Robert E. Cushman - "He Was Reckoned among Transgressors" (April 19, 1964)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Man | Let us pray. | 0:33 |
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts | 0:37 | |
be acceptable in thy sight, | 0:41 | |
in the name of the father and of the son | 0:44 | |
and of the holy spirit, amen. | 0:47 | |
In the last night, in the night of his betrayal. | 0:57 | |
And in his final words to his disciples in the upper room, | 1:02 | |
Jesus said, this, "I say unto you, | 1:07 | |
that this which is written must be fulfilled in me" | 1:12 | |
and he was reckoned with transgressors. | 1:18 | |
That Jesus stands at the summit of imaginable goodness | 1:23 | |
few with deny. | 1:28 | |
Yet it is a plain fact of history | 1:31 | |
that in this day he was reckoned with transgressors. | 1:34 | |
Furthermore, he was so regarded | 1:39 | |
by the most respectable | 1:41 | |
and influential leaders of his society. | 1:42 | |
This realization is shocking enough, | 1:48 | |
but I wonder how startled we might be | 1:52 | |
to contemplate the possibility, | 1:54 | |
indeed the likelihood that were Christ among us today, | 1:57 | |
he would still be reckoned with transgressors | 2:03 | |
even by church people. | 2:08 | |
For is there not a good possibility | 2:12 | |
that Christ would be reckoned among transgressors | 2:15 | |
in any society that incriminates conscientious defenders | 2:18 | |
of frustrated human rights | 2:24 | |
and who can only do so at the risk | 2:27 | |
of challenging existing law | 2:30 | |
or the propriety of their application | 2:34 | |
for both society and the challengers, | 2:39 | |
there is an ancient and ugly dilemma here of which | 2:42 | |
either the change of society and its laws | 2:46 | |
is the one horn or the cross is the other | 2:49 | |
for where justice is obstructed in society. | 2:54 | |
How shall men evade either of two options? | 2:59 | |
Either they must change the laws | 3:03 | |
to emancipate a larger good that is presently suppressed, | 3:05 | |
or they confront a sober alternative. | 3:10 | |
Like the Pharisees and the scribes | 3:14 | |
they must crucify in one manner or another, | 3:16 | |
the defenders of outrage justice | 3:19 | |
and human good presently imprisoned. | 3:22 | |
Exactly this is the tough and somber logic | 3:27 | |
of the new Testament. | 3:31 | |
It is the logic of the cross | 3:33 | |
and it is recurrently exemplified in history as Lowell knew. | 3:35 | |
Let us look at this logic, | 3:42 | |
but always remembering Jesus' words from his cross, | 3:45 | |
"Father forgive them for they know not what they do." | 3:50 | |
Inlands and holy week, | 3:58 | |
Christians are deeply sensible | 4:01 | |
of the foreboding shadows of the cross. | 4:03 | |
Then Easter comes and the shadows give place | 4:06 | |
to the brightness of the resurrection | 4:09 | |
and quickly too quickly | 4:12 | |
the appalling cross is transfigured. | 4:14 | |
It is transformed into the sign, | 4:17 | |
into the sign of the brightness of the hope | 4:21 | |
and quickly the indefectible goodness and love of Christ | 4:25 | |
and the eternal promise of God become transparent. | 4:31 | |
Whereas the cross was a thing of ultimate despair, | 4:37 | |
It now becomes the sign of God's power | 4:41 | |
and victory over man's unrighteousness. | 4:44 | |
And shortly the transfiguration of the cross is heralded | 4:48 | |
by the first sermon of the apostle Peter. | 4:53 | |
Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly | 4:57 | |
that God hath made him both Lord and Christ. | 5:01 | |
This Jesus whom he crucified. | 5:05 | |
In your eyes he was reckoned among transgressors, | 5:09 | |
in God's eyes he is Lord and Christ, | 5:13 | |
in your eyes he was despised and rejected, | 5:17 | |
in God's eyes he is God's own son. | 5:21 | |
Here indeed is a recorded a revolution of perspective. | 5:26 | |
It marks the beginning of the Christian Church | 5:32 | |
in all through the transfiguration of the cross | 5:35 | |
routes in the early Christian insight of faith | 5:39 | |
that God has turned man's most despicable deed | 5:43 | |
into the occasion of his most redemptive act. | 5:47 | |
Man's most hideous rejection of God was, | 5:51 | |
and is on it's other side | 5:55 | |
God ultimate acceptance of man | 5:58 | |
even in his total unworthiness | 6:01 | |
and thus in the cross Saint Paul found | 6:05 | |
the unsearchable riches of God's forgiving grace. | 6:08 | |
Thus he gloried in the cross alone | 6:12 | |
in it he affirmed was to be found | 6:16 | |
the refutation of the world's wisdom. | 6:19 | |
In the cross was made visible | 6:22 | |
the foolishness of God that is wiser than men | 6:24 | |
and an apparent weakness of God | 6:28 | |
that is stronger than men | 6:31 | |
and thus unabashed and boldly | 6:33 | |
Paul preached Christ crucified | 6:36 | |
though it was to the Jews who reckoned him a transgressor, | 6:39 | |
a stumbling block and to the Greeks' foolishness | 6:44 | |
against the appearances, roundly Paul affirms the paradox. | 6:50 | |
God forbid that I should glory say then | 6:56 | |
the cross of Christ my Lord. | 6:59 | |
No doubt we have become too remote in time and understanding | 7:03 | |
to comprehend anymore so astounding a gospel. | 7:08 | |
Paradox loses its force | 7:13 | |
as conventionalized belief induces believers | 7:16 | |
to slight and then pass over the original | 7:21 | |
shame and infamy of the cross. | 7:25 | |
In any case, | 7:28 | |
we are prone to pass quickly to the dawning realization | 7:30 | |
of its true glory in the maturing faith | 7:34 | |
of the early church. | 7:37 | |
Most of us are scarcely conscious of the transition | 7:40 | |
from the infamy to the glory of the cross | 7:44 | |
in the mind of the primitive Christians. | 7:47 | |
And Gal Gaza the disciples were stunned | 7:50 | |
into silent helplessness by the infamy of the cross, | 7:54 | |
that is Christ reckoned with transgressors, | 7:59 | |
but with Easter and Pentecost, | 8:03 | |
they acquired unshakeable assurance | 8:07 | |
of the glory of the cross. | 8:09 | |
And in that assurance, they and their successors ventured, | 8:11 | |
even martyrdom in fidelity to their lord. | 8:16 | |
And in that sign the cross, | 8:21 | |
the infamous cross, they conquered. | 8:24 | |
We are heirs of their victory, | 8:29 | |
the conquest of the ancient hidden world | 8:32 | |
by the Christian faith. | 8:35 | |
It was a victory however not without its heavy cost. | 8:37 | |
It secured the glory of the cross, | 8:42 | |
but it obscured it's infamy. | 8:45 | |
Gradually men came to see only Christ victorious, | 8:48 | |
not Christ humiliated. | 8:52 | |
Gradually the cross became the sign of Christ's victory | 8:55 | |
in which men were glad to include themselves. | 8:59 | |
In so far as it remained the sign of his humiliation | 9:02 | |
men tended to exempt themselves. | 9:06 | |
And so the paradox of the cross | 9:10 | |
with which Saint Paul astonished the ancient world faded | 9:12 | |
recollection them, that Christ | 9:17 | |
had been reckoned with transgressors. | 9:20 | |
Today it is almost forgotten | 9:23 | |
all but unknown it is that the matchless doer of the law, | 9:28 | |
the fulfiller of the great commandment | 9:34 | |
died under the condemnation of the law. | 9:37 | |
What a contradiction, | 9:41 | |
what absurdity is this that fulfillment of the law | 9:44 | |
should receive the condemnation of the law. | 9:48 | |
Consider it, is the infamy of the cross in this, | 9:52 | |
that otherwise righteous people invoke and misuse the law | 9:57 | |
to overthrow and subvert the essential aim | 10:02 | |
and spirit of the law. | 10:05 | |
Nothing I think would do more to recover | 10:08 | |
health and authenticity to complacent, blinded, | 10:11 | |
compromised, church religion of our land | 10:17 | |
than honest facing off to the real infamy of the cross. | 10:21 | |
It is time we knew for a certainty as Christians, | 10:26 | |
that the cross is no more | 10:31 | |
the perfect sign of God's forgiveness | 10:33 | |
than it is the matchless mirror | 10:37 | |
of what men need forgiveness for | 10:40 | |
and above all for the sin of hypocrisy. | 10:43 | |
What then more narrowly is the infamy of the cross? | 10:51 | |
From long habit of thought | 10:57 | |
we are prone to view the infamy of the cross | 11:00 | |
as the despiteful and politic murder | 11:03 | |
of the most righteous of men. | 11:06 | |
Many 18th century rationalist of the enlightenment | 11:10 | |
insisted upon it and there is truth in it. | 11:13 | |
Or again we can see the infamy of the cross | 11:18 | |
as Israel's blinded rejection of its own expected Messiah | 11:22 | |
in Christian perspective. | 11:28 | |
This also is true. | 11:30 | |
Yet again, we see the infamy of the cross | 11:32 | |
as the frantic and jealous deed | 11:36 | |
of benighted religious bigots, | 11:39 | |
fervent to save God their ecclesiastical | 11:42 | |
and political empire in considerable measure | 11:45 | |
this also is true. | 11:50 | |
Or generalizing once more in Christian perspective, | 11:52 | |
we may think of the infamy of the cross | 11:57 | |
as the Apogee of man's rebellious rejection of God | 11:59 | |
in the person of his son. | 12:04 | |
Christian faith holds this truth, | 12:06 | |
but there is a more subtle | 12:10 | |
and a more basic infamy than these | 12:12 | |
that we are prone to ignore | 12:16 | |
and we ought never to miss. | 12:18 | |
Consider then what it really means | 12:21 | |
that the Lord of the Christian Church | 12:25 | |
was executed among condemned criminals. | 12:28 | |
The gospel writers are unanimous | 12:32 | |
and with him they crucify two robbers. | 12:36 | |
Do not presume to accord to the crucified one of that day, | 12:41 | |
the exaltation of the ages of faith. | 12:47 | |
Consider him unattested by the faith of centuries | 12:51 | |
crucified between robbers. | 12:59 | |
Was it only an ugly coincidence | 13:02 | |
to be sure there was execution to be done that day | 13:05 | |
and the tame time-saving efficiency of Roman justice | 13:09 | |
doubtless suggested economy of effort, | 13:14 | |
but do not attribute to the mocking soldiers, | 13:18 | |
the curious populous and the blinded leaders, | 13:21 | |
the eyes either of love or of faith | 13:26 | |
to accord special significance to that central figure. | 13:30 | |
All eyes are focused and lightened by faith, | 13:34 | |
but not players, not then they did not yet. | 13:39 | |
They had not yet come to garnish the tomb of the prophet | 13:44 | |
and just this the gospel writers wish to affirm | 13:52 | |
the hard brutal fact of the infamy of the cross. | 13:56 | |
It was this, he was reckoned with transgressors, | 14:01 | |
the cross consummated in the irrevocable deed | 14:08 | |
the long standing and the hardening judgment | 14:12 | |
of Jesus' persecutors that he was in fact | 14:15 | |
the destroyer of the law, | 14:19 | |
a subversion of the religion of Moses. | 14:21 | |
We say it was a mistake, | 14:25 | |
a heinous case of mistaken identity, | 14:27 | |
but it was the judgment of the only jewelry Jesus had. | 14:31 | |
It was the sentence of the leaders of Judaism | 14:36 | |
and in the face of it for Paul declared boldly, | 14:39 | |
even defiantly that he would preach Christ crucified. | 14:45 | |
This was incredible presumption, unbelievable paradigm. | 14:51 | |
It required a revolution of perspective, | 14:57 | |
so radical and powerful | 15:00 | |
that it could turn the hinge of history | 15:02 | |
and create both the Christian conscience | 15:05 | |
and the Christian era. | 15:10 | |
But we, with already made heroic | 15:13 | |
and triumphal view of Christ, | 15:18 | |
slight the awful awareness of the early church | 15:21 | |
that Jesus was executed under the law | 15:24 | |
as a condemned perverter of the people, a revolutionary, | 15:27 | |
an agitator, an enemy of the tradition of the elders | 15:32 | |
and the gain sayer of the law of Moses. | 15:36 | |
Today, we honor neither their understanding of that law | 15:41 | |
nor their mistaken identification of Jesus. | 15:46 | |
Today, we know that the scribes could not hear | 15:50 | |
nor understand when Jesus said | 15:54 | |
he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill the law. | 15:56 | |
We know that he did fulfill it by undeviating love to God | 16:02 | |
and on faltering love of neighbor, | 16:07 | |
but the scribes and the Pharisees | 16:10 | |
did not so understand the law | 16:12 | |
and the law as they read it in point of fact obscured | 16:16 | |
and prevented their no knowing who their neighbors were | 16:21 | |
just as our laws, especially the trespass law, | 16:27 | |
assists us to misidentify our neighbors, | 16:32 | |
namely those of color. | 16:37 | |
So the scribes and the Pharisees | 16:41 | |
summed up their indictment of Jesus and the words to pilot | 16:43 | |
now long since remembered | 16:48 | |
with compunction and shame. | 16:53 | |
We have a law and by that law, he ought to die. | 16:56 | |
It was that serious let's not fool ourselves. | 17:02 | |
We have no warrant for discrediting or discounting | 17:07 | |
the scribe's zeal for the law as they understood it | 17:10 | |
or their outrage in Jesus breach of it | 17:14 | |
by his indifference to some portions of the law, | 17:19 | |
it seemed to them he threatened the integrity | 17:23 | |
of the whole legal fabric of Judaism | 17:26 | |
that Jesus ignored the rules of the Sabbath | 17:30 | |
by travel, by healing was scandalous violation | 17:33 | |
of the inviolable law. | 17:38 | |
So also that he ignored the ceremonial rules of diet | 17:41 | |
and cleanliness, that his disciples satisfied hunger | 17:46 | |
by grain plucked from the fields on the Sabbath | 17:50 | |
that Jesus fraternized and dined with publicans and sinners. | 17:53 | |
This was Libertinism, communism, and desegregation. | 17:58 | |
The despised publicans and sinners should remain despised. | 18:06 | |
It was the letter of the law and that the root of it all | 18:10 | |
was the profanity of Jesus claim that love of neighbor, | 18:15 | |
even of the despised (indistinct) | 18:19 | |
and human wellbeing are prior claims to man's loyalty, | 18:22 | |
exceeding in urgency, many others of the law of Moses, | 18:28 | |
and this let us face it, was blasphemy in their eyes. | 18:33 | |
It was the equivalent of treason | 18:39 | |
in the theocratic society of Jesus day. | 18:42 | |
To the scribes and Pharisees | 18:46 | |
Jesus was a transgressor of great parrel to the people | 18:49 | |
and by their law, | 18:55 | |
their interpretation of the law, he ought to die. | 18:57 | |
They could not take in Jesus' criticism, | 19:02 | |
he tithe men denies and cumin, | 19:06 | |
and they have left undone | 19:10 | |
the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. | 19:12 | |
He blind guides that strained the gnat | 19:20 | |
and swallow the camel, | 19:24 | |
the Pharisees and lawyers could not get the message | 19:27 | |
they didn't want to. | 19:31 | |
Jesus' basic premise seemed to evade them | 19:34 | |
and that premise was this, | 19:39 | |
that every particular law together with its application | 19:42 | |
is judged, vindicated or found wanting | 19:48 | |
by reference to the standard of the essential law, | 19:53 | |
what laws therefore do not implement | 19:58 | |
or express the great commandment | 20:01 | |
on the Lord love of God and love of man | 20:05 | |
are indifferent at times may be ignored, | 20:09 | |
at others actually breached in answerability | 20:13 | |
to the great commandment, the essential law. | 20:18 | |
Accordingly, Jesus taught that God judges men, | 20:23 | |
not by their legal righteous, | 20:30 | |
but by their intention and by their fruits | 20:33 | |
and both intention and fruits by the standard | 20:38 | |
of the great commandment. | 20:44 | |
This is how our Lord lived | 20:47 | |
and placed it in it is the logic of the cross. | 20:51 | |
That logic only became explicit | 20:55 | |
when Jesus was reckoned with transgressors. | 20:58 | |
Today in our society, we face a like situation | 21:02 | |
and a similar logic, | 21:07 | |
are all laws at all times equally to be honored, | 21:09 | |
whether they serve human good and civil justice or not? | 21:16 | |
It may surprise you | 21:22 | |
when I say that Jesus did not so believe | 21:25 | |
respecting the law of his day | 21:29 | |
and he did not so act | 21:32 | |
that is if we may trust the new Testament, | 21:36 | |
he subordinated particular law | 21:41 | |
to the standard of the great command | 21:44 | |
he remembered while his contemporaries forgot | 21:48 | |
what was the essence of the law. | 21:52 | |
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart | 21:55 | |
and with all thy soul and with all thy mind | 22:00 | |
and thy neighbor as thyself. | 22:05 | |
Laws or tradition, which failed by this standard | 22:10 | |
or in their application | 22:16 | |
were no vehicles of its spirit or purpose | 22:19 | |
Jesus set aside in fidelity to the pure meaning of the law, | 22:23 | |
the tradition of man, he subordinated to the word of God | 22:31 | |
and for this, he was reckoned with transgressors. | 22:37 | |
Now, what verdict do we render | 22:46 | |
concerning Christ in this our enlightened age? | 22:52 | |
I do not mean the verdict of our lips, but of our lives. | 23:00 | |
In our churches we own him as Lord | 23:08 | |
and our society professes quite ungrudgingly | 23:12 | |
that he is to be placed upon the moral | 23:17 | |
in the goal of history. | 23:20 | |
But do we really know what we do? | 23:23 | |
For in our preference for the glory of the cross | 23:26 | |
we often hide from ourselves, the infamy of the cross. | 23:31 | |
There is even some evidence that why we Christians | 23:36 | |
hail him as Lord. | 23:40 | |
We continue to crucify him as transgressor. | 23:42 | |
And this is the basic self-contradiction | 23:47 | |
the pathetic incoherence and consequent hypocrisy | 23:51 | |
of American Christianity and culture. | 23:56 | |
The contradiction permeates our churches | 24:00 | |
and erodes the social fabric as a moral disease. | 24:04 | |
Well, what else can be said | 24:10 | |
of those that hailed Jesus as Lord | 24:13 | |
and willfully oppose the enactment of legislation | 24:16 | |
that would better assure equal dignity | 24:20 | |
and rights for their neighbor? | 24:24 | |
I do not mean merely | 24:27 | |
the calculated obstructionist of the Senate, | 24:29 | |
but the electorate to which the lawmakers differ. | 24:33 | |
What else, if not a moral disease | 24:38 | |
is this cunning employment of our legal system | 24:41 | |
to perpetuate segregation in the schools | 24:46 | |
and burn them when we fail | 24:50 | |
and to utilize the trespass laws | 24:52 | |
for the continuing abridgment of human rights. | 24:55 | |
I know we have made progress, | 24:59 | |
but inalienable rights are abridged, | 25:03 | |
the right to life, to liberty | 25:06 | |
and the pursuit of happiness. | 25:10 | |
Lord, how long and surely happiness or life fulfillment | 25:13 | |
is incompatible with every form or expression | 25:21 | |
of second class citizenship enforced by law | 25:26 | |
or else not assured by law is enforced by law | 25:32 | |
then law comes to be in contradiction with itself, | 25:39 | |
painfully it manifests a dreadful contradiction | 25:44 | |
within the soul of the in-group, | 25:48 | |
the unenlightened majority. | 25:52 | |
Can we not see | 25:57 | |
that in this employment of particular law | 26:01 | |
to obstruct the purpose and intent | 26:05 | |
of the sovereign law of our land | 26:08 | |
is the sign of spiritual sickness among us. | 26:11 | |
Potentially, it is mortal illness | 26:15 | |
for both church and nation. | 26:19 | |
Our Lord said a house divided against itself cannot stand. | 26:23 | |
The human soul divided against itself is guilt written, | 26:28 | |
demon possessed and verging always upon madness. | 26:33 | |
Churchmen can hardly recover inner unity | 26:39 | |
and the peace which passes all understanding | 26:43 | |
until they and we accept the infamy of the cross | 26:46 | |
as preliminary to the glory of the cross. | 26:51 | |
Christians can neither know | 26:55 | |
nor participate in the victory of the cross | 26:58 | |
until they acknowledge Christ condemned under the law | 27:01 | |
in fidelity to the sovereign purpose of the law. | 27:06 | |
This is the infamy of the cross | 27:10 | |
and on its other side. | 27:13 | |
It is Jesus attack upon both religion and culture. | 27:16 | |
"All ye shall be offended in me", He said, | 27:22 | |
and they were offended. | 27:28 | |
Once again we ask, | 27:32 | |
what difference is there between the society | 27:35 | |
that reckoned Christ among transgressors | 27:38 | |
and ours which also invokes | 27:42 | |
some illegality to frustrate | 27:45 | |
the sovereign purpose of the law. | 27:48 | |
The Pharisees invoke the laws of the Sabbath, | 27:52 | |
cleanliness, diet, national exclusiveness, | 27:56 | |
to avoid the great command. | 28:02 | |
You avoid the word of God by your tradition Jesus charged, | 28:05 | |
what shall we say? | 28:10 | |
What shall we say of churches | 28:12 | |
which invoke laws of trespass and breach of peace | 28:15 | |
to eject from the place of God's worship | 28:20 | |
ministers and bishops of their own denomination, | 28:24 | |
because there are colored brethren among them? | 28:29 | |
Plainly, it is the peace of God which is breached | 28:32 | |
and the trespass is the profanation of the divine saint. | 28:37 | |
How then can we escape the fact | 28:43 | |
that in our society also | 28:47 | |
Christ would be reckoned with transgressors? | 28:50 | |
In a charge to a jury recently, | 28:54 | |
the judge instructed in such words as these, | 28:57 | |
in rendering your verdict, | 29:02 | |
you are to understand that it does not matter | 29:06 | |
how laudable the intention of an act. | 29:09 | |
It is the sole business of the jury to decide | 29:13 | |
whether the law has | 29:18 | |
or has not been breached by the defendant. | 29:20 | |
And I could not but recall that on this same premise, | 29:26 | |
our Lord was convicted of perverting the people | 29:32 | |
and was crucified. | 29:37 | |
This was inevitable because his intention | 29:40 | |
and motive were ignored, | 29:44 | |
or if not ignored unknown, or if not unknown misunderstood | 29:47 | |
and if misunderstood then resenting. | 29:53 | |
The infamy of the cross is this | 29:58 | |
and it is unhappily potential in every legalistic society. | 30:01 | |
Jesus ignored the laws | 30:08 | |
and breached others in absolute devotion | 30:10 | |
to the sovereign principle of the law. | 30:14 | |
The great command, | 30:18 | |
the scandal of the cross is possible | 30:21 | |
in any and every society | 30:23 | |
therefore, that does not maintain | 30:26 | |
a living and organic union | 30:30 | |
between the essential and sovereign law | 30:34 | |
and the plurality of particular law | 30:38 | |
or the cross is potential wherever society | 30:42 | |
declines to enact and to apply particular laws | 30:47 | |
in accordance with the spirit and purpose | 30:53 | |
of the sovereign law. | 30:56 | |
What is the sovereign law? | 30:59 | |
The sovereign law is any society's of our declaration | 31:02 | |
of the common good, | 31:09 | |
in a society where the laws | 31:12 | |
are auto joined with the sovereign law, | 31:15 | |
these consequences will follow. | 31:18 | |
Society will be at odds with itself. | 31:23 | |
It will tolerate injustice and inequality. | 31:28 | |
It will inevitably persecute the morally enlightened | 31:32 | |
and it will be right for revolution | 31:37 | |
and at length it will garnish the tombs of the righteous | 31:41 | |
saying, "If we had been in the days of our fathers, | 31:45 | |
we would not have been partakers with them | 31:49 | |
in the blood of the prophets." | 31:52 | |
For Christians, the sovereign rule of life | 31:56 | |
is the great commandment by fidelity to it | 32:02 | |
Christ was reckoned with transgressors | 32:08 | |
the pitiful weakness and incoherence of the churches | 32:12 | |
is that they will have the crown without the cross, | 32:18 | |
the infamy of the cross terrifies into silence | 32:23 | |
their respectability. | 32:29 | |
For America, the sovereign law | 32:32 | |
is the word of the great declaration | 32:36 | |
that men are endowed by their creator | 32:40 | |
with the inalienable right to life, liberty, | 32:43 | |
and the pursuit of happiness or life fulfillment. | 32:49 | |
To frustrate the realization of these commanding principles | 32:54 | |
by misapplication of laws or willful failure to enact | 32:59 | |
enabling laws is the nation's self stultification. | 33:05 | |
It is the real and most perilous form of civil disobedience. | 33:10 | |
But it was Christ who was reckoned with transgressors | 33:19 | |
in those (indistinct) and ugly days, | 33:25 | |
not the Pharisees and the law givers. | 33:29 | |
He was in fact crucified for theocratic disobedient, | 33:33 | |
theocratic disobedience. | 33:40 | |
For some time now we have regarded this reckoning | 33:44 | |
as a case of mistaken identity. | 33:47 | |
Indeed we have reversed the verdict | 33:53 | |
and long since convicted his jury, | 33:56 | |
but we are blind about ourselves | 34:01 | |
and in our blindness, | 34:04 | |
we do not see that Christ is still in our midst | 34:05 | |
and the (indistinct) with inlay. | 34:09 | |
We still reckon him with transgressors | 34:12 | |
for surely the cross is in our midst my friends. | 34:16 | |
Whenever God's will is perversely ignored | 34:23 | |
and while men are persecuted for righteousness sake | 34:27 | |
in our disobedience and hypocrisy | 34:34 | |
we may yet by God's grace repent | 34:37 | |
and hope that from the infamous cross, | 34:42 | |
our Lord still praise on our behalf, | 34:46 | |
father forgive them for they know not what they do. | 34:51 | |
Let us pray. | 35:01 | |
Most gracious God | 35:10 | |
to know and love whom his righteousness | 35:13 | |
enlighten our minds with the saving knowledge of thy truth | 35:17 | |
that we may both know thy will | 35:21 | |
and be enabled to perform it | 35:23 | |
through the power of Christ Our Lord. | 35:25 | |
Now may the blessing of God almighty | 35:29 | |
the father, son, and holy spirit | 35:31 | |
be and remain with you always, amen. | 35:34 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund