David Bahn – Reflections

Jesus. Peter. Judas. Malchus. Caiaphas. Annas. Pilate. Each of these names evoke different feelings as I read this account of Jesus’ arrest, and the rest of John 18.

The Good: Jesus. He alone is good, as he himself attests. He says to the young man, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). But Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the Good Shepherd. He is good and his mercy endures forever. No one else should claim that attribute.

The Bad: Line them up: Was Judas the worst? Or Caiaphas and Annas, scheming behind the scenes? What about Pilate, who caved under pressure, condemning Jesus whom he knew to be innocent? And what of Malchus – stuck in the middle. He was only doing his job and gets his ear cut off! Does he belong on the list of the bad?

And then there is Peter, struggling between good intentions and tragic failure. Poor Peter. You hate to call him bad, for he was so devoted to Jesus. He made plenty of mistakes. He will deny Jesus tonight as Jesus’ trial unfolds – cowered by a slave girl. Peter has plenty of flaws. But he knows it. When he encounters Jesus after the miraculous catch of fish, he falls before him saying, “Depart from me. I am a sinner” (Luke 5:8).

There is one more: Barabbas. He had been thrown into prison for murder and insurrection, but he was released, and Jesus took his place. Where does he fit in this list of the good, the bad, and the sinner? We don’t really know what happened to Barabbas after his release. But theologically, the Gospels preserve his story as a striking illustration of Jesus taking the place of the guilty. We might see him as representing all humanity: the guilty one set free while the innocent One (Jesus) is condemned.

At the end of the day, every name in this account – whether betrayer, coward, conspirator, soldier, or criminal – points us back to Jesus. He alone is good. He alone takes the place of the guilty. Whether it’s Judas, Peter, Barabbas, or you and me, Jesus is the One who bears our sin and gives us his righteousness. That is the heart of the Gospel: the innocent condemned so that the guilty may go free.

I was not the culprit, but I am to blame for leaving Diane’s iPad in a place where the true culprit could steal it. And steal it he did. We tracked it down to a place in Peru, apparently known for being a hotspot for stolen electronic devices. As far as we are able to tell, we managed to erase the contents and secure our identity and passwords. But who knows! How secure can you be?

Recently we had a very strange thing happen with my passwords, stored on my iPhone and in the iCloud. They suddenly showed up on our son’s phone! Apple security is supposed to be the best, but we’re not entirely sure how it happened. Secure. Yeah. Sure.

I think of those two incidents when I read here of Pilate’s words to the chief priests and the Pharisees, “Go, make [the tomb] as secure as you can.” I think also of a YouTuber known as the Lockpick Lawyer who manages to pick every lock he encounters. 

Human security is a self-deceiving illusion at worst, and a deterrent to honest people at best. Like they say, Locked doors keep out the honest people. If a thief wants to break in to your house, he’ll find a way to do it. 

But the security of the tomb of Jesus is proven to be ineffectual not because of honest people or thieves. It will be shown to be ineffective from inside the tomb – although perhaps it was the angels’ who first breached that supposedly-secure location. These Jewish religious leaders undertook a futile effort when they made the tomb as secure as they could.

We can be secure, however, in the love of God and his gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ his Son. We can be secure in knowing that God desires that we and all people would be saved and come to the knowledge of his Son. He has sent the Holy Spirit for that reason – and to propel us toward witness, service, love, and good works.

We can be secure because Pilate, the Jewish religious leaders, and Satan himself could not secure the tomb and prevent Jesus from bursting forth in glorious victory. He has won our salvation, and of that we can be sure.

Matthew pauses his account to remind us that even Judas’ betrayal and the priests’ hypocrisy were foretold by the prophets. He quotes Jeremiah by name, though the wording also reflects Zechariah. That puzzle has drawn much discussion, but the larger point should not be lost: all of this unfolds according to God’s plan, fulfilling the Scriptures.

The real focus is Judas and the leaders of Israel. Judas realizes the horror of what he has done. “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” he confesses.  We see his great remorse over his part in Jesus’ demise. But there is no indication of true repentance on his part. Only his rueful act of returning the blood money to the chief priests and elders. He walks away in despair instead of turning to the One who could have forgiven him. Judas’ sad act of regret is – as far as we know – too little too late.

The priests, for their part, reveal their own duplicity. They are so concerned about keeping their treasury ritually-clean that they cannot see the real stain of guilt on their hands. They reject Judas’ money but press on with the greater crime of condemning the Lord of glory. Outward proximity to the temple and its treasures is no substitute for faith.

Both Judas and the priests remind us how one can appear to be close to God’s ways, yet be far from Him in truth. The warning is sobering. We must never substitute close proximity to the things of God for true faithfulness to his will and ways. He desires our hearts and our hands and will always receive the humble believer but will see through the pitiful veil of mere outward piety.

But the good news is greater: Jesus willingly bore the guilt of all, including even betrayers and hypocrites. He shed His innocent blood for us all, so that in Him we might not be left in despair but receive full forgiveness and life.

One of the most challenging mysteries in scripture is what Lutheran theologians call the Crux Theologorum, which is Latin for the “Problem of Theology.” Simply put it is Why some and not others? God wants all people to be saved. But not all people are saved. Sad but true. Incomprehensible but true. A more thorough discussion of this is available here.

I’ve gotten over the idea that I ought to be able to understand this issue or answer the question, Why some and not others. I’m very comfortable with the Lutheran answer: I don’t know. But there is a trend among certain Christians that highlights the distinction the brokenness of the Christian Church on earth and the person and work of Jesus. This trend says that if people just knew Jesus, they would believe in him. Their idea is that the church and Christians get in the way of people knowing and believing in Jesus.

Perhaps an example of that is the He Gets Us ad campaign. Those ads highlight how Jesus has a heart for hurting, lonely, displaced, and marginalized people. Indeed he does. But Jesus took that step from a perspective against the mighty, powerful, self-righteous, and content people of his day. And that would be most all of us. And if you’re ready to say, “I’m not self-righteous,” you’ve proved my point.

Jesus’ message for us all is to repent and believe the Good News. And what is that Good News? Jesus came to earth to seek and save the lost. That took him to Pilate’s court, to Herod’s palace and back, and a cross on a hill outside of Jerusalem previously reserved for Barabbas – an insurrectionist and murderer.

Perhaps we need to answer a different question. Why would God do such a thing? He did it because he loves us and wants all people to be saved. Repent, therefore and believe the Good News of Jesus’ redemption.

A comment often attributed to C.S. Lewis is that whether prayer changes God’s mind or the course of events may not be certain. But one thing is certain: prayer changes us. Perhaps it makes us more humble, more aware of our dependence on God and his favor. Maybe it helps us appreciate the good things we have even as we pray. Certainly it lifts our spirits when we pray prayers of thanksgiving and praise to our God.

But looking at Jesus’ and Ezra’s prayers, it’s clear to me that sometimes our prayers change things. James says, “You have not because you ask not” (James 4:2). Jesus makes it clear, “In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (John 16:23). Then of course there is Jesus’ admonition regarding casting out demons, “This kind comes out only by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). Without prayer we cripple our witness and our effectiveness as disciples of Jesus.

I once prayed for a couple I was counseling and the very next day saw a dramatic change in their relationship. Another time, I fasted and prayed for a good Christmas Eve turnout in the congregation I was serving. That evening, we had record attendance—far beyond what I had imagined.

Yet there is a great mystery in prayer. Sometimes we pray and nothing seems to happen—but we don’t know what might have happened had we not prayed. And when we do not know how to pray, we entrust our needs to the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.

I note here the quality of Jesus’ prayer: that God would be glorified through his coming suffering and death. I see how Ezra fasted and prayed for God’s hand of protection. How fully both of these prayers have been answered!

Prayer may remain a mystery, but God’s command to pray and his promise to hear are crystal clear. So I’ll keep praying—who knows what God might do!

From my earliest years of biblical understanding, I knew of the Holy Spirit. I might not have been able to express his existence under the concept of the triune nature of God. But I knew there was a Holy Spirit. And I believed in him – at least conceptually. But when in high school I attended worship with my friend Jerry, and we spoke the Apostle’s Creed, I learned about believing “in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church; the communion of saints…” The Holy Spirit was right up there with Jesus, God’s Son and the Father who created the heavens and the earth. God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – in whose name I had been baptized.

I continue to learn about the Holy Spirit: How he propels the Mission of God (cf. Acts 13:2), how he calls to mind the truth of God and the words of Jesus (John 16 above), inspired the writers of the Old and New Testaments, brings us to faith, and glorifies Jesus.

Jesus speaks of a threefold conviction of the world, explaining that the Holy Spirit (the Helper) will convict the world in this way: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Simple faith in Jesus—trusting him even before we fully grasp what that means—avails before God; this is saving faith. A more fully formed and robust faith embraces the truths that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness, that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross has secured your salvation and now he reigns at the right hand of the Father, and that Satan’s defeat is certain. This deeper, more resilient faith steadies us when the harder challenges of life press in on every side.

We may not be fully there, but to the extent that we are, we can thank the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified [Nicene Creed]. May he continue to work in our hearts and lives for Jesus’ glory, the cause of his kingdom, and our and our neighbor’s eternal good.

The film Martin Luther: Heretic has a scene where Luther is teaching a class at university. He is teaching them about forgiveness, and salvation by grace through faith. The dialogue goes:

Student: Man can do nothing about his sinfulness?

Luther: Yes God is to do everything

Student: Then I may do as I please. I can sin as much as I want. It makes no difference.

Luther: Yes you may do as you please. Now tell me what pleases you. Imagine it: no more laws no more punishments. What do you do? Drink yourself senseless? Make faces at the Duke? Spend the rest of the week in a whore house? You say to me you may do as you please. I say to you, what you do comes from what you are what you are in your heart.

Many people in the world want nothing to do with pleasing God. They’re charting their own course. They do it their way. They decide for themselves what is good and evil. They are anything but people living under the reign and rule of Jesus. I would rather not admit it, but they hate Jesus and those who do wish to please him.

Thankfully, however, there have been those through the ages who have sought to live faithfully under Jesus’ reign and rule. They realize this is not a heavy burden, but a delightful life of faith and a belief that Jesus’ love renders him the greatest good anyone could desire.

We all serve some god or another: worldly pursuits of fame and fortune, sexual exploits, or self righteous moralism. Those who look to Jesus as the highest good will discover that he “delights in the welfare of his servant.” We tell of his righteousness, and praise him all the day long. That is truly pleasing to me.

She held up a small piece of a grape vine for the pastors and pastors’ wives gathered for the leadership conference. She told us that this particular grape vine was wild and would not produce any good grapes, maybe none at all. Then she began to talk about vineyards, grapes, and wine making. Cindy Steinbeck is the author of The Vine Speaks. Her family owns Steinbeck Vineyards in Paso Robles, California.

Little did I know this would open the door to delightful relationships and lessons with far-reaching impact. We would get to know Cindy and learn about vineyards first hand. We learned about pruning, about how the first of the shoots of the vine contain all the information for all the grapes that would grow from that shoot. We also learned that unless the vine was pruned the result would be a lesser quality of grapes, and maybe even a net lesser quantity of grapes. A few years later we even spent a few days at the Steinbeck Vineyards.

The situation in Ezekiel’s day was far from a success story, hardly a fruitful vineyard, and anything but commendable. God compares Jerusalem to a vine. But this is not a fruitful, flourishing vine—it is a useless vine, producing no grapes. A vine branch without fruit is not even good for lumber: you can’t carve furniture or tools from it, and you can’t even make a simple peg to hang something on. Its only use is as fuel for the fire.

Compare that to Jesus!  Ezekiel’s vine was destined for the fire, but Jesus is the vine who gives life. Abiding in him, we are not cast aside as useless but are made fruitful branches in the vineyard of God.