Divine
Surrender
A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church
on Sunday 5 April 2020, Passion Sunday, by Timothy
Chan. The
scripture readings that day were Philippians 2:5–11, Matthew 27:11–54.
Good morning friends who
are worshipping with us through facebook live. Today is the sixth Sunday in
Lent since Ash Wednesday on 26th of February. In the past few weeks, we read
about stories of Jesus encountering different characters in the Gospel, and how
he opened the blind man’s eyes, and raised Lazarus from death. This week, as
pastor Maggie has mentioned in the liturgy, Jesus entered Jerusalem, to prepare
for his Passion, to die on the cross for our transgressions. It is really a
heavy passage, and it somehow matches with what we are experiencing now
throughout the world. Let us pray before we take a closer look at the story:
Loving God, help us to
understand your sacrifice and surrender. In this of pandemic, help us to
connect with you through your suffering, so we would be empowered and
transformed. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
After the last supper
with his disciples, Jesus was betrayed by Judas to the high priest Caiaiphas,
who has plotted to kill him for quite some time. Then the high priest gathered
many false witnesses to accuse Jesus, hoping to find him guilty, but they could
not. At the end, they charged him for blasphemy because Jesus admitted himself
as the Son of God. For the high priest has no power to put someone to death
officially, they brought Jesus to Pilate, who questioned Jesus about the accusations
against him, but Jesus did not answer any one of them. Under the pressure from
the furious Jews demanding his death, Pilate washed his hand, and sent him to
crucifixion.
In the face of wrong
accusations, Jesus surrendered his right to defend himself. Even though the
trial is unjust, he did not try to defend himself. Jesus knew it was the people
who wanted him death. So even if he defended himself, those religious leaders
would find another way to kill him too. Sometimes, we put our trust in the legal
system, believing that they would be just. But after all, we are all human,
some of us are driven by greed, and to trade justice for benefits. Today we
would also judge people by whether they are criminal, or whether they have
breached the law. Jesus’ passion reminded us that even Jesus himself was a
criminal. If he is going to apply for a job today, or apply for immigration, he
would have a criminal record with him!
Jesus focused on doing
God’s will than to care about how other people think of Him. What Jesus
surrendered is more than just his civil right. By doing so, he
refused to be limited by the judgement given by the world. He refused to let
the earthly authority to define who he is. I am not saying we should
surrender our civil right, but I am saying to those who are persecuted by any
corrupted legal system now, that our life should not be defined by a court’s
decision. As we are children of God, and followers of Christ, we could do all
things empowered by the Holy Spirit, regardless of our identity and background.
Jesus would not have finished this salvation plan if he was provoked to prove
his innocence to the high priest. Do we care about how other would
think of us more than following God?
On his way to Golgotha,
Jesus was abandoned by the crowd, and beaten by the soldiers, yet he chose to
be silent. Not only that, he was also mocked by one of the bandits who were
crucified next to Him, saying
“You who would destroy
the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of
God, come down from the cross.” and ‘priests also, along with the scribes and
elders, were mocking him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself.”
When I was young, I
always thought about this, why wouldn’t Jesus just come down for 1 minute, then
went back up again? He could have shown the world his power and at the same
time his willingness to die for us all. However, this is not what Jesus was
thinking. He was not there to please us, he did all these, suffered all
these to save us from God’s judgement and wrath for us.
Jesus surrendered his
choice to save himself from mocking, suffering and death. In the same way, he
refused to worship satan in the wilderness, and refused bread and comfort in
the face of hunger and hardship. He surrendered himself, for the benefit of
others, but for himself. In today’s Christianity, churches are emphasizing
our personal relationship with God, but we seldom talk about our responsibility
to our community, and our environment. We confined faith on a personal level,
that everything happening around me has to work for me, to be
meaningful to me, and have something to do with ME! The more
we think about ourselves, the less we think about others. In this
coronavirus pandemic, we saw people and medical staff who surrendered their own
comfort and safety, and volunteered themselves or to work extra hours to care
for the sick. Without their sacrifice, the situations can be worse.
Jesus thought about the
bigger pictures, he chose not to prove to those who mocked him. He did not need
to prove to anyone how capable He is. Many churches struggled whether they
should open or not, we don’t need to prove that we are scared or not, we don’t
need to worry whether people would think we have faith in God or not. Whatever
decision we make, are we trying to prove ourselves? Or whether we are thinking
of the needs of our neighbours, the vulnerable, and the medical staff? Jesus’
divine surrender leads us to think of others, and it’s all about love. We
believe the power of love is way stronger than the power of fear.
At the end, when Jesus
was about to die, he cried with a loud voice “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?” In order to save us, Jesus surrendered the most precious
thing, which is his relationship and unity with the Father. At the same
time, the Father surrendered his Son to satisfy the wrath and judgement for us.
As said in Philippians chapter 2:
Christ Jesus, who,
though he was in the form of God,
did
not regard equality with God
as
something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking
the form of a slave,
being
born in human likeness.
And being found in human
form,
he
humbled himself
and
became obedient to the point of death—
even
death on a cross.
He died, so we may
live.
When we think about
salvation, we would be bothered by the word “wrath” or phrases like “wrath of
God is satisfied”. However, if there is no judgement for our sins, Jesus would
not need to die in our place. While we are singing for the love of God, we must
not forget the cost of sin. Jesus’ death is not just theological, whether his
death could satisfy the justice of God or not, or is there another way. The
dead of Christ is a way which God would like to relate to us. By death, he
experienced our fear. By bearing our sins, like us, He was separated from the
love of God.
God connects with us
through his death, and in his death, we are connected to his saving grace. As we enter the Holy
Week, May I invite you all to remember his sacrifice and divine surrender for
us. As St. John the Sinai said “Let the memory of death sleep and awake with
you” it could be a memory of us dying to the world or a memory of us saying
no to temptation and sin. It could be the moment we denied our own desire and
own righteousness, and let God’s will be done in us. In this week of Passion,
let us be awakened by these memories of death, and learn from his divine
surrender, to love and to serve.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, April 05, 2020
