Concordia Lutheran Church – Cerritos, Ca , at dawn on Easter Sunday

By My Hands, For My Sake
The Centurion
Matthew 27:54

† Iesou, Huios, Soter †

May the grace of God our Father, who sent Jesus to die for you, overwhelm you so that you have to confess with the centurion that Jesus “truly is the Son of God!”

• The Confession

It wasn’t part of the traditional reading tonight for the passion of Christ. But it is still part of the story. So here it is…

⁵⁴  The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!” Matthew 27:54 (NLT2)

As we’ve looked at the hands involved in the crucifixion, these hands, and those he was commanded, were as guilty of Christ’s murder as any. Adam was the first to sin, causing a sacrifice to be needed. The Centurion was as silent as Nicodemus, to scared to raise his hands to ask a question, so he waited till midnight to show up and ask. That silence was not unlike Judas’s kiss, which betrayed Jesus, or Peter’s denial. His actions, like Mary Magdelene’s, the Thief on the cross or Barabbas, were as guilty as this centurion’s, which held the order to be crucified.

And though he wasn’t a Jew, those hands complicit in the death of Christ, would be among those Jesus died for, on that Friday which we celebrate today!

• The Irony

There is not much known about this centurion, except for that which we know, because of his title.

He may not have guarded Jesus, but his men did.

The men he commanded would have been the soldier’s that whipped and mocked Jesus.

Again, he supervised those who hung the sing on the cross which testified to Jesus being the King of the Jews, and the hands which handled the spikes driven through Jesus’s wrists, and his ankles. Those hands held the order to crucify three men that day, one of which everyone knew was innocent.

And he was either the man who plunged the spear into the side of Jesus, or he issued the command.

This is the man who was responsible for the torture and murder of Jesus. And yet…

So are we.

For he would be nailed to the cross because of our sins, as well as the centurions. We would be the enemies for which Jesus would die. We would be strangers and aliens trying to find a home in a place where we did not belong. We sinned in thought and inaction as he did, we sinned by breaking His law.

And as Jesus died for this centurion, he would die… for us.

As Jesus was revealed to be truly the Son of God to this commander, so we have had Jesus revealed this way to us.

• The Revelation and the Hope.

The entire life of Jesus, the incarnation, the missing years, the ministry and teaching all of history boils down to this time, as Jesus hangs on the cross, grasping for every breath,

However it happens, Jesus is revealed to this man, in his death, as the Son of God. Heck he may not even know what that title means yet. But for him it is a change of allegiance as well, for that was a title Caesar, his commander-in-chief claimed. You don’t take your C-in-C’s title and give it to someone else. Especially a title that presupposed divinity. That would be blasphemy–unless the One you are talking of is truly God.

In doing so, the Centurion fulfilled the commandment to have no other gods, by declaring Jesus to be truly God.

And that would give him hope?

Even as Christ died.

Something was revealed to him through Jesus’ temperament, through it all–through the words on the cross, including the words that forgave the centurion and all of us.

“Father forgive them – they don’t know what they are doing!”

What kind of peace this would bring—to her from Jesus himself, while He hung on the cross…

As the Holy Spirit revealed Jesus to be God so to full have the authority to say them…

Including the man whose hands handled Jesus death…

Who hands were among those by which Jesus would die..for who sake He did die…

Even as we are part of the cause—and the ones who benefit.

Look at the cross, know the love.

AMEN!