Today is called Palm Sunday, but it is also call Passion Sunday.  The church calendar has some inherent problems because there are only so many days to fit in all the details of the Gospel story.  In our text today we read the passion story as given to us by Luke.  It’s an important story to retell.

We pick up the story where Jesus is brought before Pilate after having been found guilty by the Sanhedrin.  Jesus was arrested in the garden and brought before the Chief Priests and the leaders of the people.  It was a mock trial where many false accusations were made.  It wasn’t until he admitted to being the Son of God that he was finally found guilty of blasphemy.  From there he is dragged before Pilot, because the Sanhedrin could not have him put to death.

Interestingly enough Pilate finds him not guilty.  He sees no reason to condemn Jesus before Roman law.  The charge of blasphemy means nothing to him.  The members of the council press in.  They want Jesus put to death.

Pilate wants out of this situation.  He finds out Jesus is from Galilee so he has him sent to Herod.  Herod sees no reason to condemn Jesus but let’s his soldiers have some fun with him.  They mock him and treat him in contempt.  They have no regard for Jesus whatsoever.  Herod sends Jesus back to Pilate who thought he had gotten off the hook.  Pilate has a dilemma.  He wants nothing to do with Jesus in fact he thinks he is innocent.  Pilate is over the people of Israel and is interested in maintaining order.  The leaders of the Jews want Jesus put to death.  He comes up with a plan.

It was Pilate’s practice to let one prisoner go free during the Passover.  He believes Jesus to be innocent, but he does have a dangerous man who was arrested for starting an insurrection in the city; Barabbas.  Surely he thought they would rather free Jesus than to put Barabbas back on the streets again.  In making the offer Pilate misjudged the crowd. When given the choice the people called for the release of Barabbas and not Jesus.  What should happen to Jesus, Crucify him!

Jesus is forced to carry the cross beam, on which he will be hung, to the place of execution.  He is so beat up by this time he can barely drag it along the ground.  Simon of Cyrene is forced to carry it for him and Jesus is lead to his death.  There are women in the crowd who were mourning over what was to happen to Jesus.  He tells them not to weep for him.  They should be weeping for their own condition.  This whole event is not about Jesus but about the sins of the people of this world.

Jesus is brought to the top of a hill called The Skull and there he is crucified with two other convicted criminals.  From the cross, Jesus prays that God would forgive those who put him to death.  The soldiers gamble for his cloths at the foot of the cross where Jesus hangs.  Over Jesus’ head hangs a sign that says, “This is the king of the Jews.”

One of the criminals next him mocks Jesus while the other asks for forgiveness and receives it. He is promised a place in Paradise.

After a three hour ordeal Jesus cries out to God, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” and dies.  The centurion watching over the execution remarks, “Certainly this man was innocent!”

Jesus body is taken from the cross and placed in the grave of Joseph from Arimathea; a member of the Sanhedrin.  The Sabbath begins and all seems to be over for the disciples and the followers of Jesus.

The question I pose to you this morning is who is guilty in all of this?  What has taken place in this pivotal event of history?

Certainly the Chief Priests and the Scribes, the members of the Sanhedrin are guilty.  They falsely arrested Jesus had him condemned at a mock trial and pursued his conviction by the Roman governor.  They are guilty.  The church throughout it history has sought to blame the Jews for killing Jesus.  During the reformation period they were know as the Christ killers.  Quilt doesn’t stop there.  Others are not off the hook because the rulers of the Jews at the time wanted to get rid of this pesky rabbi.

The crowd who called out for Jesus execution when he was brought before Pilate is certainly guilt of the death of Jesus.  These were the same people who hailed Jesus as the one who came in the name of the Lord on that first Palm Sunday.

Pilate and Herod are both found guilt.  They believed Jesus to be innocent and falsely accused but feared the crowd and worried about their own futures more than truth and sent Jesus to his death.

The Roman soldiers who mocked and beat Jesus are guilty of his death.  The one’s who nailed him to the cross are responsible for his death for sure.  The thief on the cross who mocked Jesus had no idea what he was saying and the crowd that followed along in mourning did nothing to stop this atrocity.  If you know something is wrong and you do nothing to stop it you become part of the problem and are found guilty.

Barabbas the criminal set free is involved in this mess as well.  He was willing to walk and let an innocent man die the death that he deserved.  And Joseph was part of the Sanhedrin.  He was a secret follower of Jesus who never took a stand for what he believed until Jesus was dead and now it seemed too late.

Ultimately you and I are responsible for Jesus death.  He came for this purpose to give his life a ransom for our sins.  My sins and yours nailed Jesus to the cross.  This week of remembrance is set aside to call attention to that fact.  Who is guilty of the death of Jesus?  We all are.

The Apostle Paul gives us insight to what really took place that dark day on the hill called The Skull.  The whole event is a mockery.  The people who pass by the scene were ignorant of what was taking place.  This was just another deluded man with a messiah complex who ticked off the Romans and was paying the price.  The Chief Priests and the Scribes were deep into a power grab.  Jesus was a threat that needed to be done away with.

If Jesus is innocent the mocking he receives becomes somewhat tolerable because Jesus can take comfort in the fact that his goodness was being misunderstood.  Jesus becomes the better man because of his selfless demonstration of love.  If on the other hand the mockery is correct and Jesus is guilty its wounds become an intolerable anguish.

To the question, Is Jesus guilty, our gut response is no.  The whole idea is unthinkable.  But think again. He is worse than the Chief Priests and the false prophets and the criminals he was hung amongst.  He is worse than the soldiers who nailed him to the cross and worse than you our eye.  In fact he is so bad that at one point the Father turns his head and can not look at his Son on the cross.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he (God) made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Think about this with me this morning.  Paul doesn’t say Jesus bore our guilt.  He was not a good man who became better by submitting to the punishment that we deserved.  “God made him to be sin.”  Jesus on the cross became the sinner, the bad person, the criminal, the arrogant religious leader, the complacent church member, the drug addict, the liar, all of us together.  He doesn’t bear our sins as if Jesus and sin are separate things.  Jesus is made to be sin, the very thing itself.  Jesus becomes the rebellion of humankind against God.  He is rightly crucified, the wages of sin is death, and he deserves what he gets.

Here in lies the joy of this story.  Jesus becomes sin so that you and I can become the righteousness of God.  We don’t wear the righteousness we become it; our very nature changes.  Our relationship with the Father changes and our sin is forgiven and cast of as far as the east is from the west and remembered no more.  The events of the cross establish us as children of the most high God.  The reason why works righteousness is wrong, why we cannot earn favor with God is because ours sins have been paid for in full.  There is no longer a debt to be paid because the righteous one, Jesus, became sin for us.  He withstood the penalty of Hell, separation from God, and cleared the debt.  You can’t pay off a debt that is already paid.

The horror of the cross is that an innocent man took our place.  The joy of the cross is that God made his innocent Son to be sin so that we can be the righteousness of God.  “By grace you have been saved, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).