3rd Sunday in Lent “His Battered Back” Series: Our Saviors Wounded Body
March 23, 2025 John 19:1 (cpr2010)
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Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,
During these Sundays in Lent, we’re considering ‘Our Savior’s Wounded Body’ as a theme. The goal is that our faith will be strengthened when we hear again that the Son of God did not sit far-off in heaven & just lament the lost condition of mankind; he couldn’t ignore his Law & holy justice; and he didn’t just destroy everything & start over, because his nature is life – not death. So, He laid aside his glory & honor to share our dishonor; and he took up real flesh & blood in order to redeem our real flesh & blood.
Last Sunday we thought about his holy hands. The hands he used to serve, to heal, & to bless he allowed to be pierced with spikes to hold him to the cross to pay for the divine penalty of our sin. With those hands, Jesus has brought to us the saving mercy of God. This morning we consider our Savior’s ‘battered back.’ Let me read a passage from John’s gospel: (Jn.18 & 19)
Pilate (said to Jesus), “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me.
What is it you have done?”
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.
19 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.
4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there , “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe , Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”
6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”
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About 400 yrs ago, an author used a certain phrase in his writing; he was describing that moment when a small event finally tips the scales & results in a big change. He said it was ‘the last feather that breaks the horses back.’ That phrase went thru some changes over the years. In our day, we tend to say it’s ‘the straw the breaks the camel’s back.’ Or more simply, it’s ‘the last straw.’
The 2002 movie ‘John Q,’ was about a man whose dire circumstances left him with nothing to lose. John Quincy Archibald was watching his son, Michael, play baseball. As Michael rounded first base and headed for second base, he grabbed his chest and collapsed. Michael was raced to the hospital and, after tests, John and his wife, Denise, found out their son needed a heart transplant. John’s company provided insurance, but, to save money, they downgraded the coverage to a cheaper option.
This cheaper option didn’t cover the $250,000 surgery Michael needed to save his life. They tried yard sales & worked overtime, and tried everything else they could think of, yet they did not have the money to save their son’s life. The hospital was going to send Michael home with his bad heart, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. John Q walked into the emergency room, and took the medical staff and the patients hostage until they agreed to find a donor & do the surgery.
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We’ve probably all been frustrated to the point of ‘blowing a gasket,’ but have not taken hostages. But we’ve felt that last straw that broke the camel’s back. The bad news just kept coming in, doors kept closing, options went away, & people stopped listening. It left us with nowhere to turn. Burdens just kept climbing into our lives & up onto our backs. Everyone has burdens; but when there’s one after another, what are we to do?
We know that some burdens are put upon us without our choice or fault. Then there are some burdens we wouldn’t have to carry, but we choose to for various reasons. One common burden is to be constantly looking for approval from others. Compliments make us feel good about ourselves, so we burden our life to gain praise. Negative comments & criticisms upset us, so we burden ourselves by fretting over them. It can be a heavy load on our back trying to make all people like us.
There is the burden of trying to make a whole group of people happy == like a group of friends, or the group at work, or the group at home called ‘the family.’ It’s a burden to provide our family with everything they want; our conscience is burdened when we go against our faith in order to fit in with friends; it is a burden trying to make peace with a person who doesn’t want peace; it’s a heavy weight on our back to deal with our health issues; it’s also a burden to carry the weight of our sin.
We feel pressure from areas in our life. And we lay in bed worried that we’re reaching our limit; which one will be the ‘feather that breaks the horses back.’ But what choice do we have? We have to carry them all, right?
That’s life; we have responsibilities. Responsibilities are good = they help discipline & strengthen us; but, they can be heavy. This life has good responsibilities that are great blessings, & make our work satisfying, & make our life purposeful. But this is also a fallen life; it’s sin-affected & death-threatened. So, it seems that there is a couple of guarantees we all have: #1, we each have burdens to carry on our backs, some are assigned & others we choose. And #2, no matter how strong of a camel you are, there is such a thing as the last straw.
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As The Son of Man, Jesus lived our kind of life in this same world = the life that has burdens. As the Son of God, since the fall of Adam & Eve, he has watched this world full of people with burdens. When he came among us, everywhere he went, burdened people flocked to see him, looking for some relief. Some hearts were lifted as they listened to his Spirit-filled sermons. Some only wanted him to fix their physical disease or trouble, even tho he came to give them so much more.
In Matt.11, Jesus said, ‘come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (28-30)
Jesus came to bear burdens. He had the burden of always being on call to help whoever ran up to him. He had the burden of being absolutely despised & opposed for the work he was doing. He also had the burden of knowing the prophesies about the agonizing death he would have to suffer.
We can’t fathom the size of the burden that is the punishment for our sin, & for the sin of the whole world all added together. The Father in heaven took the burdens of the whole world, and placed them on his Son’s back. And to show what was happening spiritually & in heavenly realms, God made it visible in a physical way by what Jesus suffered: the humiliation, rejection, abandonment, injustice, & beatings; which finally ended in the most a most vile death of the cross. He carried your burden of sin & condemnation on his back so that you wouldn’t have to.
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In the last hours of his life, before they put nails thru Jesus’ hands & feet, they whipped his back with a scourge. Also referred to as ‘flogging,’ a scourge is a whip of many straps; attached to the straps are sharp bits of broken bone or metal that rip & tear the skin. For the most reviled criminals, the flogging was 39 lashes. Pilate ordered Jesus to be flogged. Since Pilate thought Jesus was innocent, maybe -he thought- the bloody scourging would satisfy the crowd. But, no.
After the whipping, on his torn, bleeding back, they gave him a cross to carry thru the streets of Jerusalem. Nailed to the cross, with his battered back against that wood, Jesus was feeling the weight of every sin since Adam & Eve; along with every burden we drag around. He was suffering for every sinful burden that we should drop; he was suffering for the responsibilities we have dropped that we should’ve carried.
That’s why the cross is such a precious symbol for the believer; & why the crucifix is such a valuable reminder of our just & holy God; who =over his own Law= has chosen to show the world mercy. No matter how strong a camel we think we are, the final straw is our sin & the wages it pays = death. That’s what threatens; & it will break us. But now, there is the One who was ‘lifted up’ from the earth, and is drawing all people to himself. That is our good news: he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed.
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Abandoned by the world, forsaken by the Father, Jesus suffered our hell on the cross. After he breathed his last breath, the soldiers did not break his legs. Instead, they pierced his side with a spear, and let the little remaining life-blood & water flow out. Joseph & Nicodemus took his body, and quickly wrapping it, they laid him in a tomb for the day of rest.
In Matt.16, when the pharisees & Sadducees demanded from him a sign from heaven, Jesus said, ‘no sign will be given… except the sign of Jonah.’ And as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days, so it would be for the Son of Man, who proves himself as Lord over death. On the third day, with the ground shaking and with the Roman soldiers so scared that they played dead, Jesus reclaimed his life, rolled back that rock from the tomb, and walked out. He cannot die again.
As he told Pontius Pilate, he IS king; not with a worldly kingdom, but the king of heaven, and over all. He came to bear witness to the truth. The truth of the condemnation of the Law over all mankind for sin; and the truth of the gracious gospel: the full atonement of all mankind before God by the holy blood of the Lamb of God.
Our life can have many burdens, but the final straw that breaks all camel-backs is the death of sin. Jesus has fulfilled the promise to free us from that burden, and his battered back is proof. And now, according to Revelation 1, his back is now covered with a white robe of divine glory & true righteousness. He once humbled himself unto death, even death upon a cross. For that work, God has exalted him with the name that is above every name.
In his name you are baptized; you are cleansed in his righteousness, & you are justified before God. And bearing his name, you are given a new life to live. In this fallen world, your new life will still be faced with certain burdens to bear. But Jesus has removed the one that can break you. The other burdens you can now carry with his help & strength.
Amen