Father, it is very easy, far easier for us to see sin in somebody else's life than it
is to see sin in our own life.
And Father, we confess before you that most of the time we are not aware of the fact that
we are doing this.
We ask, Lord, that as part of your grace to us, as you make Jesus and what he did for
us on the cross and who he is more real to our hearts, that you would, Father, help us
to change this, that you would help us to see the sin in our own lives and deal with
it rather than fretting and being angry and resentful over the sin in others' lives.
So we ask, Lord, that you would do this work in our lives this morning.
And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Saviour.
Amen.
Please be seated.
So, this text that I had to read this week convicted me of sin.
I don't know if it will convict you of sin, but it convicted me of a sin in my life that
was unrecognized, and it's been unrecognized for about a year and a half.
And it was a bit of a shock to realize that I was guilty of this sin.
And I'm not going to go into all of the details of the sin, but the text is going to, we'll
see what it does when we have a look at it together.
But I want to begin by that word of testimony.
And I thank you for those of you who pray for me throughout the week that I can preach
God's word well.
Part of that, preaching it well, is that I also will be convicted by the scriptures.
So thank you for praying for me.
So let's look.
What sin was it that God convicted me of this week?
Well, we're reading, we're preaching through the whole book of Mark, and we're getting towards
the end.
We're at Mark chapter 15.
And if you would turn to that, Mark chapter 15, verse 1, if you're using these little
booklets, it's on page 96.
And Mark is an ancient eyewitness biography of Jesus written while many eyewitnesses were
alive.
And what's just happened before this in the story is that we're still part of the 24 hours
that changed the world because Jewish days begin on sundown, not midnight or not when we
wake up, but it's sundown.
And so the very first day of Passover began.
And this is now just before dawn.
And we're still in the first day of the Passover celebrations.
And what's just happened two episodes before this is the Jewish leaders have brought Jesus
to the high priest's house.
And one of the most profound statements of who Jesus is is made by Jesus's enemy, where
the enemy says to Jesus, aren't you the Messiah, the God, the Son of God.
And that's the most profound, precise description of Jesus in the Gospels made by his enemy.
And Jesus says that's true.
And that's just happened.
And now we've moved to a slightly different part of this.
Then after that, we have Peter's denial of Jesus three times.
And now we come to this story before us.
And here is how it goes.
And as soon, verse one, and as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation
with the elders and scribes and the whole council.
And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate.
Now, just sort of pause here.
If you're not that familiar with the Bible, Pilate is the Roman governor of this region.
He has the power of life and death.
He has the, he in a sense rules as the emperor's representative and is in charge of the armies
as well that subjugate the Jewish people.
And this is not an unusual time for this to happen.
Just to give you fair warning, my wife and kids will tell you I am not an early riser.
I aspire to be an early riser, but I rarely reach what I aspire.
And if you came around an hour before sunrise to have me talk to you, I would be grumpy.
I would try to cover it, but it would make me grumpy because I wish I was still in bed.
But for Roman men of this rank in those days, you began the day just as it's during the skies
getting a little bit light.
That's when you begin your day.
You get everything done by noon.
And then you, I don't know, you read poetry, you drink wine, you feast, you, I don't know,
you do whatever a Roman gentleman can do.
That's how your days were structured.
So this is not an unusual time.
And the Jewish leaders needed and wanted Pilate to sentence Jesus to death.
And so that's why they brought him there.
Because, and so what the charge is actually is very, very interesting.
And some of you might have heard his odd answer and I'll explain it to it.
Let's look what happens next, verse 2.
And Pilate asked Jesus, are you the king of the Jews?
So the Jewish people, the Jewish leaders have given the charge.
They said, Pilate, you need to condemn this man.
He claims to be the king of the Jews.
And Pilate then in verse 2 asked Jesus, are you the king of the Jews?
And Jesus answered him, you have said so.
And so what's happened here is the Roman authorities don't give a, don't give,
they don't care the least whether or not, I mean, Jewish religion is just a superstitious fable
that for some odd reason is tolerated by the Roman Empire.
In fact, it's only tolerated by the Roman Empire because it's ancient.
And Romans loved old things.
And so because the Jewish people could say their faith goes way back, over a thousand years,
1400, 2000 years, the Romans gave it lots of space because they respected that.
But they wouldn't believe for a moment their odd superstitions.
And if they were said, you know, by the way, just Jesus claims to be the Messiah, God,
the Son of God, Pilate would have yawned.
So what happened is they translate the Messiah part into a different title that will have to get Pilate's attention,
which is the king of the Jewish people.
And so Pilate hears the charge.
He asked Jesus, are you the king of the Jews?
And Jesus' answer, it's literally translated.
But what it functionally means is this.
It's really like Jesus saying, well, I wouldn't put it in those terms, but yes.
That's what Jesus says.
I wouldn't put it in those terms, but yes.
He's not going to get into a bit of a quibble.
He's not going to take out his Old Testament and show Pilate from the Bible,
all the Bible texts and all of the theology of what it means to be the Messiah.
He says, well, I wouldn't use that descriptive term, but yes.
Yes, that's what, in effect, Jesus does.
Now, the next bit seems a bit odd to us,
and that's because of the great cultural distance between Canada and this time period.
Although it's not a great cultural distance in many, many, many parts of the world,
in fact, most of the world.
I think a couple of weeks ago I was sharing how,
when I was still part of the Diocese of Ottawa,
I got called into the bishop to see the Bishop of Ottawa on a Saturday afternoon to be fired.
And I was needlessly, not needlessly, I was obviously very worried about this,
and I'd asked lots of people to pray about it.
And one of the people who gave me some last-second advice was a lawyer.
And she said to me, when you go into this meeting,
first of all, she said, you know, foil them by not going alone,
but bring in a couple of people, and I did.
But the main piece of advice, she said, George, just remember,
they have to prove you're guilty.
You don't have to prove you're innocent.
So what you do, if you're in there,
you just say the same thing over and over and over again.
They make this, say, George, you've done blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You just answer,
I am a priest of the Anglican Church of Canada
who is faithful to his ordination vows.
And then they could say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
you know, why you're a terrible, evil person.
And my response is, I am a priest of the Anglican Church of Canada
who is faithful to my ordination vows.
And they have to prove that what you've just said isn't true.
You don't have to prove that you're not guilty of those offenses.
And, of course, in Canadian law,
you don't have to testify at your own trial.
The crown has to give sufficient evidence of your guilt.
And you don't have to prove your innocence.
They have to prove your guilt.
But it's the complete opposite here at this time period,
just as it is for most of the world in the world today.
And so that explains what happens next,
which is very odd and Pilate's amazement.
Look at what happens next, verse 3.
And the chief priest accused Jesus of many things.
And Pilate again asked him,
Have you no answer to make?
See how many charges they bring against you.
But Jesus made no further answer,
so that Pilate was amazed.
You see, in those days, he had to prove his innocence.
And they're successful.
What you see between verses 5 and 6,
in a sense it leaves a bit out,
but it's obvious from the context,
is that they're successful.
Between verses 5 and 6,
Pilate has come to the conclusion
that there's grounds for the capital offense,
against Jesus,
that he is king of the Jews.
At least there is until there's more evidence,
or something else happens,
but he's guilty.
And now it's going to be a matter of having
some type of sentence.
But here we come to something in the story
which is deeply human,
but maybe just for a couple of us.
How many of us occasionally like to do something
just to piss a person off?
I might be the only person in the room
who's like that.
But you all might know somebody
who just occasionally does something,
or maybe, you know the phrase,
yank someone's chain?
You do something to yank their chain,
to get a reaction, right?
To get them all hot and bothered.
And that's what happens next in the story.
Pilate yanks the chief priest's chain.
Look what happens in verse 6.
Now at the feast,
that's the Passover feast,
they're still in the first day of the Passover feast.
At the feast,
Pilate used to release for them one prisoner
for whom they asked.
And among the rebels in prison
who had committed murder in the insurrection,
there was a man called Barabbas.
And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate
to do as he usually did for them.
And he answered them saying,
do you want me to release for you
the king of the Jews?
So just a couple of things.
So here's the thing.
First of all,
some of you,
if you're using different Bible translations,
you see a different word there than rebel.
You might see the word robber.
And as I've explained before at different times,
and those of you who speak multiple languages,
when you speak multiple languages,
you know that sometimes
there's no perfect translation
from one word,
from one language to another.
And in a book like this,
they can't put all of the different options.
Like if you were translating for somebody on the fly,
you could do that.
But when you're just writing,
you can't.
And so it could be robber,
it could be rebel.
But the point is this.
The chief priest would have hated
both robbers and rebels.
Why?
Well, it's a little bit like Robin Hood.
And Robin Hood, the story,
you know, he robs from the rich
to give to the poor.
Now, unlike Robin Hood,
Barabbas would have robbed from the rich,
kept most of it himself,
and given some to the poor.
Now, who are rich?
All the people who've accused Jesus.
They loathed guys like Barabbas.
They were all probably throwing a party,
saying, good, I'm so glad Barabbas
and a couple of his buddies,
they're going to be,
they're getting executed.
They won't be robbing us anymore.
And so then,
what does Pilate do?
Pilate says,
well, I'm going to give you guys two options.
And the options are,
you can let Barabbas free,
and you can let Jesus free,
but the chief priest hated both of them.
See, Pilate has a bit of a smirk.
He's pulling their chain.
He's trying to both piss off,
am I allowed to say that in church?
I just did.
Anyway, it's an English phrase,
you all know what it means.
It's a metaphor.
And he wants to do that.
And he also,
as we're going to see in the story,
he wants to curry favor with the crowd.
And in fact,
that's the whole thing
about why he's going to release
somebody like Jesus to the crowd.
Now, some of you might be familiar
with the fact
that there's this big controversy around this,
because lots of skeptics say
that there's no record
that Pilate ever did something like that.
Now, just,
I want to translate that for you.
If I was to say
that something happened
10 years ago on Parliament Hill,
I have people here in the room
who were working on Parliament Hill
10 years ago.
And lots of people here
know how Parliament Hill works.
And if I was to say something like that,
there's literally hundreds and hundreds
and probably thousands of people
who could tell you
how Parliament Hill works
and what I just said was nonsense.
How many sources do we have
for what happened
at this time period
with Pilate outside of the Gospels?
Well, it's actually not zero,
but it's just one,
Josephus.
There's another small,
a little bit by a Roman historian
that talks about
some of these types of things.
But the fact of the matter is,
is that Josephus didn't write
about every single thing
that Pilate did.
Like, it's a foolish type of charge
to say that unless Pilate,
unless Josephus talked about it,
it didn't happen.
Well, that's like a ridiculous thing to say.
And the other thing about it is,
what Pilate does here
is as ancient as the hills
and as contemporary to today.
Would any of us be surprised
if we heard that Putin
had pardoned one of his allies?
No.
And I'm not being political here.
What do we all know
Biden is going to do
in the last week in office?
He is going to pardon his cronies.
And I'm not being political.
If Ron DeSantis
becomes president afterwards,
he's going to do it
when he comes to an end
of his office as well.
If AOC becomes the next president,
she'll do it.
It's as modern
as the contemporary world
and it's as ancient
as the hills
that people in power
do things like this.
And it's a very simple type of thing.
It's no skin off of Pilate's nose
and it makes him look generous
and full of, yeah,
just generosity.
The city of Jerusalem
has, you know what,
five, eight, ten times more people
than usual.
He does it at this time
and he can sort of feel good
about himself.
It's good PR
and it's just,
it's a completely
and utterly believable
type of thing
that Pilate says,
he foils
what the Jewish leaders want.
He gives them
heart palpitations.
They're now sweating
from their armpits
and all those other parts
that can sweat.
First of all,
they are really bothered
that Pilate's made that offer,
those two people,
and they're worried
that Jesus is going to go free.
But the fact of the matter is
they want Barabbas dead
more than they want Jesus dead.
And by the way,
there's one other
very important thing,
just not important,
but it's an important thing
for you to know about.
Barabbas literally means
son of the father.
That's what it means literally,
son of the father.
And it is,
it is one of those ironies
of history
that the choice
between the crowd
is between two sons
of the father.
One son of the father
who is a murderer
and the other son of the father
who is the creator
of all things,
who is the source of life.
Now,
so there's another thing
if you're familiar
with the literature
on these texts.
On one hand,
there's lots of controversy
about from skeptics
that this is just invented,
which I think is sort of
a ridiculous comment.
And then the next thing
is that people spend pages
and pages and pages
in commentaries
arguing over who's responsible
for the death of Jesus.
And one of the reasons
there is this controversy
is because there is a,
an evil stain
on much of the history
of Christendom.
And that evil stain,
not on Christianity,
but on Christendom,
that ugly stain
is anti-Semitism.
Throughout the history
of Christendom,
there have been people
who've called themselves
Christians
who hate Jewish people
and want to see Jewish people
hurt and killed
and robbed.
and it is a terrible stain
on Christendom's history.
And so because of this profound,
because of this legacy
for parts of Christendom,
there's a big debate
about whether or not
the Jews are responsible
for the death of Jesus.
Now, the text is going to show us
that that is false.
I'm not saying that it's false
just because I don't want
to have anti-Semitism.
The Bible itself
actually shows
that it's not anti-Semitism.
And just a bit of a time out,
those of us
who've experienced prejudice,
those of us
who've experienced prejudice
in any form,
what we know,
or what we should know,
is that when a person
is prejudiced against you,
they look for evidence
to justify
their prejudice and hatred.
if you have a prejudice
against a particular people group
and you see them
doing something odd,
you say to your friends
who share your prejudice,
look at that person.
That's what they all do.
But if one of your friends does it,
you say,
oh, that's just Joe.
Well, we look for evidence
for our prejudices,
to feed our prejudices.
And so those who have
an evil hatred of Jewish people
look for reasons in the text.
They don't want to listen
to the text.
They want superficial reasons.
And so they look at this
and so now even today
there's lots of writing
about whether or not
who's responsible.
But the Bible itself
says who's responsible
and this is actually
where I was convicted of sin.
In a sense,
the text says
I was responsible
for the death of Jesus.
Look at it in verse 10.
It's a verse,
if you're going to memorize
something from this text,
verse 10 would be
the verse to memorize.
For Pilate perceived
that it was out of envy
that the chief priest
had delivered Jesus up.
I'll say it again.
For Pilate perceived
that it was out of envy
that the chief priest
had delivered Jesus up.
So it doesn't say
for Pilate perceived
that it was because
they were Jewish
that they delivered them up.
If that was the case,
then maybe there'd be
something to it.
But it says for envy.
Now,
if you could put up
the first point
and leave it up
for a moment.
Envy is sorrow
or sadness
or resentment
at seeing someone else
enjoying a good
or some other
enjoying a good.
Envy is experiencing
sorrow or sadness
or resentment
at seeing someone
enjoying something
which is good.
Now, the older Christians,
if you go back
in Christian history,
there's been a long
established
series of books
and meditations
around something called
the seven deadly sins.
Christians.
And they've been developed
to help Christians
examine their conscience,
to look at their lives,
to try to see
whether there's things
in their lives
that are wrong.
And the ancients
usually ranked
the seven deadly sins
in order from
the most deadly
to the least deadly.
And the most deadly
is pride
and the least deadly
is lust.
Now, if
some of you say,
oh, lust
is the least deadly
of the sins,
well, the word least
is there,
but the word deadly
is still there.
You might say
this snake
will kill you
within one second
when it bites you
and this one
will kill you
five minutes
after it bites you.
But both of the
different snakes
will both kill you.
But one will just
kill you in a second
one in five minutes.
Actually, I don't know
if there's any snakes
that do either of that,
but that's a whole other...
This isn't a lesson
on snakes.
It's a lesson on envy.
But believe it or not,
envy is the second
most deadly
of the seven deadly sins.
This experiencing
of sorrow
or sadness
or resentment
at seeing someone
other enjoying
a good.
Part of the reason
the sins are
deadly
is because
they're unrecognized.
So one of the things
that I was convicted
of this week
is that for at least
a year and a half
I've been guilty
of the sin of envy.
And I was very
self-righteous
about my sin,
which is often
how we deal
with the sin of envy.
I wouldn't have said
that what I was doing
was the sin of envy.
I would have said
that I was giving
insight
into the situation.
That I had
the right explanation
for the situation.
But the fact of the matter
is it was the sin of envy.
There was another
or a group
having a good thing
and seeing that good thing
made me resent them.
Made me sad.
Made me unhappy.
Envy is unrecognized
and part of envy
is that it leads you
to want the others
to know disaster.
That you're actually
going to be really happy.
if it all blows up
on them.
If you discover
that it's revealed
that there's something
really bad,
it causes joy.
Those of you
who follow controversies
in the church world,
when either properly
or improperly,
somebody who's
a high-ranking
Christian falls
and the Twitter verse
and the Facebook verse
goes crazy,
that's the sin of envy.
Look at that
Matt Chandler.
That's what they're saying.
We always knew
he was bad.
We always knew
that whatever,
pick your person.
We want others
to fall.
It leads to hatred.
It leads you
to feel dissatisfied
with your own life.
It leads you to say
things like,
I'm just as good
as that person.
But nobody
who ever says that
feels pleasure
from that statement.
It's fueled
by your envy
of them.
And I'm going to suggest,
I mean,
I made a bit of a,
not a risky thing,
but before the service
began,
almost every single
one of us
in this room
is regularly
guilty of envy
because you look
at social media.
And how many
of you look
at social media
and after looking
at it for a while
feel discontented
and unhappy?
And if you do,
it's because
you're experiencing
the sin of envy.
And you don't
recognize it.
And you come away
from watching
Facebook or Instagram
and your own wife
or husband
seems inadequate
your family
isn't as good
as it should be.
Your life sucks.
And whether you're
completely aware
of it or not,
you also don't really,
you sort of wouldn't mind
if you end up
hearing through
the gossip thing
that that other person,
their life got
turned into a big mess.
And even to make it worse,
we engage
in Instagram
and Facebook
to create envy
in others.
to cause them
to sin.
Now,
not everything
exactly is done
that way.
I don't want to make it
that all Christians
should flee social media,
but,
and not every single thing
you do is like that.
I'm not saying that.
I think we need to take it
seriously
that it creates
within us
discontentment
with our lives.
And not in a way
that helps us,
but only in a way
that makes us,
that hurts us.
So it's envy,
not Jewishness,
that led to the death
of Jesus.
You know,
in a sense,
envy is the great
human sin
along with pride.
It wasn't just
that human beings,
Adam and Eve,
wanted to be like God,
but they,
in a sense,
envied God,
his position.
And they would like
his position.
They didn't mind
if he fell.
You know,
I didn't put it up
as a point,
but most Canadians
will say,
most very,
very good Canadians
will say,
you've got to look out
for number one.
And in a sense,
what the Bible says
is that's actually
really true.
You've got to look out
for number one.
But the bad news is,
you're not number one.
The bad news is,
the triune God
is number one.
And for most Canadians,
they'd say,
well,
that sucks big time.
And they'd resent it.
The fact of the matter is,
you know,
there's a very profound
statement by Augustine
that says,
God has made us
for himself
and our hearts
are restless
till they rest in him.
And that's,
that is the most,
one of the most profound
statements made
outside of the Bible
that explains
human psychology.
God has made us
for himself
and our hearts
are restless
till we rest in him.
And that means
that God has made
human beings
so that there's
a throne
in each of our lives.
And when we
cast off God,
we thought we would
step onto the throne
of our own lives.
But the fact of the matter
is,
is that God did not
design human beings
to sit on the throne
of their own life.
And so what happened
is we cast God
from the throne,
but instead what happens
is idols sit on the throne,
sin that sits on the throne.
In some cases,
demons sit on the throne.
And they all push
and pull each other,
one sin after another,
one idol after another,
and our hearts
are unbelievably restless.
And we keep thinking
that we can climb
onto the throne
of our own lives.
But all we do
is replace one idol
with another
or try to put
six different idols
all on the throne
of our life
at the same time
in four different sins.
And then we wonder
why our lives
have periods
of great discontent.
So what can be done
and does the Bible
have any type of remedy
for this?
Well, actually it does.
And it does in the guise
of something
that at first seems
to illustrate
why the gospel is foolish.
Look at what happens
immediately after
in verse 11.
So Pilate has found
Jesus guilty
even though he knows
he's innocent.
His statements here,
no, he knows he's innocent
but Pilate isn't motivated
by justice
and he's not motivated
by love.
Pilate is motivated
by making himself
look good
and furthering his power.
It's a very profoundly
human situation
that we might say
that we're looking
for justice
but really what we're doing
is looking to
further and cement
our own position.
And so in verse 11
but the chief priest
stirred up the crowd
to have Pilate
released for them
Barabbas instead of Jesus.
Verse 12
and Pilate again
said to them
then what shall I do
with the man
you call the king
of the Jews?
And they cried out
again crucify him.
And Pilate said to them
why what evil
has Jesus done?
But they shouted
all the more
crucify him.
And so Pilate
said well Jesus
is innocent
I'm going to let
Barabbas get killed.
No that's not what happens.
Pilate wishing
to satisfy the crowd
released for them
Barabbas
and having scourged
Jesus
that's
you have
leather whips
and embedded
in the end
of the whips
are pieces of bone
or pieces of
lead
or pieces of glass.
and Josephus
records that
cases of people
being scourged
and they
often people
die from being
scourged.
They can't be crucified
because they die
and it wasn't
unusual for the Romans
to scourge a person.
They would tie
your hands up
above your head
so your body
is completely
defenseless
and
they would
scourge you
until the bone
could be seen
through the skin
and through the muscle
and through the
everything
until your bones
could be seen.
And they scourged
and having scourged
Jesus
he delivered
Jesus to be
crucified.
Now some people
would say
George
this
this shows
the problem
with the gospel
right
because you know
on one hand
if you look at this
there is something
of the gospel
in this text.
Jesus
dies
in Pilate's
in Barabbas'
place
and Barabbas
goes free.
In fact
you could even
imagine
a dialogue
an internal dialogue
with Pilate
as he's
walking outside
he's talked
privately inside
with the chief priest
he's heard the
accusations
Jesus has been
silent
and he's thinking
through
and maybe even
one of the things
he's thinking
through
is he's thinking
you know
dang it all
I got
I went to the
bother of having
the lads
make three crosses
and it would be
a shame
to have to try
to find a fourth
and it would be
a shame
to put one of them
to waste
the lads
might be a bit
upset
that I had them
do some work
and I let
and it all
just had to
go for naught
it was a hot day
I had lots of bother
so I'm going to
pick one guy
and another guy
and the result
of my thing
which I'm going
to do in a few
moments
is that cross
will not go to
waste
somebody will
die on that
cross
I don't want
to have the
bother of making
a fourth
and I don't
want to waste
the third
so in some
ways the story
is you know
people would say
George I mean
aren't you saying
the story of
Pilate and Jesus
is unjust
so how is it
just that you
say that Jesus
died for our
sins
and George
doesn't it just
seem unjust
even if you
say that
well Jesus
dies on the
cross instead
of Barabbas
but Barabbas
goes free
and just does
more evil
and those are
the reasons
why the cross
makes absolutely
no sense
whatsoever
and we as
Christians would
have to say
yeah but that's
not what's going
on here in the
story
you do get a
pointer to the
cross but the
differences
are matter
a lot
if you could
put up the
second point
Claire that
would be very
handy
I see what
Christians would
say is that
love triumphs
over justice
not by
cancelling
justice
but by
satisfying
justice and
going beyond
it
so the
death of
Jesus is
unjust but
what happens
in the
death
and in a
sense all
of the human
beings and
they desired
harm to
come to
Jesus but
God used
our desire
to harm
Jesus to
bring good
good for
us that
in the
cross you
see the
profound love
of Jesus
a profound
particular love
for human
beings for
each one of
us who puts
our faith and
trust in
him and
and Pilate
just
autocratically
chose this
up in
Jesus to
him and
love
to
die on
the cross
two of
those
times he
prophesied
two of
them specifically
that he
would die
on the
cross
And so what's happening is that it's only Jesus' love that holds him to the cross.
And it's a love offer.
Well, it's something like this.
My wife is present.
I was going to use this as an analogy about me,
but then I thought it would make it look like I'm trying to be very virtuous.
So I'll use my wife as an example, but it's not a bad example, dear.
Imagine for a moment there's a horrible future that scientists figure out a way
that they can hook a person up to a machine,
and there's a transfer of the blood and of the fluids and everything from one body to another.
But what happens, maybe it's designed in an evil autocratic country like many of them that we know in the world,
and we hear about it in the West later on.
And what they do is they take a completely healthy, innocent person,
and they hook them up to a rich or powerful person who has a terrible disease.
And when they hook the two people up and they move the fluids and everything through the two of them,
all of the things which are causing the death of the one, of the rich, powerful person,
are transferred to the healthy person.
And the health of the healthy person is transferred to the rich person.
And at the end of it, the rich person walks away in the full health of the healthy person.
And the poor one who's forced to do this by an evil government has now the cancer or whatever illness it is,
the host of illnesses that was killing, that's now in that person.
But then we realize that maybe that technology could be of use in North America,
but how could it ever be used without creating huge injustice.
Well, let's say my granddaughter, one of my granddaughters, let's say Bria or Sophie,
were the ones who were sick and were going to die.
And there's the conversation amongst the family as to whether one person who might be a match
would go in that machine so that the thing which is killing the young six-year-old or the 14-year-old
would go into the healthy one and the health of the healthy one would go into the sick one.
And it turns out that maybe Bria's mother or Sophie's mother would be a match.
But it also turns out that my wife would be a match.
And I think my wife would take that.
It would be very sad.
There would be tears.
But I think she would hook herself up to that machine
so her granddaughter would have her health.
And so whether it's Lizzie or whether it's Victoria,
they could see their daughter grow up
and maybe see a granddaughter themselves someday.
That's what's happening on the cross.
There is no one a better match for you or closer to you
than the creator and sustainer of all things than God, the Son of God.
And God, the Son of God, takes your place on that cross.
The health in him goes to you.
And the sickness and death and illness in us go to him.
And he does it not because it's imposed upon him,
but he, in a sense, looks you and me in the eye and says,
I am willing to do that for you because I love you.
And you know the thing about love?
The thing about love, and we all know this,
is that when we love, whether it's just friendship
or the love of a mother for her daughter
or a friend for a friend or a husband and a wife,
it's as if they come into you in some way.
There's a place for them.
That's why we get so sorrowful when they die.
It feels as if part of us is gone.
And you see, love is the big difference between what happens.
I mean, on one hand, it does have a bit of an inkling.
The guilty goes and Jesus dies.
But it's not that.
It's love that explains what Jesus is doing.
It's love that keeps him to the cross.
It's love looking at you.
And we feel the other person in our lives in a small way.
But in Jesus, it actually is a real thing
because he's the creator and sustainer of all things.
And he comes within us.
And we now have his love within us.
The Bible describes it as being born again, born from above.
And then what is different is that as what Jesus has done for you grips you,
as it becomes more present to your heart,
a deeper parts of who you are,
that that's what he has done for you,
that becomes, in a sense, a story, an image of how you are to live.
And it becomes something that pushes you into looking at new ways of living.
It pulls you and draws you into new ways of living.
And it pulls you and draws you to do the opposite of envy.
Because in envy, we feel sorrow that another person has a good that we desire to have.
But love is being willing to sacrifice for the other to know true good.
There is no true solution to envy other than love.
And that is what we see in the story before us.
That is what grips us.
And it's in the security of his love that I can come to realize that I was guilty of the sin of envy.
And I need to pray against it.
I need to repent of it.
Invite you to stand.
Invite you to bow your heads in prayer.
Father, for some of us here watching for the first time,
it's really struck us what Christ has done for us on the cross.
And Father, I ask that you would bring that truth home to them,
that they might truly know that Jesus in a way of saving faith.
And for others, it's just been brought home to us anew in yet another way.
And we ask, Lord, that you bring the truth of who Jesus is
and what he has done for us and his great love for us into our hearts more and more,
more and more deeply.
That it would become more and more deeply the ground that we stand on.
That that which pushes us and pulls us and draws us and shapes us and forms us.
And Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would do that wonderful, gentle, needed work
in each one of our lives.
And not just us as individuals, but for us as a congregation, Father,
that we would be marked not by envy, but by love and generosity
and a love for our city and a love for people groups
that still need to hear the gospel here in Ottawa and to the ends of the earth.
That, Father, the gospel would not just shape us as individuals, but us as a church.
That we would be a gospel-shaped people and a gospel-shaped church for your glory.
And we ask these things in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior.
Amen.