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“Pilate knew that it was out of envy that they handed Him over.”

᛭ INI ᛭

(5. Oops!: Envy is the coldest vice.)

Tonight we get the coldest vice. Envy. Envy is the other side of the coin to coveting. You envy a person for what they have. You covet the thing they have. Envy breaks the 9th and 10th Commandments. Now, other vices twist something good into something evil and selfish. Love for a spouse is perverted into lust for those not your God-given spouse. The Lord giving daily bread gets perverted into gluttony. The Lord giving you the fair wage for your work gets turned into greed. The Lord uses you as His instrument to help your neighbor, and we often take credit—pride! With the other vices something good’s twisted to the bad. Not so with envy.

(4. Ugh!: Envy seeks the curse of our neighbor and especially for God Himself.)

Envy is different because envy seeks the curse of our neighbor and especially for God Himself. Here’s an example. With greed, enough is never enough. A greedy person says, “I just need more.” “How much more?” “Well, I don’t know…” If you ask an envious person, “How much more do you need?” They’ve got a definite answer, “Well I need to make more money than my cousin Jimmy,” or “I need a better yield or truck or more influence than, well, maybe you know…” Envy’s even darker than that. It doesn’t just want your neighbor’s phone or friends or spouse. Envy wants you to have the phone or friends or spouse or whatever it is that that person has, they don’t deserve it anyway, but also for them to not have it at all!

So it was with the religious leaders with Christ. They envied His power and influence. “See, you’re not gaining anything,” they say in John 12, “Look, the whole world’s gone after Him!” They wanted what Christ had, and they didn’t want Christ to have any influence at all. The only way to do that, to make sure no one was following Christ, was to take Christ out of the picture completely. So, they plotted to kill Him, and so, they handed Him over to Pilate. Thus, their envy reached it’s full course when their promised Christ, their Lord and God, IHS of Nazareth, was condemned to death and hanging on the cross.

How does God play into this you might wonder. Well, you see, when we envy that certain someone or covet what they have, we’re often angry and frustrated, especially if the person in question keeps getting all sorts of good things. “Why them?” And really we often avoid the true person on the receiving end of our envious anger and frustration. We try to file it under dumb luck maybe. But really it’s God, “God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” and “IHS Christ His only Son, our Lord.” Everything anyone has is from Him. All you have is from Him. The person you envy—God gave him or her everything they have, too! You’re really envious that God didn’t give it to you. The human heart and mind twisted by the vice of envy often thinks or imagines things like this: “If I managed everything, I’d have done it differently. I’d have ended up with this thing or that person rather than them.”

(3. Aha!: IN HIS KINDNESS THE LORD BEARS OUR ENVY IN HIS OWN BODY ON THE TREE.)

”But when the kindness and philanthropy of God our Savior appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” (Tit 3) Nothing you do can make up for your envy. Even if you happen to make yourself somewhat content. That’s just what you’re supposed to do. Thus, God our Savior saves us according to His mercy, His mercy in Christ IHS your Lord.

Christ bears the brunt and brutality of the religious leader’s envy. He bears our envy, too! On His right cheek and His left. He’s not envious of purple robes. He doesn’t even covet His own cloak. “Let’s cast lots for it” the soldier’s say. Christ would say, “Why? It’s yours for the taking.”

IN HIS KINDNESS THE LORD BEARS OUR ENVY IN HIS OWN BODY ON THE TREE.

Not just your envy and mine, but He takes on all our sins and all “seductive sinful vices.” (LSB 421) “‘He committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth.’ He, when reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to him who judges righteously; He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the three, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by His stripes you were healed,” (1-Pet 2) forgiven.

The sentence of condemnation that stood against you, was set aside—nailed to the cross. (Col 2) As St. Paul was also inspired to say this evening: ”But when the kindness and philanthropy of God our Savior appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” (Tit 3) There is an eternal depth and an everlasting wonder in God’s kindness as He reveals it in His Son’s death for sin and sinners.

IN HIS KINDNESS THE LORD BEARS OUR ENVY IN HIS OWN BODY ON THE TREE.

(2. Whee!: He drowns our envy—once and daily!)

But the Lord isn’t done. Surely, His saving works was finished at Calvary, but it wasn’t done. Like smoking a pork shoulder: it’s done at 145° (safe to eat), but it’s not finished until it’s around 210° (pulled porked). So it is with the Lord’s salvation. Finished at Calvary, but not yet done—not yet done with our envy. Let’s listen to St. Paul’s inspired words again:

“But when the kindness and the philanthropy of God our Savior appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” (NKJV) “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying.” (NIV)

So, the Lord saved us from our envy and all sins at Calvary, but we were also saved from these things through Holy Baptism, which works “forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this.” You were brought into the steadfast love of the Lord, brought into His everlasting kindness, given the forgiveness of sins, in Holy Baptism. He poured out the Holy Spirit into your heart, through that washing of rebirth and renewal. You indeed are justified by grace, but you are also an heir in God’s Kingdom of Grace and coheir with Christ through Holy Baptism. Faith created by this kindness of God receives the benefits and blessings of Holy Baptism.

Indeed, IN HIS KINDNESS THE LORD BEARS OUR ENVY IN HIS OWN BODY ON THE TREE, and this you know because you have been united with Christ’s death and resurrection in and through Holy Baptism. At Calvary the envy of our sinful flesh was put to death in Christ, at Holy Baptism your personal envy that dwells within your sinful flesh was drowned and put to death. But the Lord wasn’t done, remember. You see that envious flesh is also drowned and put to death through repentance. This is the daily use and blessing of Holy Baptism, a benefit also received by faith.

(1. Yeah!: He brings us into kindness.)

That is the powerful symbol of Holy Baptism. It is a powerful and effective act of God in and through the Word attached to the water, but it also symbolizes something. It symbolizes or “indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires,” including envy, “and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. As St. Paul writes in Romans chapter 6: ‘We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father we too may live a new life.’”

This new life is the work of the Spirit in you, where He uses God’s Word to put death envy and at the same time bear the fruit of kindness and philanthropy in your life. IN HIS KINDNESS THE LORD BEARS OUR ENVY IN HIS OWN BODY ON THE TREE. In His Kindness He drowns envy through Baptism and daily baptismal repentance. In His kindness He brings us into His Kindness, that He would use you as His instrument of kindness. This is what St. Paul says in Galatians 5: “The fruit of the Spirit is…kindness.” “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on…kindness.” (Col 3) Remember: “The Father gives the Spirit to whomever asks Him.” (Lk 11) And He is given in Baptism, through the Word of God read and preached, He is active in the flesh and promises of Christ, and Christ says in John 6.

IN HIS KINDNESS THE LORD BEARS OUR ENVY IN HIS OWN BODY ON THE TREE. More kindness than you have envy. In His Kindness He baptizes you. Daily and much kindness and repentance! In His Kindness His Spirit bears kindness through you. As Second Peter says, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2-Pet 1)

᛭ INI ᛭