Hang on His words [Trinity 10; St. Luke 19:41-48]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

Jesus speaks in your hearing today, saying,

“…but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.”

If we are to take this verse romantically, then we have the perfect picture of the fan-girl fawning over everything that comes from her idol. The brazen boldness of these fanatics at Beatles’ concerts and their hysteria when Elvis performed were all inappropriate, yet they still made their way to destroy our culture.

Thus, Jesus becomes the superstar we always wanted Him to be, where His word melt over us as rivulets of savory butter and cover us in ecstasy. This riled up knot of emotions then begs to be shared, if not shared, then at least forcibly expressed to any and everyone. Jesus is the great orator. Jesus is the lover of my soul. Jesus is so smooth, so grand, so eloquent.

Except to those for whom He is not. Which means Jesus is not just charismatic, but something else is going on. One of those words in our Gospel reading today is going to unravel the mystery of the charismatic Jesus for us and its translated as “were hanging on”.

If you remember Joseph and his coat of many colors, you also remember what his brothers did to him. Thus, later they find Joseph in charge of all of Egypt during that great famine. Joseph is not recognized when they meet after so long, but Joseph tests them in order to get to see his youngest brother and his father.

At one point, Joseph accuses them of stealing from him and demands Benjamin stay behind as slave. His older brothers beg for this not to be saying that they brought Benjamin against their father’s wishes in the first place and if Joseph were to take him, their father would surely die. They said their father’s life is hung upon the lad’s life. (Gen. 44:30)

To lock the door on this romantic idea of “hanging on His words”, we turn to 2 Samuel where king David’s traitorous and rebellious son, Absalom, meets his demise on his way to finish off his father. As it goes, Absalom was riding his donkey (we know about those) and his head got caught in a thick branch and he was hanged; hanged on a tree.

Though you may have already seen striking similarities, the real clincher comes when king David learns of the tragedy. Though his messengers are delighted that the traitor has died, king David reacted this way: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Sam. 18:33)

King David wasn’t looking for a victory, he was looking for his son. His life hung on ever word that came from those messengers’ mouths.

Repent. Though Jesus deserves greater fanaticism than you devote to other things and other people, it is not a fanaticism that lacks virtue or intelligence. Jesus is not here demanding that we idolize Him in some kind of fan club. In the Gospel, Jesus is asking, begging us to hang upon His Word and His life as if our life depended on it, because it does.

Joseph and Absalom are the teachers Jesus has assigned to us. Joseph proves that the life of our heavenly Father hangs upon the life of the Son of God. That the unity in Trinity of Father and Son is not in emotion, but in essence. Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God, one Lord. The Son is the Father’s greatest treasure, yet He does not hesitate to send Him towards death and Jesus does not hesitate to go into the sin-filled, death-infested Egypt we call earth, only to find a death panel and no fan club.

The Father’s life is the Son’s. god dies on the cross, where Joseph, Benjamin, and you keep your lives. Mercy is taken as the substitute sacrifice, because the true Son Jesus looses His life to gain that mercy from God.

Thus, Absalom clears the picture for us even more. Just as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, cleansing the Temple at the end of the ride, so also do the branches close around Jesus’ neck. After this point, “…The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy Him…”, by hanging Him on a tree.

Jesus is our Absalom. He becomes the chief of traitors and Rebels in our place, bearing all of the Father’s wrath against our sin for us. Jesus takes on our crimes against God and is crucified, instead of us: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Gal. 3:13)

The Father looks for His Son to be well received as is grieved to find Him hanged. Thus, “hanging on the words of Jesus” mean ever so much more than fan-girling. It means suffering. It means dying. Not alone or simply “to self”, but it means dying with Him; being crucified with Him. And because the Father’s life hangs upon the Son, it also means being resurrected with Him.

We the people do not need a Great Teacher or a smashing Orator. We need a savior. We need rescue from death. We need rescue from our own sin which drives our devotion to this or that idol; whatever happens to be placed in front of our face at the time by our television.

Jesus is our Joseph. The Father sends Jesus not just to speak good or perform miracles, but to die and rise again, in order that He may come out alive and in charge of all things. That He would not turn us away at the gate of sin and death, but welcome us with tears and kisses through the door of life.

Jesus is charismatic, but He is in the truest sense of the word. Its not just that He’s popular, its that His words give life and salvation. He doesn’t draw crowds with uplifting thoughts, He draws them with promises of forgiveness. He draws them with the cross.

That’s what these people are hearing and its what you’re hearing. You’re hearing that your sins of betrayal, insurrection, and rebellion are forgiven. That though your sins nail Jesus to the cross, the price has been paid. Though you turn away from God every chance you get, the true Traitor has been hanged.

Though the temple of your body is rife with disease and filth, Jesus still enters in and cleanses you, not with whips and anger, but with Word and Sacrament. The Flood of Noah is poured over you in baptism and sweeps away all that is condemning. The Word of Creation is shouted, not at you, but at the sin and demons clinging to you. The old is cast out and the new Body and new Blood are transfused in, setting up the cleanliness Jesus demands.

So be filed with emotion. Be so beside yourself with joy and elation over this redemption that you fill you life and your house with all of the novelty and collectables that go with this new life of faith. Share these stats and trivia answers with someone, that God has died for me. That there is a Savior Who laid down His life for me. That that traitor, that rebel hanging on the cross, is the one Who lives and forgives me.