproducing a “Virgin Birth” today. But no matter what the scientists may do in the field of genetic manipulation, cloning, parthenogenesis, or any other advanced research, you can take all the scientists from the best labs, and give them unlimited resources and a thousand years, and they will still be unable to duplicate the virginal conception of Christ.

Only God himself could create a human life that is fully human and yet fully divine. Jesus Christ is truly God’s “one and only” Son. This is a miracle and a mystery that lies beyond the reach of science.

John 1: 14 says, “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” Christ, the living Word, “put on” humanity the same way I put on my clothes before I came to church on Sunday morning. He was always God but he “added” humanity through the Virgin Birth.

3) What Difference Does It Make? The biggest barrier to reaching you with a sermon like this may be that most of us already believe in the Virgin Birth. Even if we’ve never thought about it very much, we know we believe it because we hear about it every December.

So it’s easy to put a sermon like this in the category of, “Nice but doesn’t matter.” That would be a huge mistake. We can be certain that the early Christians didn’t feel that way or they wouldn’t have included these phrases in the Creed. What difference does it make that Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit,” and “born of the Virgin Mary?” Here are three implications for us to consider.

Biblical Authority.  Matthew and Luke tell us that Jesus entered the world in a supernatural way—through a mighty miracle of God. Theses same writers tell us that Jesus’ earthly life came to a climax with another mighty miracle—his bodily resurrection from the dead.

We all understand the significance of the Resurrection. Because he lives, we too shall live. His resurrection guarantees ours. But it’s not the same with the Virgin Birth. His supernatural birth doesn’t tell us anything about our physical birth. And since we’ve already been born, it’s easy to discount the Virgin Birth when we compare it to the Resurrection. But that is a major mistake.

If you can’t believe the first miracle, how can you believe the last miracle? If you doubt the Virgin Birth, how can you be certain about the Resurrection?

Jesus Christ. The Virgin Birth forces us to confront what we believe about Jesus Christ. Who is he? Where did he come from? At issue is the supernatural character of our Lord. Is he truly the Son of God from heaven?

If you answer yes, you’ll have no problem with the Virgin Birth. If you answer no, you’ll have no reason to believe it. Is he just a prophet, or is he “more than a prophet?” Is he a great teacher and nothing more?

Was he a martyr who died for his cause? Was he a revolutionary who never intended to start a religion? Is he a divine leader who came to teach us about God? Or is he God incarnate, the Lord of Glory, the Son of God, our Lord and our Savior?

The Virgin Birth forces us off the fence about Jesus. It tells us that we can’t be neutral and we can’t say that the stories of his birth don’t matter. The fact that this is a miracle and a mystery doesn’t let us off the hook.

Those with an anti-supernatural bias will have no use for the Virgin Birth, and they will explain it away. But those who believe in a supernatural Christ will find the Virgin Birth a mysterious miracle that, instead of destroying their faith, actually makes it stronger.

Three conditions must be met in order for Jesus to be our Savior. He must be a man, he must be God, and he must be sinless. The Virgin Birth guarantees that all those conditions have been met. Thus there is a direct connection between the manger and the cross.

Remember that without his Virgin Birth, his sufferings have no meaning. It is his birth that makes his death meaningful. If he is not who he said he was, then his death was the most tragic mistake in history.

Salvation - by means of the Virgin Birth, Christ enters the world guiltless of the sin of Adam. He becomes the beginning of a new humanity—the restoration of the human race. Because he is born of Mary, he is truly human; because he is conceived of the Holy Spirit, he is free from the inherited guilt handed down from Adam.

Thus he is fully able to stand in our place, taking our guilt, our shame, our punishment. He could pay for our sins precisely because he had no sin and no guilt of his own. “He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might receive the righteousness of God through him.”  (2 Corinthians 5: 21).

This brings to the forefront Paul’s words in Romans 5: 6, “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”

At the precise point of our weakness, Christ was strong. He succeeded where Adam (and all of Adam’s descendants) failed. We were so helpless that we could not do anything to save ourselves.

The Virgin Birth teaches us that our salvation is entirely supernatural.

The Virgin Birth teaches us that salvation is entirely by grace. God does it all because we could not do any of it.

The Virgin Birth reminds us that we all need a Savior.

In today’s world we may want a teacher or a leader or we may look to as a pastor to guide us. But a day will come when only a Savior will do. When we face the moment of death, a prophet will not help us. When we stand at death’s door, we need a Savior to lead us safely through to the other side.

There have been many stories of deathbed conversions and professions of faith – and not so many professions of atheism or agnosticism. The hope of the cross and the reality of Jesus Christ appears real to some.

We all need a Savior sooner or later.

When you face death, you don’t need a teacher—You need a Savior. When you have to cross the river of no return, a myth won’t help you—You need a Savior.  You need a Savior.

Thank God, we have one. His name is Jesus Christ. He was there when I needed  him and He will be there when you need him too. Do you have a Savior? May God help you to trust in Jesus Christ. He’s the Savior we need. Amen.