Text: Luke 23:1-56

“And they became friends…” Luke 23:1-56

Long Gospel reading today, isn’t it? You get a whole chapter of St. Luke, and what a chapter! The trial, suffering, and death of Christ Jesus. So much in this chapter we could dwell on for so long. I thought maybe since the text was like four or five times as long as usual that might be a hint the sermon should be proportionally longer. But the Tuesday morning bible class said “No… regular length is fine. You’ll find a verse or two that will catch your eye.” So they saved you, see?

This used to be Palm Sunday in the old lectionary and so we started there today. But recent lectionaries have chosen to focus instead on the death of Christ. This was largely a concession to pragmatism. Since hardly more than ten percent of a typical congregation actually attends Good Friday services anymore (according to the lectionary editors’ reckoning) they were concerned that most people saw Jesus riding into Jerusalem triumphant on a donkey with children singing His praises and all sweetness and light, and then the next Sunday, Easter, the same, all sweetness and light. They were worried we’d forget what happened in between—the whole business of the cross, concerned maybe we’re sweeping that under the rug, though it’s kind of important, you know…

And maybe we do sweep it under the rug? I like to think of myself as a theologian of the cross, as someone who always has the cross at the center of my faith and teaching. And I hope that’s the case. But I’m one of those who held out for a long time for Palm Sunday. Maybe it’s tougher to be a theologian of the cross than we like to think? Maybe we all evade it in our own way?

So this year I thought: “Yes, let’s look at the cross this Sunday. Because as Luther said “The cross alone is our theology.” That’s where it is all centered. That’s where it all happened. That’s how the kingdom comes—always through the death of Jesus Christ.”

But what is going on with this cross and dying of Jesus stuff anyway? Who can understand it? How can we ever explain it? Where do you start if you want to be a theologian of the cross? I mean, on one level, we all know the story, maybe too well. We know about Pilate and the trial. “Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asks in his straightforward, no-nonsense way. And Jesus gives a flip answer “You say so…” Pilate find this a strange answer, but hardly insurrection and wants to release Jesus. But of course, the crowd urges him otherwise, and you know how it goes with politicians and crowds—who usually gets their way?

So typical politician style, Pilate tries to pass the buck to someone else. Sends Jesus over to Herod, when he finds out Jesus is under Herod’s jurisdiction. Let Herod deal with it. And Herod is actually glad about this. Because he’s wanted to see Jesus for a long time, wanted to see Him do some miracle or something. Now he gets his chance. Surely Jesus will perform when Herod has His life literally in his hands!

But Jesus doesn’t even answer Herod’s questions. Even when accused vehemently. Even when abused and mocked by Herod’s soldiers. Nothing. Herod gets nothing at all out of Jesus. But then he comes up with a brilliant idea. Pilate has sent this would be king to Herod to ask whether He strikes Herod as the King of the Jews? And Herod is going to have some fun with the answer. Ironically, Herod sends Jesus back to Pilate dressed up in splendid, royal clothing from his own closet, decked out in the purple and Armani robes of a king as if to say “Doesn’t He look like a King?”

Pilate is so pleased with the picture: the beat-up, beatnik King that he and Herod became friends that day. It melted away the enmity between them, which had made them adversaries before.

And this, I realized, in this whole long reading, is my verse. That’s what needs to be said today of the death of Christ—what His cross does and accomplishes. It takes people who were previously at enmity with each other and makes them friends. Not good people either—but crooked politicians like Pilate and Herod, bad guy, non-believer types—when they spend some time with Jesus, He has a strange way, in His suffering for them, of making them friends.

A really good writer, like Luke, sometimes delights in burying the message of a big event in some little throw-away line in the part of the story where you aren’t looking for the meaning to jump out at you. So that when you notice the line, wonder if it might not be the point of the whole thing, he smiles, and nods, and tips his hat to you, an astute reader. You cracked the code. You got the joke. You noticed the line from your favorite Chili Peppers song buried in the homily.

And tell me baby, if it isn’t better when the line isn’t in the part of the story where you think the “meaning” must be? We skip to the cross itself, to the bleeding and the dying and the soldier’s confession and the darkness at noon and the last triumphant cry, the part where Jesus is center stage, and figure the meaning of it all must be there. And to be sure, studying that part of the story is well worth our time and highly rewarding.

But I think Luke stuck the “meaning” of it all in that little exchange between Pilate and Herod. His little commentary on what the point of this cross business is anyway. It’s all about making friends with people, bad people, who were previously your enemies. The suffering and dying of Jesus is like a tragic, comic, fairy tale that, in the most disastrous and sad part, actually makes you smile, actually has a laugh, and just so, makes friends out of enemies. If their brief time and bad treatment of Jesus served to make those two bad guys friends, what could spending a little more time with Jesus possibly do for you?

Could it be that this is the entire point of the cross? That Jesus came for no other reason than to make friends out of enemies? If you go back, literally to the beginning of this Story, in the Book of Genesis, the sad bit about Adam and Eve eating the apple, making themselves like gods who became thereby enemies of God the Father, there is a line when God says He will send a Seed of Eve’s, a Son of hers who will crush their friend the devil’s head, at the cost of being bruised Himself, and by this will make enmity between them and the devil—which will be friendship with them and God.

If just sending Jesus to the cross, as Pilate and Herod teamed up to do, can make enemies friends, what would happen if we actually went all the way to the cross with Him ourselves? What if we didn’t stay in our palace laughing it off about the robe and crown of thorns and all, but went with Him there to Golgotha? What would happen then?

What if we actually got nailed up with Him on a cross ourselves? What might that bring about? Well that’s my other favorite line, from the thief, a really bad guy, worse even than Pilate, than Herod, dying next to Jesus, taking it all in and saying: “Jesus, remember me when you come into Your Kingdom…” And Jesus promises “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.”

Not only friends, but your own ticket punched for Paradise! Maybe the cross of Christ is nothing else but the beginning of the most beautiful friendship? Only one way to find out. Baptized into it, sharing it by Word and Supper, you’ll see... In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Pastor Kevin W. Martin