I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The passion of our Lord recorded in the gospel of John chapter 19. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him, and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and arrayed Him in a robe of purple.

They came up to Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck Him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I am bringing Him out to you, that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilate said to them, Behold the man! When the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Pilate said to them, Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.

The Jews answered, We have a law, and according to that law He ought to die, because He has made Himself the Son of God. When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from?

But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to Him, You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all, unless it had been given to you from above.

Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. From then on, Pilate sought to release Him. But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement and an Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of the preparation of the Passover.

It was about the sixth hour, and he said to the Jews, Behold your King! They cried out, Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him! Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no King but Caesar.

So he delivered over them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.

Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek.

So the chief priests and the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write, The King of the Jews, but rather this man said that I am the King of the Jews. Pilate answered, I have written what I have written. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also His tunic.

But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture, which says, They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

So the soldiers did these things. But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son.

Then He said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. And after this, Jesus, knowing that all was now fulfilled, said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst.

And a jar of sour wine stood there. So they put a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch, held it to His mouth. And when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, It is finished. And He bowed His head, and He gave up His spirit.

And since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

He who saw it is born witness, His testimony is true. And He knows that He is telling the truth, that you also may believe. For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, that not one of His bones would be broken.

And again, another scripture says, They will look on Him whom they have pierced. And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission.

So he came and took away his body, Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, and about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

In the name of Jesus. It's going to seem like an odd place to go, but I'm a child of the 1980s, and we had some pretty awesome cheesy television shows. I mean, who could forget the Dukes of Hazzard? You can't watch that now.

I mean, you know, they have the Confederate flag and all, that's been canceled. But I remember one of my favorite television shows was as corny as they get, and it was as glorious as they get. It was called The A-Team, and written by Stephen J. Connell, and it had Mr. T. in there as Bubba Baracus, and you know, oh, it's just a great, great program.

And every story kind of was the same story. In fact, I would say that Stephen J. Connell, who invented and wrote The A-Team, he understood what Tolkien was talking about, that there's really only one story, and tapping into it is tapping into the deep myth, as Tolkien would put it.

And so, as the story goes, the A-Team, they were ex-Vietnam vets who had been charged for a crime they didn't commit. They found a way out of their military prison, snuck back to the United States, and they were soldiers of fortune.

You can hire them for whatever, you know, whatever you needed. And always and again, the people who needed the A-Team were those people who were incapable of overcoming their oppressors. You think of, you know, maybe a South American village being run by drug lords and mistreating everybody.

They would hire the A-Team, and the A-Team would work out their military strategy, and it was always super cheesy. And always and again, I always found it fascinating that, like, nobody really died.

I mean, nobody got hit by bullets, there was no blood or anything like that. But at the end of it, at the end of it, the bad guys always lost, the A-Team always won, and their leader, who was a fellow by the name of John Hannibal Smith, you can't confuse him with Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal Lecter is the guy who ate people. John Hannibal Smith, he was the leader of the A-Team. He would always say these words, I love it when a plan comes together. I love it when a plan comes together.

And so this past Sunday, on Passion Sunday, we considered the sufferings of Christ in light of the doctrines of the atonement, the concepts taught to us in Scripture, how Christ was our substitute, that he died in our place, and that by his death, our sins are expiated, they are taken off of us, and they are also, our sins are propitiated in the sense that they propitiate God's wrath and justice and fulfill his legal demands that, well, somebody suffer for the sins, for the rebellion that you and I have committed against God.

But Jesus here on the cross, it's always fascinating to me that people show up on a good Friday expecting to kind of hear a service that reminds them of, like, Jesus' annual funeral, like we're going to have a funeral for Jesus every year.

That's not really what's going to be our focus today. In fact, in our sermon hymn, you may have heard just a slight twinge of one of the major themes of Good Friday, and that is that Christ's death was exactly according to plan.

It wasn't a defeat, it was his victory. That's the idea. In fact, Jesus is the ultimate John Hannibal Smith. I love it when a plan comes together. And if you consider some of the details here, last night at Maundy Thursday, the proper preface for the communion service were these words.

I want you to hear them because I think they will frame this well. It is truly good right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you, holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who accomplished the salvation of mankind by the tree of the cross, that where death arose, their life also might rise again, and that the serpent who had overcame by the tree of the garden might likewise by the tree of the cross be overcome.

I love it. The details are amazing. I think a good way to think of it is that the cross is not only our redemption, it's also Jesus' revenge just a little bit against the devil, who played his own game against him and played it better than the devil.

Back in the Garden of Eden, the devil is the one who plunged us into the death and the misery and the suffering and the ruin that we experience, each and every one of us. And it's the devil who deceived our first parents.

And we know from the words of Christ and the Gospel of John that the devil was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. We learn from Jesus' words that the devil intentionally set out to murder humanity created in the image of God, to murder you, to murder me.

And as far as evil plots go, I can't think of an evil villain who had a more evil plot because he knew full well that when God said he was going to do something, he always followed through. God never lied.

So he knew his enemy well and played God's attributes, his love, his trustworthiness, his kindness. He played it against God in order to murder humanity and make God the murder weapon. And we fell for it because remember what God said to Adam, you shall eat of any of the trees in the garden, anyone, you can have any of the fruit here, except for one tree.

The tree that's in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil, the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Adam spoke those words that God had given him to Eve. And then the devil basically came and slandered God.

And we know how the story goes. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Well, we failed to look at the fine print. Oh, boy, do we know the knowledge of good and evil? Do we not, right? Yeah, we do.

But we were also plunged into ruin, misery, and now justly suffer the consequences of our sin, which is death. So Jesus, in his plan, and it's better than any A-team plan you can come up with, he's been telling his disciples all along as they've been heading to Jerusalem, here's the plan.

I've even preached on it over Lent, where Jesus says, OK, boys, here's the plan. I'm going to Jerusalem. They're going to arrest me. I'm going to be convicted for a crime I never committed. False witnesses are going to testify against me.

I'm going to be handed over to the Gentiles. I'm going to be flogged, beaten, crucified, die, and then rise again. Remember what Peter said, may this never happen to you, Lord, right? But that was the plan.

And Jesus had to keep telling that plan to the disciples over and over and over again. That was the plan for victory. Nobody can win this way except for Jesus. Because, I mean, was it Patton who said, it's not your job to die for your country, it's your job to make sure that the other guy dies for his country, right?

Death is so final when it comes to us. So that's the plan. And so this Good Friday, let's consider how well Jesus is going to work the plan, because his plan includes taking the tree of death, which is what a cross is, if you think about it.

They're not good for much else. I mean, yeah, we make decorations of them and maybe put them into jewelry. But in reality, what's a cross good for? It's good for killing people and making sure that the experience is as painful as humanly possible.

That's what they're good for. And Christ will die. And it's the tree of the cross then that Christ, by his death and his resurrection, will turn into the tree of life for us, this side of the resurrection and the new earth.

It's the ultimate irony. It's the complete flipping of the tables, if you would. The tree of death now becomes the tree of life. And the fruit of that tree, the body and blood of Christ, is the food that leads to eternal life.

You think about it, it's so amazing. So as we pick up our story and our gospel text tonight, Jesus has just been handed over to Pilate. So Pilate takes Jesus and has him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns.

They put it on his head, arrayed him in a purple robe. They came to him saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they struck him with their hands. And boy, you got to note here the absolute control that Jesus is exercising, the restraint that is upon him.

We know from the words of Christ that an entire legion and legions upon legions of angels are ready at the standby. All he has to do is give the signal and these soldiers are done for. Pilate is going to be toast.

And the people who put him in that kangaroo court where he was found guilty, they would perish in the melee. But Christ makes no signal. He takes the beating. Everything is going according to plan. So Pilate went out and said to them, You see, I'm bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

Even Pilate, who history tells us was a pretty brutal man. In fact, he was so brutal when it came to killing people under his care that the Romans had to discharge him later in his career. And so he was he was too brutal even for the Romans.

And so it's fascinating, you know, Pilate knows it's his job to make an example of people. But if you're going to make an example of somebody, somebody has to have like stepped out of line so that everybody knows that he stepped out of line so that they can be made an example of what what good is this?

He knows for sure that they're bringing him to him because they're jealous of him. So I'm bringing him out so you know that I find no guilt in him. So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns, the purple robe.

And Pilate said to them, Behold, the man. And by this point, Jesus is in need of pretty good medical attention. And when the chief priest and the officers saw Jesus, they cried out, Crucify him. Crucify him.

Ah yes, the devil brought out his ultimate weapon. Yeah, this ultimate weapon existed all the way back then and we still have it today. What is it? The cancel culture. You can't reason with the cancel culture.

For all their claims of being about justice, they are guilty of the greatest injustices. And here's the thing. Since we're the ones guilty of crucifying Christ and Peter is the one who lays the guilt upon us in Acts chapter four, that we were the ones who handed Jesus over to be crucified.

Then understand this. We've all participated in this cancel culture. They canceled Jesus. But you think that's going to hold him back? No. So Pilate said to them, You take him yourselves and you crucify him.

I find no guilt in him. And Pilate knows full well that they can't crucify. They don't have the authority to do it. So the Jews are not happy with this. They say, We have a law. According to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God.

And this causes Pilate to have fear. Wait, what? He's made himself the son of God. Earlier, and it's not in our gospel text tonight, Pilate's wife. Sends word to Pilate, Don't have anything to do with that holy man.

I had a terrible dream about him and he's innocent. Let him go. Pilate's wife was interjecting in matters of state. She didn't have authority to do that. Kind of odd. So when your wife emphatically is trying to get your attention, say, Ah, something, something's afoot here.

And of course, they believe, the Romans believe that when you had dreams like this, that the deities, the gods were speaking to you. That it was from the spirit realm. And so he hears now that Christ claims to be the son of God.

And he's a little shaken. He's a little shaken and not, well, he needs some explanation. So he entered the headquarters again and he said to Jesus, Where are you from? And Jesus gave him no answer. None whatsoever.

Now, believe me, if this were me on trial, I'd be going, Help, save me, please. I'm innocent. Please don't kill me. Don't crucify me. I don't want to die. I'd probably just fall apart. But Christ doesn't even speak a word, not only in his own defense, he doesn't even speak a word in order to help himself out like nothing.

Where are you from? Notice Jesus doesn't deny that he's the son of God, that he's from heaven. So Pilate says to him, Will you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have the authority to release you and authority to crucify you?

But remember, everything's going according to plan here. This is exactly the plan that the son of God and the Father and the Holy Spirit had worked out together. Then Jesus said, You almost hear it with kind of like a yawn or maybe some, you know, I'm, you know, you're kind of wasting my time.

Could we get on with the crucifixion, please? You see, you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.

Now Pilate's stuck. Well, Jesus isn't going to help himself out. I mean, maybe he should do something here. So he sought from that time to release Jesus. Oh, but the cancel culture comes in and they're chiming.

If you release this man, you're not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. Since when did the Pharisees and the temple priests all of a sudden become great Roman citizens? This is a first.

So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out. He sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement in Aramaic called Gabbatha. It was the day of preparation, the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.

So it's just about nine in the morning. He said to the Jews, behold, your king, away with him, away with crucify him. Cancel, cancel, cancel. Shall I crucify your king? Chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar.

Oh, these are words that make your head spin. These are the same chief priests who set up the whole scheme regarding the money changers. You want to know how that scheme worked? It was the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees who say, Caesar claims to be a god on earth.

He claims to be a deity. And look at the denarii. That's his face. That's his image on the coin. That's idolatry. You can't use that dirty, idolatrous coin when it comes to exchanging your money for the goods and the sacrifices and the tithe animals that you need for the sacrifices.

You have to exchange them for pure money. Temple shekels and we'll only charge you 25 percent on the exchange rate. Those same guys who set up that whole system said, we have no king but Caesar. Now they're complete loyal citizens.

All the way down. King Caesar, he's, he's, wow. And so you'll note the cancel culture. They got their justice, but it was a complete injustice. And the one who was tasked with actual justice, caves, completely buckled under their, well, their fevered feelings.

What was the issue? Jesus wasn't the Messiah they were looking for. And there's the other bit of the irony. Jesus wasn't the son of God that they were, that they were really hoping would show up. The Messiah they were hoping would show up would have gotten rid of Pilate.

And so since Jesus isn't going to get rid of Pilate, we're just going to get rid of him. You know, we all do this in various ways. You know, the Jesus I'm looking for, I need him to help me get a better job, a promotion at work.

Need him to get my kids to behave. I need him to help me find my purpose that will exalt me and give me power and authority and wealth and prosperity and health. And things like this. And so what do they do with the real Jesus?

Away with him. Away. I have no use for that guy. And then the men who actually preach the biblical Jesus to them. Oh man, they run them out of town. The cancel culture is alive and well. And the reality is we're all guilty of this.

But everything is going according to plan. Nothing has gone wrong. The plan is being executed flawlessly. Hannibal Smith would be jealous. So they took Jesus. He went out bearing his own cross, brought him to the place of the skull, and there they crucified him.

The soldiers divided his garments to fulfill the scriptures, actually even through cast lots through dice for them. And then the charge is written and placed above the cross. This is Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.

And of course, the cancel culture was upset with that too. They have Jesus derangement syndrome, clearly. Why it says, what I've written, I've written. So they crucified Jesus. And while Jesus is on the cross, this little bit I think is actually quite fascinating.

Remember, he's suffering, bleeding and dying for your sins, mine. He's suffering in our place vicariously. He's bearing the sins of the whole world and propitiating the wrath of God. And while in the midst of all of this, he decides that it's time to work out some of the details regarding his estate.

You know, Jesus is about ready to die. And so he has a legal obligation as the firstborn son of Mary, who is a widow at this point, to make sure that she's taken care of. And so we get this interesting account.

And it says that when Jesus saw that his mother and the disciple whom he loved were standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold, your son. And he said to his disciple, behold, your mother. And from that hour on, the disciple took her as his own in his own home.

I mean, it makes you wonder, was there a notary standing by to make this legal thing binding? Jesus is taking care of the finer details of his legal obligations while on the cross. Doesn't even forget his mother.

And then what comes next? Everything is going according to plan. And it's at this point that we need to consider something. What was Jesus doing? The A-team, they were mercenaries for hire. Their job was to rescue those who could not rescue themselves.

But the better stories are always the ones about the fellow, the hero who rescues the damsel in distress. Oh, believe me, the A-team did that a few times, too. And it was always so cheesy and glorious the way they did it.

But have you ever stopped to think, what is Jesus doing? Why is he doing this? Why is this plan in place? And the answer is this, is because the church collectively is the bride of Christ. The church, you, sinners, me.

It can be said of us that we are the love of his life. The devil knows nothing about love. If the devil understood love, he would have never allowed Christ to be crucified. All he could think in terms of his hate and malice.

But Christ, this was the plan that was necessary. To redeem his beloved. To wash her in water mixed with his own blood. To cleanse her of her sins so that she can be, well, have her nakedness covered up and clothed in his righteousness.

Scripture describes what Christ did and why he did it. It says that who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. The very thought of washing his bride clean of her filth and her sin brought him joy.

Further, scripture describes the joy that we will experience when we see the new earth for the very first time. When we breathe the air of the new creation, witness the spectacle of the new Jerusalem, see the glory of God light the sky.

Scripture says that we will be like calves skipping. I don't know anything about calves. I didn't know they skipped. But it's an amazing thing. But here's the thing. It is the joy of Christ to see you experience that joy.

The joy that comes from knowing that once and for all, you will never again have to deal with your own sin, the sins of others, the temptations of the devil, the world. Nor will you ever experience death again or pain again or sorrow again.

You will live forever. And God himself, if that is not enough, if you are overcome with emotion. And the joy and the sorrow of what has passed, then Christ himself will be there holding the Kleenex, wiping the tears from your eyes in that new earth.

Who for the joy set before him endured the cross and despised the shame. And so it says then in this text, knowing all that now, all what now was finished. What an interesting way to say it, finished, finished.

Was he working? Oh yeah, indeed he was. Jesus then says, I thirst. So they filled a jar full of sour wine. They put a sponge in it and then put it on a hyssop branch. And boy, that's a small detail that's easy to skip.

Hyssop, it's not mentioned very many times in scripture. First time it shows up in scripture is on the eve of the Passover. The first one in Egypt, when they slaughtered the Passover lambs, they took the blood of those lambs and used hyssop branches to take the blood and paint it on the doors, on the lintels.

So here, hyssop makes another appearance. It doesn't appear very many times in scripture. And they held the sour wine up to his mouth. And it says this, Jesus said, it is finished. It's done. He didn't say I'm finished.

He said it is finished. And these words have to have just sent a cold chill to the heart of the devil himself. Because in saying it is finished, Jesus reveals everything went according to plan. I accomplished that for which I was sent.

I have suffered for my bride. I have now, I'm about ready to die for her. And I have accomplished her reconciliation and her salvation. It is finished. The work is done. He bowed his head. He gave up his spirit.

And it doesn't say this in the text. We'll take a little bit of license, shall we? I can just imagine all the hordes of demons surrounding the cross, hiding in the crevices and in the dark cracks and in the shadows, going, yay, ding dong, God is dead, God is dead, God is dead.

But you can see the devil watching on going, he said it's finished. I think we're in trouble. That was too easy. And that's the point. You see, as Hannibal Smith said, I love it when a plan comes together.

Christ accomplished the very thing that he set out to do. Everything went exactly as he said it would go, just as he had chosen it. There wasn't a hitch in the plan at all. And now his corpse hangs lifeless on the tree.

The details of his death show the magnitude and the depth of our own sin. The price necessary to redeem us and reconcile us to God shows us the great love of God, that he would be willing to lay down the life of the Son of God so that we could live.

So truly it is finished. It is horrible and it is glorious. And for the past 40 days as we've been in Lent, there has been a word that we have not sung or spoken this entire time. Seems out of place during a penitential season.

The word is Alleluia. Our liturgy has completely been, well, it's been taken out of it. I cannot think of a better thing to say than in light of the fact that the plan was accomplished. I love it when a plan comes together.

Jesus cried out, it is finished. He bowed his head. He gave up his spirit just as he said he would. So maybe, maybe, just maybe you'll forgive me. I'll whisper it. But it's appropriate.

In the name of Jesus. Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax-free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 56744.

And again, that address is Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota. 56744. We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.

And again, thank you for listening.