St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for 3^rd Midweek Lenten Service – February 27^th, 2002

Dear Christian Friends,

Famous assassinations, such as those of John E Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., are often accompanied by conspiracy theories. Some people find conspiracy theories compelling and view them as more sensible explanations of how such high-profile figures could have been killed. Others believe that conspiracy theories are nothing more than paranoia and question the mental stability of those who suggest them. One high-profile assassination, however, unquestionably occurred as a result of a conspiracy-the assassination of the man we call Lord and Savior. The conspiracy involved people occupying the highest levels of power in the part of the world where Jesus lived. Jesus' own disciples remind us of this in Acts chapter 4: "'Sovereign Lord,' they said, 'you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our Father David: 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One' Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed"' (Acts 4:24-27).

In pointing out this conspiracy, the apostles refer to the words of Psalm 2 where David prophesied nearly a thousand years before it happened. This evening we dig into David’s words and explore this conspiracy using the theme:

The vain desire of those who conspired to be free of Christ led them to ignore what any reasonable person should recognize: It is foolish to try to oppose God. "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One" Think of the futility of what the Jewish leaders, Herod, and Pilate conspired to do to Jesus. How can you oppose the almighty God? Even if he has become a human being, as Jesus did; even if he chooses not to resist you or fight back, as Jesus did; even if he lets you kill him, as Jesus did -- what is that to the Lord of life and death? He takes back his life whenever he chooses. A little like the cartoon character that bounces back time after time after being blown up by dynamite or who always regains his strength every time he is pounded on, Jesus may look defeated when he dies, but he just comes back to life again. The differences are that Jesus is not merely some cartoon character and that he has no undiscovered weakness.

It makes even less sense for people of our day to rebel against the Lord, since we have the record of his death and resurrection, but the conspiracy continues in our time. Kings and commoners alike conspire to kill Christ -- if not in body then in mind and heart. The infamous and now deceased atheist Jon Murray says of Jesus in Life magazine: "There was no such person in the history of the world as Jesus Christ. There was no historical, living, breathing, sentient human being by that name. Ever. The Bible is a fictional, non-historical narrative. The myth is good for business." He conspires and plots in vain. Closing one's eyes and pretending Christ doesn’t exist cannot defeat Christ.

When Islamic governments in Northern Africa support the murdering of Christians and the selling of them into slavery, they conspire and plot in vain. Mistreating Jesus' followers will not erase his name or the memory of him. Killing his followers only sends them to glory sooner, and their deaths often serve as powerful testimony planted as the seeds of faith for many more believers. When people like you and me decide that we are going to become the "master" of our fates and the "captain' of our souls, when we presume to set our own standards of right and wrong or adopt those of our decadent society, or when we claim to hardly need a Savior because we make ourselves out to be shining moral examples, we conspire and plot in vain. Neither our self-deceptions nor our self-flattery will enable us to usurp Christ's rightful place.

Why? Why would Pilate, Herod, heathen religions, and a disobedient disciple of Jesus embark on such a doomed assault against the Lord and against his Anointed? The answer lies in verse 3: "Let us break their chains,' they say, 'and throw off their fetters'" Look at the Jewish leaders who brought Jesus to trial. They just wanted to be free of him. They just wanted to be rid of him. Jesus constantly confronted them with what God is really like. He threatened to overturn their comfortable little world, in which they had everyone convinced, including themselves, that they had all the answers to pleasing God, that they developed the system for people to save themselves, and that they were the ones everyone else should follow. The constraints of Christ's call to repentance and the weight of humbling themselves under God's offer of forgiveness were too confining. The sooner Jesus was dead and gone, the sooner they could get things back under their control.

Pilate just wanted to be free of Jesus. In the short time he knew Jesus, Pilate was confronted with the real duties of his office and the real work of governing which was to uphold justice and not just to pad his resume and pave his way to higher positions of power. Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent, but setting him free could have been a bad career move. The longer Jesus stood before the governor, the heavier the chains and fetters of guilt became for Pilate. The sooner Jesus was dead and gone, the sooner Pilate could silence his conscience, which was screaming at him for his cowardice.

Herod was ready to be free of Jesus. From what little we know of Herod, he was a man caught up in the pleasures of this world. The only reason he wanted to see Jesus was so he could be entertained by some sort of a magic act. The longer Jesus silently stood in front of Herod, unresponsive to his pathetic request for a miracle, the more Herod looked weak and foolish. The sooner Jesus was dead and gone, the sooner Herod could find some real fun.

Sometimes we just want to be free of Jesus, because he confronts our self-righteous attitudes, our selfish ambitions, our misplaced priorities, and our self-centered and shallow obsessions with personal pleasure. The sooner we can break the chains and throw off the fetters, the sooner we can be pleased with ourselves, just the way we are.

Thank God that all such plots are in vain, because this King is still the Savior-King. And the goal of his rule and reign is not so much to destroy the rebels as it is to win them as allies and citizens by his self-sacrificing love and forgiving grace. The very death by which these kings conspired to kill Christ has become our means of reconciliation with Christ. It has become the power by which he conquered our hearts and continues to rule in our lives. Jesus' death for our sins is the reason that we no longer want to be free of him but want to "be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness'

Jesus looks entirely helpless and passive during his trials before the priests and kings. It looks as though the Lord will not respond to their abuses. But there is more here than what meets the eye. David describes God’s fierce reaction: 'The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, 'I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill."'

Certainly Jesus never laughed out loud during his trials. They were genuinely painful for him. But perhaps we catch a hint of God’s scoffing at the entire proceedings in the silence with which Jesus consistently meets the charges against him. Jesus does not dignify the priests and kings with a response. Perhaps we catch a hint of God's scoffing at these puny men, who try to puff up their chests and assert how important they are in an exchange like this one. When Pilate becomes frustrated with Jesus' silence, he challenges him: "Do you refuse to speak to me? ... Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" Jesus calmly puts Pilate in his place: 'You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above" (John 19: 10-11).

Certainly no one fearfully ran from Jesus during his trials. He was bound and guarded, and it looked as though his captors had him firmly under their control. But Pilate especially seems to hear the rebuke of God in his conscience and feel the terror of Gods wrath as he constantly seeks to find an easy way to set Jesus free. His wife's message that he should have nothing to do with this innocent man, because she had suffered much in a dream because of him; Jesus' explanation that his kingdom is not of this world but from another place; the Jews' admission that they wanted the death penalty for Jesus because he claimed to be Gods Son; Jesus' cool reminder to Pilate that his power had been given to him by a higher power -- all of this piles up on his conscience and makes him afraid. Unfortunately, he refused to be moved by the fear he felt in his heart.

When we hear of God's fierce reaction to sin, we need to be careful not to simply brush away or ignore the feelings of fear in our consciences or to close our ears when the Lord confronts our sins. God rebukes us in his anger and terrifies us in his wrath now so that his words of warning will not be his last words to us. None of us likes to hear the law, at least not when it's confronting us, but we need to let it do its work on us, otherwise we will become hardened in our sin. Those who listen to God’s angry voice now will also get to hear him say: "I will not treat you as your sins deserve. I have put those sins upon my Son, and in your place, I have treated him as they deserved. Now I will shower you with affection and hold you close to me. I myself will replace the fear in your heart with peace and the terror with joy. You belong to me" God's fierce reaction gives way to a very tender reaction.

It's strange, then, how the words that David quotes as a terrifying expression of God's anger are perceived so differently by those who have taken his words to heart. "I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill." Those words sound like good news to us, don't they? Jesus is King! In spite of everyone who once conspired against him, he is firmly in control. There will not be other lords over this world. There will not be other ways of salvation. Only those who insist on fighting God have something to fear.

There is a new conspiracy of sorts in which you and I have become participants. We act together to extend the rule of our King into new territory, to make him King over new citizens. God bless us in our "conspiracy" to crown Christ. Amen.