Luke 23:1-49 4-10-2022 (As built, Amite #492)
- Thank you… thank you Lord…
- My brothers and sisters in Christ… go back two thousand years and this is how things work in their day… Catechism 101… why we do what we do… my brothers and sisters in Christ the way it works in their world is you go to Jerusalem three times a year… and one of them is for the Passover… you would go to Jerusalem… you probably would not bring you own lamb you probably would pick one up there… because if it has a blemish on it then when you go to the temple and offer it… at the rail… the priest may tell you that it has a blemish… now you have to go yet buy another one… my brothers in Christ it would be over one million people in their city… when you go to get the lamp you have to eat it within the city limits… you have to eat it fully clothed… usually you eat it fully standing… imagine one million people in our little city here… that’s what it would be like… Christ is going in that prior week right… he’s getting ready for the upcoming Passover… once the crucifixion starts… this is how it works in their world… they have many different crosses… at least a couple dozen different types… there’s some that are in the form of a T… some in the form of what looks like a T with a little bit on the top which is where they would have put the INRI… some of them are in the shape of an X… this is why I wear this one… this type of vestment… it’s in the name of Saint Andrew… the reason they like it in the X… is because it’s closer to the ground… dogs have to eat too… you see brothers in Christ sometimes they would be used as torches to light the way…after you’ve been crucified so they would put them lower to the ground… and maybe just a single pole… as a result of it… this is the way it works… they Jews cannot crucify you or cannot put you to death… only Pilate has the final say… as a result… this is why they try to catch the good Lord with this lady caught in adultery… they want him to stone her… but he knows that there is a centurion that’s going to step in and say this can’t be… once he is ruled by Pilate… that he must be crucified… at the end of the day… the crown of thorns isn’t for something they did for everybody… they were truly diabolical… the reason that you and I know the crown of thorns was important because you and I are Jews by descent… you see we know about Abraham taking his son up the mountain… and taking Isaac up there and as a result of it when he finally decides that he is not to kill him because of the angel… he asked his father… well who’s going to be the sacrifice… and he said the good Lord will give us the lamb… and then they find the lamb with his head caught in the thorns… my brothers in Christ they would be over if you were in the city… they would have surrounded him with several hundred soldiers to get him through the city… there would be at least ninety… around him personally… there would be one man holding the placard… proclaiming him and letting everybody know what the crimes were of the three men… so he would be the town crier… as a result of it… he would walk through… and they would have the ninety soldiers around him…ninety… soldiers… according to the saints… people like Saint Elizabeth… Saint Mary of Agreda… Saint Catherine Emmerick… they will tell you that he received over one thousand insults… from the minute he got the cross… to the minute he says it is done… which is about… three to six hours… which means you would have received a negative comment… every five seconds… imagine what it would be for you if you received an email… text message… or somebody cursed you every five seconds… for the next three to six hours… but yet you don’t sin… my brothers and sisters in Christ they say he received over six thousand wounds… from the minute that he takes the cross… including the scourging… until it is done… six thousand wounds… you and I prick our finger and that’s all we talk about all day… we wake up with a headache… man we’re just moody and temperamental… six thousand wounds… do you know the crown of thorns alone had over one hundred holes in his head… twenty were holes… three of them will kill him whether they touch him or not… do you know according to the saints they spit in his face over one hundred times… I bet if I spit in your face I know where I find you for the next seventy two hours… over in that direction… yeah exactly right… my brothers and sisters in Christ that’s not counting the eight inch nails that they put in his hands… that doesn’t count the one that they believe was a little bit bigger… maybe twelve to sixteen they put in his feet… do you know they didn’t get it right and they had to back it out and do it again… do you know according to the saints that that cross fell twice because they couldn’t line it up right in the hole… my brothers and sisters in Christ according to the saints the only time Christ ever yells out… is when they finally put the nail in his hand… and the first time they hit the spike and it goes through his hand he lets out his first scream… he hears his mother scream… he never says nothing ever again throughout the entire crucifixion… my brothers and sisters in Christ man at some point you and I need to say thank you… for what he’s done for you and I… because we wont make it… there’s not enough carcasses… or lambs… or cows… or bulls… or sheep… or turtle doves… to make up for all the sins of the world… that’s why he’s got to come… we are offering an infant God a finite carcass… it just doesn’t work out while there just not enough animals… so what do you offer and infinite God… you offer him his infinite son… that’s why we pray the Agnus Dei the lamb of God… that’s when they would have raised him… that’s why you and I need to include the crucifixion in the last supper… because he drinks the fourth cup on there when he says it is finished… this is why I say body of Christ and not body of Jesus… Christ is his divine name… Jesus is his human essence… because we eat his glorified body… do you understand that when he told Peter when the cock crows… that’s the timeframe between three and six in the morning… he’s telling Peter roughly when that’s going to happen… do you know that peters denial gets exponentially bigger each time… first denial was yeah I know him… t he next denial was it had to do with you were part of the twelve… the next denial is… aren’t you a Galilean… it’s getting exponential… do you know the saints say that he cried so much…that he had creeses in his cheek… until the year sixty-six when he finally departed… and was crucified upside down… do you know his wife was probably martyred on the same day…we believe her name is to be porphyria… or at least the same week… the saints tell that his last words to his wife were… go with God… my brothers and sisters in Christ every one of the boys… everyone of the apostles gave up their life… and for the next four hundred years… until becoming worship was legal… everybody was a martyr… you would never do this in public… and if you did it you did it under grave circumstances… my brothers in Christ therein lies the point… you and I need to be thankful that we are a part of the greatest faith in the world… Holy Mother Church… that this is his church… and there are not forty thousand truths in the world there is only one… and regardless of what you may feel about the powers to be and the leadership… doesn’t change the fact… that he is the great I am… and you and I know the truth… and the truth of the matter is… that you never apologize for being catholic… for sixteen hundred years… you’re either a Jew or you are catholic… I don’t want to hear the rhetoric you are Christian… if you believe Christ to be the messiah you are Christian… how do you worship him… do you honestly believe… that if you and I went to a synagogue in the time of Christ… from the little town of Bethlehem… to the massive temple in Jerusalem… to the sea of galilee… that depending on what synagogue I walked in they’d be doing differently… do you think one would be ramping the music up… do you think one would be shooting confetti across the stage… do you think another would be having coffee and lattes… I’m telling you they all worshiped the same way… and that’s why we worship the way we do… and when he says… and you heard it today… there is a new covenant… and when he says this is a new covenant… do this … in sacrifice of me… that is the start of Holy Mother church… this is why we celebrate this day on palm Sunday… to give him thanks for opening the doors… the gates to the kingdom of God… remember… he doesn’t ascend into heaven until fifty days later… Penta fifty… on Pentecost… so when he tells the good thief… this day you’re with me in paradise… he’s referring to the garden of Eden… the garden of paradise… Abrahams bosom… my brothers and sisters in Christ if there’s ever a day… outside of probably Easter Sunday… that you should give thanks… it is this day…
- Amen.
