For You — An Easter Meditation

Dr. Gene Veith has posted a sermon that his pastor, Rev. James Douthwaite, preached last weekend marking Palm Sunday. The sermon, entitled, For You, is a wonderful example of Christ-centered preaching.

Here is an excerpt:

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth (LSB #438). Why? For you.

For you, Jesus is anointed for His burial.
For you, Jesus is sold into betrayal, and allows Himself to be betrayed.
For you, Jesus celebrates the Passover with His disciples, and gives His body to eat and His blood to drink. For you.

For you, Jesus suffers and prays.
For you, Jesus drinks the awful cup of God’s wrath and condemnation against sin.
For you, Jesus does His Father’s will. For you.

For you, Jesus is arrested, and will not fight back.
For you, Jesus endures a mock trial, standing before those who have already decided His fate, but are just trying to make it look plausible.
For you, Jesus does not defend Himself, but takes the slurs of men against Him. For you.

For you, Jesus is spit on, punched, and mocked.
For you, Jesus is bound and led to the Roman governor.
For you, Jesus is traded for a murderer.
For you, Jesus is a pawn in a game for power. For you.

For you, Jesus is scourged - whipped until His flesh is open and raw.
For you, Jesus is clothed is purple and wears a crown of thorns.
For you, Jesus carries the cross on which He will die. For you.

For you, Jesus takes nothing to deaden the pain.
For you, the nails are punched through His hands and feet, crushing bone and sending waves of pain through tortured limbs.
For you, Jesus is humiliated and reviled. For you.

For you, Jesus is forsaken - by men who mock Him, but disciples who fear for their own lives, by His Father because He bears the sin of the world.
For you, Jesus will not save Himself.
For you, Jesus endures the darkness of sin. For you, Jesus bows His head and dies.
For you, Jesus’ body is laid in a tomb. For you.

For you, because you are a sinner.
For you, because you have made God’s beautiful world a sewer of sin.
For you, because you have used your hands to hurt instead of help.
For you, because you love your things more than your God.
For you, because your mouths tear down instead of build up.
For you, because your minds devise and scheme evil instead of good. For you.

Read the rest here: For You — Cranach: The Blog of Veith