The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Mark 7:31-37
In Christ Jesus, who came to bring healing not just for bodies but also for souls, not just for this life but for the life to come, dear fellow redeemed:
If you could change one thing about your body, one thing that would make you happier and more content, what would it be? For some of us (maybe many of us), it would be our weight—“I wish I could trim off a few pounds.” Others of us might say, “I wish I were a little bit taller.” “I wish I were stronger.” “I wish I were prettier.” Most of these wishes have to do with how other people see us. We want them to think we look good, because that helps us feel better about ourselves.
Or maybe what you would like to change is not so much your appearance, but your health. “I wish this pain in my joints or my back would go away.” “I wish I could get back the energy and mobility I used to have.” “I wish my heart were more reliable.” “I wish this cancer were gone.” And there is no question that being healed of these things would be a great relief. But how far would it take you? Would you actually be happier and more content if you received exactly what you wanted?
Today we hear about a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Those two things often go together. If you grow up being unable to hear, or unable to hear correctly, you won’t know how to control the sounds that you make with your mouth. Communication for this man was certainly difficult, but he had gotten along so far. He did not have a life-threatening illness or demon-possession like other people Jesus had healed. But the people figured that if Jesus could help with those things, He could “lay His hand on” this man and heal him too.
While the people had confidence in Jesus, it isn’t exactly the case that they believed in Him. They believed that He had special powers, and they were really hoping to see Him use them. But they did not believe He was the promised Savior of the world. What they were hoping for was a miracle of physical healing and not much more.
Jesus of course knew this about them. We see how He took the deaf man away from the crowd, because He wasn’t interested in making a spectacle of it. He sighed deeply—even groaned—as He looked toward heaven, saddened by the whole situation. And then after the miracle had been performed, He charged the people not to tell anyone what He had done—an order which they totally ignored.
But why would Jesus order them not to tell? Well what kind of message do you think they shared? Would you guess that they talked more about who He was, or about what He was able to do? “He has done all things well!” they cried. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!” The message was that Jesus mattered because of the physical healing He could perform.
This message could have led some to wonder, “Who is Jesus anyway? How is He able to do the things He does?” Those are the questions all the people should have been asking. But many just looked at Him as a means to get what they wanted. “If Jesus could take away this problem, or this problem, I would be so free. Then I could do whatever I wanted again.”
You can see how getting healed by Jesus did not guarantee that people would follow Him. We see the same thing today. Our merciful Lord regularly blesses the medical treatment people receive, so that their life is extended. Or He preserves people from greater harm when they could have easily died. Many who have been through these things will even express that they have “a new lease on life.” But their attitude toward God doesn’t change. They don’t give thanks to the One who gives them their daily bread, who gives them everything they have and everything they need for this life.
And the same often goes for us. We might fervently pray for one thing, one physical gift, whether it be healing from an infection or disease, or for improved health. We say that we will dedicate our whole life to God if only He will fix this one thing. But how much changes for us if that healing comes? It usually doesn’t take long before we forget what God has done for us. And then we take up a new petition, a new concern, that would make our lives so much better if only God would help.
There is always another problem. This makes me think of the animated movie Aladdin by Disney. When dirt-poor Aladdin learned he had three wishes to ask for whatever he wanted, he figured he really only needed one and said he would happily use one of the wishes to free the genie. But that first wish didn’t accomplish everything Aladdin wanted. More issues and needs kept coming up. That’s how life is in this sinful world. We cannot have a perfect existence here.
Instead of looking for happiness and contentment through the relief of our physical problems, Jesus wants us to look to Him. That was the message for Paul, who pleaded for the Lord to remove his “thorn in the flesh.” Surely God would grant this request to His loyal servant, who endured tremendous affliction for preaching the Gospel! Paul prayed specifically for this three times, and this was the Lord’s answer, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2Co. 12:9).
The question is not whether God has the power to heal us. Of course He does. The question is whether that healing is the best thing for us. God’s response to Paul was that his thorn in the flesh would be a reminder to Paul of His grace toward him. Paul would have to rely on the Lord’s strength instead of his own, which is what he realized and confessed. Paul said, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me…. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (vv. 9, 10).
What Jesus does for us—that is what matters. Today’s Epistle lesson is about the change brought by our Savior’s coming. It contrasts the ministry of condemnation and death with the ministry of righteousness and life (2Co. 3:4-11). The ministry of condemnation is the work of God’s Law on our hearts which convicts us of our sin, sins like worry and impatience in our suffering, and sins like forgetting the mercy of God toward us. The ministry of righteousness is the Holy Spirit applying the gracious work of Jesus to us sinners.
God sent His Son to infuse life into this world of death. We see this so vividly in Jesus’ healing touch. The man’s ears and tongue which were “broken” because of sin in this world, Jesus touched with His holy hands. Then He spoke His powerful Word. The man didn’t have the physical ability to hear this Word, but Jesus’ Word made its way through the damaged parts of his outer ear, middle ear, or inner ear and into his brain and set all those mechanisms right again.
That’s what Jesus’ Word does, it sets everything right. His Word sets our hearts right and our minds right. His Word sets our homes right and the teaching of our churches right. His Word sets our priorities and our plans and our hopes right. When the man’s tongue was released, we are told that he was now able to speak rightly (Greek: orthos).
The people said, “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak,” as though that were the most he could do or the height of what He could do. But He came to do something much bigger and much better than physical healing. Putting His fingers into the man’s ears was just a small sign of who He is and what He came to do. The Son of God put His whole divine self into our human flesh. “For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9).
He came to be the Minister of Righteousness, to serve us in His righteousness and to distribute His righteous acts to us. All the good He accomplished according to the holy Law, fulfilling its demands in full, He gives to us. He credits us with His perfect listening which covers over all the times we used our hearing to listen to what is false and wrong. He credits us with His perfect speaking which covers over all the times we used our mouths to speak what is untrue and unkind. The life we have lived in our sin has been wrong in so many ways, and Jesus set us right again with the Father by His perfect life. And the debt we owed to God for breaking all His commands, Jesus paid it by shedding His holy blood on the cross.
So whether or not everything is all right for you or for me in our bodies and in the world, we are right with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our confidence and this is our comfort when we suffer. Our suffering might not quickly go away, and it may be God’s will that it does not go away as long as we live here. But He promises to keep touching us with His mercy and grace in both the good days and the bad ones.
He does not tire of coming to minister to us and serve us with His healing presence in the means of grace. He does not tire of encouraging us in our weakness. He does not tire of speaking His promises to us again and again, opening our ears and filling us with His righteousness and with His enduring peace. The people were right that Jesus “has done all things well,” but they didn’t fully appreciate what “all things” meant.
Jesus “has done all things well,” all things right, because He is Righteousness. He is the Righteousness of God sent down from heaven to free us from our bondage to sin and death, and free us to hear His Word rightly and confess His truth clearly. In Him, we can be happy and content, even if not everything is right with our bodies on the outside or the inside. Jesus, the Minister of Righteousness is the one blessing we truly need.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from the morning of the annual outdoor service)
Midweek Lent – Pr. Faugstad homily
Text: St. Matthew 27:38-44
In Christ Jesus, the sinless One, who for our sake was made to be sin by His Father, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2Co. 5:21), dear fellow redeemed:
“If You are the Son of God.” Jesus had heard those words before. The devil said them when Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. Jesus had just begun His public work which would lead Him to His death outside Jerusalem. “If You are the Son of God,” the devil said, “why do You feel so hungry right now? Why not throw Yourself off the temple and let the angels catch You? Or maybe You aren’t the Son of God after all!” (Mat. 4:1-11).
Now as He hung on the cross, the same abusive words came at Jesus from all sides. “If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” “Save Yourself!” “Let God deliver You from this suffering, if He really thinks You are worth saving.” They mocked Him, speaking blasphemous words about Him. They jeered at Him, made fun of Him, laughed at Him.
Is that how you would treat someone who was fighting for your life? Would you verbally abuse the person trying to save you from a burning building, or the person who jumped in to defend you from an attacker? Would you laugh at him? Mock him? That’s what was happening at the cross. Jesus was hanging there out of love for the very people who spouted these hateful words at Him. He was there to save their souls, and they despised Him.
This didn’t surprise Jesus. The surprising thing is that the Jewish chief priests, scribes, and elders were so ignorant of the Scriptures they claimed to know. The very words they hurled at Jesus had been prophesied more than a thousand years before then. Listen for yourself to these words recorded by King David in Psalm 22 which clearly describe Jesus’ suffering on the cross: “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; ‘He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!’” (vv. 6-8).
What the religious leaders said about Jesus at the cross is word-for-word what God said they would say. But they did not recognize it. They thought they were with God by being against Jesus. But they were with the devil. They were parroting the words of the “father of lies.” Through their mouths, the devil was tempting Jesus to give up His suffering, to abandon His mission.
“[L]et Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him,” they said. And why shouldn’t Jesus do this? Think of the powerful impact it would have. If all of a sudden the nails popped out, and Jesus floated down to the earth, how could the crowds deny who He was? But not even this would have convinced them. How many miracles had these people seen Him perform? Just a few weeks before this, they witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. In their mocking words, they even admitted He had done these things: “He saved others,” they said, but “He cannot save Himself.”
They thought His suffering on the cross was proof that He was not the Son of God. But in fact the opposite was true. Jesus stayed on the cross not because He had no power to save Himself. He stayed on the cross because it was the only way to save sinners. Jesus could agree with what they said, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself.” If He was going to save others, He could not save Himself. In order to save others, He had to die in their place.
Jesus’ cross is planted right in the middle of human history. On one side of Him stand all the people of Old Testament times, from Adam to John the Baptizer. On the other side of Him stand all the people of the New Testament, from the apostles to you and me and everyone who will come after us. We all look upon Jesus—one Man before billions, one Man against the world, the Holy One surrounded by sinners.
We should come to His defense. We should own our sins. We should admit our wrongs. But instead we join the chief priests, scribes, and elders. We spit insults at Jesus. We mock Him. We laugh at Him. That is what we have done by our life of sin. We put Jesus on the cross. We caused His suffering.
And He willingly accepted it. He obeyed His Father’s will to become the scapegoat for all us straying sheep, to become the “fall guy” for us fallen sinners. God the Father knew what He was sending His Son to do. He knew how terrible the anguish and affliction would be, how ruthlessly He would be treated by those He came to save. But He would not let the people of the world go to hell without contending for their souls. He would send His Son on a rescue mission to redeem them.
This was the Father’s will, and His Son submitted Himself to it. Isaiah writes that “it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (53:10). God the Father forsook His Son instead of forsaking you. Jesus suffered the torments of hell, crying out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” so you never would. He endured taunting, mockery, and laughter at the cross, so your ears would be spared these demonic words which echo constantly and eternally through hell. You deserved this suffering, but Jesus endured it for you.
Jesus is the true focus of our Lenten series—not His enemies. They were ignorant tools, manipulated by the devil, who was in turn manipulated by God to carry out His holy plan. It does us no good to vent our anger toward the Jews or the Romans for their treatment of Jesus. Jesus had to suffer and He had to die if you were going to be saved. He could not come down from that cross. He could not save Himself. He stayed there and suffered for your forgiveness, to win eternal life for you.
As the hymnwriter says:
What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
Was all for sinners’ gain:
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain:
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor,
Vouchsafe to me Thy grace.
What language shall I borrow
To thank Thee, dearest Friend,
For this, Thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever!
And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never,
Outlive my love for Thee. Amen.
(Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #335, vv. 4, 6)
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(picture from “Cristo Crucificado” by Diego Velázquez, 1632)
Midweek Lent – Vicar Anderson homily
Text: St. John 19:4-6
In Christ Jesus, who was scourged, beaten, and crucified for you and by those wounds you are healed, dear fellow redeemed:
When a verdict is reached in a court case that gathers national attention, the media is waiting for the press conference to hear about the outcome. Sometimes at those press conferences, more people than just the media will look to gather there. If the verdict was that the person was innocent, the press conference will go into detail about how they were able to prove that their client was innocent. Now how would the world react if that innocent client was brought out of the courtroom beaten and unrecognizable? They were pronounced not guilty! How could this happen?! The Jews could not provide any evidence against Jesus to have him executed. Pilate tells them this. He’s looked at the charges and there is nothing. The Jews tell him that Jesus is a threat to not only the Jews but the Romans. Pilate takes that into consideration in his ruling. Pilate knows his verdict is right, and he wants the Jews to know it as well.
Jesus body is a shadow of the teacher that He looked like only 24 hours ago. He was teaching His disciples. He had instituted the Lord’s Supper. He was arrested in the garden. It only got worse from there. Pilate now brings Him out to reveal to the Jews what has happened to Him. Jesus was taken from the public’s view and was subject to Roman torture. He had endured a scourging and a mockery so harsh that He must have been unrecognizable. Many people die from this torture. Jesus walks out, very badly beaten and abused, wearing a purple robe and a crown of thorns wedged onto His head.
It was known how cruel Pilate could be with the Jews, they see again his cruelty as Pilate brought Jesus out after His beating. Did he do this to rouse pity from the Jews, to show them that Jesus was not a threat to the Jews or to Rome? We don’t know Pilate’s thoughts, but we do know this, he knew that Jesus was innocent. This was unjust.
“Behold the man!” said Pilate. If Jesus was a king, Pilate wanted to show the Jews how weak their king was. If the Jews felt threatened by Jesus, Pilate hoped they would be satisfied by the beating He had already taken. “Behold the man!”—the weak, pitiful man. No one who looked at Him would have known this was God in the flesh. He had humbled Himself so completely. He was despised and rejected by men.
And this is how we are tempted to think about Him too, as nothing more than a man, a weak man. That is how we act when we put our trust in the powers of the world more than in Jesus. That is how we act when we are confronted by our friends and the world about our beliefs. It is so easy to join in with what they say and think instead of defending Christ. If we defend Christ, what will our friends and the world think of us? They might even leave us. So, it is easy to look at Jesus as just a man and what can that man do for us? Like what some of our friends and the world might think, it sure looks like He doesn’t do much at all.
Just like the chief priests and officers, the people of the world act like they are in control over Jesus. The religious leaders call out for His crucifixion. What can He do about it? They feel very powerful. The unbelieving world also has no time for a dying Savior. The world responds to power, fame, and influence. Like many followers then, they thought Jesus would lead a rebellion against Rome. Many want a worldly, reigning on earth Savior if they even want one at all. When the world denies Christ and ridicules His followers, we can forget who it is we trust in. We can forget who Jesus really is—the Son of God in the flesh, who is not suffering against His will, but according to His will.
Pilate did not know this plan and was very conflicted about what was happening. Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent. What is he to do? Does he do his duty to preserve law and order? Pilate is already on thin ice with Rome regarding the Jews. He cannot risk open rebellion, especially when he is vastly outnumbered. He also despises the Jews; they need to know that he is in charge. Pilate shows them that death is up to him. He points out that Jesus is just a man in his eyes. Jesus is not a threat to Rome. And as Pilate washes his hands, he hands Jesus over showing the Jews that this is only happening on his command. When we continue in our sins and put our trust in the things of this world, we also wash our hands of Him. We join the world and Pilate pointing at Jesus saying, “Behold the man!”
As all human beings are responsible for the inhumane torture of Christ, we do “Behold the man!” Unlike Pilate’s “sermon theme” of Jesus being only a man, we behold a man who is the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world. As He was shown hate and loathing, Jesus teaches mercy and sacrifice. He didn’t say a word to them. He didn’t defend His innocence. This is why it was necessary for our Savior to be true man. He was true man in order to be obligated to obey the law and to perfectly fulfill the law for us, and to have a body and soul, which could suffer and die in our place.
He went with the soldiers to be flogged. As He was mocked, ridiculed, and almost unrecognizable, Jesus recognizes us, lost souls that need to be saved. Our sins covered us, but Christ shed His blood on the cross to wash away our sins. The ultimate suffering that we deserved. That is what it took for us to be saved. The sacrifice was needed. Christ was never conflicted about the plan of Salvation; He didn’t debate whether or not save us. Jesus pitied us. He wasn’t thinking about Himself like Pilate, like we think about ourselves. Jesus gave up His life, suffering the pain and punishment for the sins of the whole world.
It is sometimes hard to see what Christ has done when you have given in to sin and have been ashamed of Him. You see how much He has done for you, flogged, beaten, humiliated. How do you defend your Savior? You won’t do it perfectly. You will sometimes give in and be ashamed that you know Him. Your Savior witnessed this, He felt this, and He forgives you. You were responsible for His suffering, but that is what He came to do. He took on your suffering so that you would be saved.
No one wants to be found guilty and serve time for something that they didn’t do. We have been found guilty of our crimes against God. There should be no way out of this verdict. However, when the gavel comes down and we hear the words “Not guilty”, we look over and there stands our suffering Savior. That should be us. Jesus was an innocent man. He wasn’t only an innocent man, but He was, He is the Holy Son of God. As Pilate says, “Behold the man”, we do behold Him. He is not only a man. We behold our beautiful Savior, who was scourged in our place. As “Behold the man” was said in jest, it sounds like another statement recorded by the same gospel writer. The apostle John writes, “Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The lamb of God in whom we find hope. Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Ecce Homo” by Antonio Ciseri, 1871)
Midweek Lent – Pr. Faugstad homily
Text: St. Mark 15:16-20
In Christ Jesus, who in great humility hid His power and glory, so that He might suffer and die in our place, dear fellow redeemed:
What the soldiers said was perfectly correct: “Hail, King of the Jews!” “Hail” was a positive and proper greeting. And Jesus was “King of the Jews,” at least in a certain respect. He was a descendant from the line of the great King David, and His reign had been prophesied all through the Old Testament. Earlier that Holy Week, Jesus had told the religious leaders that He was both David’s Son and David’s Lord (Mat. 22:41-45). He was David’s Son according to His human nature, and He was David’s Lord according to His divine nature.
But Jesus was more than the King of the Jews. The book of Revelation refers to Him as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (19:16; 17:14). He is King over all. He spoke everything into existence in the beginning, and “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). In Psalm 2, God the Father Almighty declares, “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (v. 6). Then He says to this King, His eternal Son, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (vv. 7-8). In Psalm 110, the Father says to Him, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (v. 1).
That is powerful language about a powerful king. But Jesus hardly looked the part on this day, the day of His arrest and His trial before Pontius Pilate. Pilate was showing his own weakness as he presided over a trial he wanted nothing to do with. He had no special compassion toward Jesus. Jesus was a Jew, and the Romans disliked the Jews. This Roman governor and the battalion of Roman soldiers would have much rather been about anywhere else, not watching over this annoying, unruly people. Now things were even worse, since the city of Jerusalem had filled with Jews who had traveled from all directions to celebrate the Passover.
In Jesus, the Roman soldiers found an outlet for their disgust of this people. Supposedly He was an important Jew from what they were hearing, perhaps some sort of a king. Some of the soldiers had already scourged Him leaving deep cuts all over His back and sides. But neither these wounds nor the bruising and swelling on His face would keep them from inflicting more pain on Him. He had just been sentenced to die, so why shouldn’t the soldiers have some fun at His expense?
The soldiers who had charge of Him called together the whole battalion. A battalion was about 600 soldiers. This church could hardly fit a group of people that large. These men acted without restraint. It was mob rule, where anything goes. They dressed Jesus in a purple cloak. They made a crown out of thorns and pressed it into His skull. Then the soldiers took turns saluting Him, striking Him on the head, spitting on Him, and kneeling before Him in mock worship.
I can imagine six against one. I can’t imagine six hundred against one, each taking his turn. But in a certain sense, the number was actually higher, much, much higher—thousands against one, millions against one, billions against one. We must remember why Jesus was in this horrible situation. It was because of sin—not just the sins of the Jewish leaders who turned Him over to Pilate, not just the sins of the godless Romans, but because of your sins, my sins.
When we see the terrible actions of these Roman soldiers, it should not make us feel self-righteous. “Oh, I would never do something like that! I would not treat someone like that!” Instead we should picture ourselves among those violent soldiers, striking Jesus, spitting on Him, mocking Him. Our sin put Jesus in this situation. Our sin caused His suffering. Our sin sent Him to the cross.
The sins we have committed against God are every bit as serious and just as bad as what those soldiers did. We cannot wash our hands of Jesus’ suffering. We cannot say, “the Jews did that,” or “the Romans did that,” without also realizing, “I did that.” If you and I don’t understand our part in it, then we will not see Jesus for who He is or understand what He did for us. He was not simply a tragic figure who was dealt a bad hand. He was not a victim of unfortunate circumstances, caught in the middle of a race war against His will.
He was a Lamb that “goes uncomplaining forth, / The guilt of all men bearing; / And laden with the sins of earth, / None else the burden sharing! / Goes patient on, grows weak and faint, / To slaughter led without complaint, / That spotless life to offer; / Bears shame and stripes, and wounds and death, / Anguish and mockery, and saith, / ‘Willing all this I suffer’” (ELH #331, v. 1).
He, this totally innocent Man, this descendant of David’s royal line, this mighty King of kings—He suffered willingly. For the salvation of sinners—for your salvation—He let the thorns be driven into His head. He let the punches land. He let the spit run down His face. He let the mocking words enter His ears and sting His soul. He did all of it in perfect obedience to His Father’s will.
The prophet Isaiah recorded these words of the Son’s humble submission to His Father: “The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near” (Isa. 50:5-8).
Jesus did not fight back. He did not say a word. The apostle Peter wrote, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1Pe. 2:23). Perhaps this is why the soldiers grew tired of their game. Maybe they were beginning to feel guilt for their terrible actions. For all the abuse they had carried out on Jesus, He hadn’t spoken one word in anger or hurled one curse their way. He just took it.
He took it for their sake and for yours. He took it in order to spare you from the eternal suffering of hell, a suffering we all deserve. He received this punishment, so you would receive God’s grace and forgiveness.
We know that Jesus’ humble suffering made an impression on some of the soldiers. They saw how intensely He suffered, and how He bore it patiently. Then when nails were driven mercilessly into His hands and feet, they heard Him say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luk. 23:34). So when the ground shook immediately after His death, a centurion and those who were with him cried out, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Mat. 27:54)—“Certainly this man was innocent!” (Luk. 23:47).
Perhaps they also added the same words as before, but now with a holy awe: “Hail, King of the Jews!” We join them in praising this suffering Servant, this righteous King, the Savior of our souls.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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(picture from “Ecce Homo” by Mateo Cerezo, 1650)