The Messiah Had to Suffer and Rise from the Dead

Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 18, 2014

Acts 17:3

The Messiah Had to Suffer and Rise from the Dead

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Hours before Judas betrayed Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prepared His disciples for what was about to happen. They were confused, so Jesus comforted them with the truth of what would happen to them in the future (heaven), with Whom they had already seen (the Father and the Son of God), and with the evidence of what they were about to see (His suffering and resurrection).

John 14:2, 7, 10b, 11

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? . . .

If you really know Me, you will know My Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him. . . .

The words I say to you I do not speak on My own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in Me, who is doing His work. Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

And so wherever he went, the practice of St. Paul was to point his hearers to the facts of Jesus' suffering and resurrection.

Acts 17:2-3

As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.

Paul went to the synagogue, the Jewish church, there in Thessalonica. And Paul went back to the beginning of the Old Testament and proved that the Messiah, the Anointed Savior from God, had to suffer and die and rise from the dead. And this happened with only one Man: Jesus Christ.

II.

Jesus had to suffer. Paul would have quoted to his fellow Jews the clear first promise of Jesus made to Adam and Eve.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.

Jesus had to be a man. The Lord promised to Moses:

Deuteronomy 18:18

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.

Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem. The prophet Micah correctly predicted:

Micah 5:2

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for Me One who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.

Paul would have reminded the Jews of all these things that they had learned by heart from birth. But above Paul stressed that this suffering and rising was the ultimate fulfillment of all these prophecies.

Paul would have quoted the Psalms, and his hearers would have heard the striking words:

Psalm 22:1, 7-8

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from My deliverance and from My words of groaning? . . . Everyone who sees Me mocks Me; they sneer and shake their heads: “He relies on the Lord; let Him rescue Him; let the Lord deliver Him, since He takes pleasure in Him.”

And also from the prophet Isaiah:

Isaiah 53:3, 7

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. . . . He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.

And then Paul would have concluded his words from Isaiah:

Isaiah 53:10-12

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer . . . After He has suffered, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge My righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

III.

This was the Lord's will: that He had to be crushed and suffer. And then after His suffering, He will live, “He will see the light of life.” This is the way God wanted to save us—through the suffering and resurrection of His Son. This is the exact point that Jesus made to His disciples on their way to Emmaus.

Luke 24:25-27

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter His glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.

Jesus' suffering and rising is the only way. There seems to be many better ways to be saved. Trying to be a good person is a popular way to live. Being humble is popular, too. Others seek a good life through fame and celebrity. All these well-traveled ways to truth and life may indeed involve suffering, but they hold no promise from Jesus to bring true peace and forgiveness.

Instead He gives us Himself. Through His Word in water, bread, and wine, He joins us to His suffering, death, and resurrection.

Like His first apostles, we are easily confused and scared. So Jesus comforts you with the truth that because He has suffered and risen from the dead, you too have a future that is sure and certain.

John 14:1-3

Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.