We have come once again to Holy Week. This week brings us to the very heart of the Christian Faith, the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Son of God for us and our salvation. Here we behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This evening we pause to ask of ourselves the question, "How are we to meditate on the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ?"

Martin Luther entertained that question in a little tract that he wrote early in the Reformation entitled A Meditation on Christ's Passion. In this evening's homily, I want to lift out several little gems from that meditation for your contemplation. In that work Luther observed that some people think that they are meditating on Christ's passion when they vent their anger on the Jews who plotted the Lord's death or on Judas who betrayed him. "That might well be a meditation on the wickedness of Judas and the Jews, but not on the suffering of Christ" (AE 42:7). Others, Luther says, "feel pity for Christ, lamenting and bewailing his innocence" (AE 42:7). They are like the women in our text who weep for Christ as He is led off to Calvary.

To those women Jesus says, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and your children." In these words of our Lord we are given insight into how we are to meditate on Jesus' Passion. So Luther says, "They contemplate Christ's passion aright who view it with a terror-stricken heart and a despairing conscience" (AE 42:8). In other words, the cross does work grief in us as it brings us to see the enormity of our sin. But what is the nature of our lament, of our grief?

In his second letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle writes, "For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death" (II Cor. 7:10). We are well acquainted with worldly grief. It is the way of regret. We mourn over missed opportunities. We grieve over the circumstances of life. We regret foolish actions for which we now must pay the penalty. That is worldly grief. But there is another kind of grief that the Apostle identifies as "godly grief." This is the grief that does not dwell on the pain that my sin is causing me but on the pain that my sin has caused God. Paul says that such grief is godly grief for it leads to salvation.

God works in us this godly grief through the preaching of the cross. The cross of Jesus Christ reveals the depth and weight of our sin. Again a few words from Luther's Meditation on the Suffering of Christ: "For every nail that pierces Christ, more than one hundred thousand should in justice pierce you, yes, they should prick you forever and ever more painfully" (AE 42:9). To look at the cross of Jesus Christ is to see that it was our sin that was nailed to the cross. The sinless Son of God bears in His own flesh the punishment which was meant for us. Therefore one of our passion hymns has us confess the truth:

"What is the source of all your mortal anguish?
   It is my sins for which you, Lord, must languish;
Yes, all the wrath, the woe that you inherit,
   This I do merit" (LW 119:3)

In the cross of Jesus we see our sin and the awful punishment which that sin deserves put on display. And so we sing in another Good Friday hymn:

"You who think of sin but lightly
   Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
   Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed;
   See who bears the awful load;
It's the Word, the Lord's Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God" (LW 116:3).

But if we would see only our sin on the cross, we would be utterly crushed and left in despair. The Lord who hangs on the cross has borne the curse of sin for us. He is judged with the judgment which we deserved. He is condemned with our condemnation. All of this out of His love for us. He chooses to die for us rather than lose us to hell. He embraces the cross, the tree of death and condemnation, and makes of it the tree of life, the means of salvation's accomplishment. Here sin is answered for and righteousness won. Here death is defeated and life is given.

To meditate rightly on the sufferings of Christ is to see in His cross the salvation which God has provided for us. Luther puts it like this: "You cast your sins from yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that his wounds and sufferings are your sins, to be borne and paid for by him, as we read in Isaiah 53, 'The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.' St. Peter says, 'in his body has he borne our sins on the wood of the cross' (I Pet. 2:24). St. Paul says, 'God has made him a sinner for us, so that through him we would be made just' (II Cor. 5:21). You must stake everything on these and similar verses. The more your conscience torments you, the more tenaciously must you cling to them....If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting in Christ and see it overcome by his resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by his resurrection....Thus St. Paul declares that 'Christ died for our sin and rose again for our justification"(AE 42:12-13). Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.