“Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted”
Isaiah 52:14

Click for Audio

Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Good Friday—April 3, 2015

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Perhaps the greatest treasure owned by our Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is a large, three-volume German Bible from the 1700’s, now in the rare book collection at the library of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.  Bibles from that era are not unusual, and normally not very valuable.  But, this is not just any Bible.  It is a priceless treasure, because it was the personal Bible of the great Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach.  Page after page is filled with Bach’s own handwritten, detailed notations and comments on the Biblical text, giving extraordinary insight into his deep Lutheran faith, and how he used certain Bible texts as the basis for some of his most famous musical works.

Somehow this unique, historical Bible made it to Michigan, where in 1934 a Missouri Synod pastor stumbled upon it while visiting the farm of some relatives.  I stay stumbled upon it, because that’s literally what happened.  The family didn’t realize what it was, so this priceless treasure was being used as a doorstop in their barn.

There is a similar story about the icon on the cover of this evening’s bulletin, the face of Christ, by the great 15th century Russian painter Andrei Rublev, now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.  Like the Bach Bible, this icon’s preservation is a kind of miracle. 

Savior of Zvenigorod, Andrei Rublev, 1410

Painted in about 1410, it is now called the Savior of Zvenigorod, after the village near Moscow where it was rediscovered in 1918.  Similar to the Bach Bible, somehow this priceless treasure, painted on a wooden board, had become part of a doorstep leading into a barn. 

When discovered it was badly damaged, and much of what was painted is lost.  In its present state it reminds us of Isaiah’s prophesy about Jesus: “His appearance was disfigured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness.”

Though the face of Christ in this icon is marred and disfigured, yet still it looks out hauntingly upon us, with an attitude of gentleness, serenity, and deep understanding.  That disfigured face has an expression of mercy that shines out all the more through, even somehow because of, the damage it has sustained.

So it is with Christ himself, slapped and beaten by the guards, his head struck with a staff, wounded, and crowned with thorns.  He knows fully the capacity of sinful humankind to defy God’s will, to attack, and even to try to destroy it.  Yet still he looks towards us, with the same understanding and gracious love, the same attitude of forgiveness, assuring us that however great our sins are, there is no harm we can possibly do which is as powerful as his mercy.