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Your message for the moment with Dr. Bruce W. Theowan. The Lamb Faces the Fox, number four in the Via Dolorosa series. Give reverent attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the Gospel of Luke, the 23rd chapter, beginning at the verse which is numbered six. When Pilate heard of Galilee, he

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asked whether the man were a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself was also at Jerusalem at that time. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad, for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him. And he

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hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. Then he questioned with him in many words, but Jesus answered him nothing. And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him. And Herod, with his men of war, set him at knot and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. And

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the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together, for before they were at enmity between themselves. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his holy word. This morning we pause in our journey on the Via Dolorosa, the way of sorrows, in order to look behind that we might better

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understand what is before. You will recall that last week we considered those dramatic moments when Christ confronted Pontius Pilate. And you will remember the pitiful spectacle of Pontius Pilate attempting to escape an altogether inescapable Jesus. One of the methods of evasion utilized by Pilate

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was to attempt to palm the problem of Jesus off on Herod, the puppet king of Israel. And it is that act of evasion, that meeting of Christ and Herod, that we want to ponder today. It is, as it were, a detour on the Via Dolorosa, a dark, very dark detour, which sees the Lamb facing the Fox. But first let us pray.

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Our Father, may our speaking and our hearing be in thy name, and in the name of thy Spirit, and in the name of thy Son. Amen. I call Herod the Fox because Jesus so designated him. In the 13th chapter of Luke it is recorded that certain Pharisees came to Jesus and warned him

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that Herod was trying to capture him, and Jesus replies, "Go ye and tell that Fox, behold I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I will finish my course." The whole sentence is interesting, but particularly this word "fox." "Go ye and tell that Fox." Today, when you apply the

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word "fox" to a man, you are usually giving grudging, but nonetheless real, recognition to his cunning and his cleverness. We say he's a "foxy" personality. But in the day of Jesus' incarnate life, the word "fox" had an altogether different connotation. The fox was considered to be a worthless and an

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insignificant animal. When you call the person a "fox," therefore, you were demonstrating contempt toward that individual. You were saying they were unimportant. Jesus was saying of Herod that he was a "tin-pot monarch," a "pipsqueak king." Herod the Fox. And I call Jesus the "lamb," of course, because this

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is a title often used in reference to Jesus in the pages of both the Old and the New Testaments. Now there are many implications to this word "lamb," many more than we could consider this morning, but two are particularly relevant. In the Old Testament, the lamb was, of course, the animal of sacrifice. The sins of the

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people were put onto the head of the lamb, and then the lamb was killed, the suggestion being that in the offering of the life of the people, the forgiveness of God would be gained. Jesus, then, is the lamb of God, for his life is offered for the sins of the whole world. And it's particularly appropriate that we think

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of Jesus as the lamb while he walks the Via Dolorosa, for the Via Dolorosa is, of course, the very act of offering, the very act of sacrifice in our Savior's life. But the other dimension of lambship which the New Testament makes very clear, is most perfectly recorded in the book of Revelation. There, at 39 different

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points, Jesus is called the lamb, and the reference is to his strength and to his courage. The phrase is used, "the horned lamb." Now a horned lamb is obviously a ram. So Jesus is referred to as the ram of God, and the word "ram" carries with it the implications of strength. It's interesting to notice the different

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dimensions of authority and courage that are referred to in Revelation with regard to Jesus as the lamb. He is called the leader because he provides food and water for the people of God. He is described as being powerful. Revelation says he has seven horns, and seven is the number of perfection. He is then

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perfectly strong. He is described as being all-knowing. Revelation says that he has seven eyes, perfect in his seeing of all things that are true. He is the one with authority, the only one who can open the register of the loyal in the kingdom of heaven. His wrath is described as terrifying. His victory is described

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as sure, and it says that he makes sport of his enemies. He controls all of human destiny in history. The greatest doxologies in the Bible are sung to the lamb, "worthy is the lamb that was slain," and he is described as being nonetheless than God himself. The lamb sits in the midst of the throne of God. So when we

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speak of Jesus as lamb, we not only have reference to his act of offering himself, sacrificially, but also to his awesome courage, strength, power, and glory. So the lamb faces the fox. The powerful faces the pusillanimous. There was only one king in the judgment hall of Herod that morning. And although Herod was

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wearing the royal robe and the crown, and holding the scepter of authority, he was not that king. The reference begins in Luke's gospel by pointing out that Herod was very glad to see Jesus. And of course it's not difficult for us to understand why people are glad to see Jesus. A few months ago I came to know a

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very fine young man. A young man who impressed me immediately. A young man from whom I expect very great and significant things. But at the time when I first met him he was not a Christian. Recently at our youth conference he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord. And when I saw him the first time after that

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experience, I took his hand and was in the process of telling him how delighted I was to see him now that he had offered his life to Christ. And he looked at me with a splendid smile on his face and said, "This is the first time you've seen me when I was alive." Now that's an expression of joy and gladness. There is

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a dimension of gladness already evident in the life of this young man which I've never seen before, and which I know will grow, and it's a beautiful thing to see. Glad in the presence of Jesus. This last Thursday morning I joined with about 25 others in breakfast and discussion with Miss Katherine Kuhlman. Now there are

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many very interesting dimensions to her personality. For one thing I'd like very much to know how old she is. I have a book that says she's 84 years old. Now I don't believe that, but it's got there in print. And she came bouncing into the room, wearing a very maud and frilly dress and these high boots that the

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chic young ladies wear, her red hair flying in the breeze behind her, radiating enthusiasm and joy and spirit. 7.30 in the morning she said, "I'm up so early I think I'm at Mass." She just absolutely was a joyous, gladsome personality. It was a delight to be with her. She must be in her late 60s or her

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early 70s, but there is about her this tremendous zeal, and it's because she walks with Christ and she's glad because of it. That gladness that comes to a person who meets Jesus. Sat on the platform once with a doctor. He'd accumulated a great number of years. I turned to him and I said, "How old are you?"

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He said, "One." I said, "One sixty-one? Seventy-one? Eighty-one?" "No," he said, "One. I met Jesus Christ one year ago. I was born again. I'm one year old." And his whole personality radiated the joy of that experience. It's not hard to understand, is it, how people are glad when they meet Jesus. But there is, of course, a sense in which this

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gladness can be wrong, and tragically that was the circumstance with Herod. But this is what Luke says, "When Herod saw Jesus he was very glad." All right, we understand that. "For he had long desired to see him." We understand that. "Because he'd heard a great deal about him." That's not difficult to understand either. But

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the sentence closes with this thought. "Herod was hoping to see some sign done by him." In other words, Herod was looking for a floor show. Herod wanted not a Savior, but a sleight-of-hand expert. He wasn't seeking a master, he was seeking a magician. Now that may sound shocking to you, but if you know anything at all

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about the life of Herod, you'll immediately understand it. Herod was one of the three sons of Herod the Great. Herod the Great was the king who dealt with the wise men, and later murdered the innocents in Bethlehem, in a brutal attempt to attempt to snuff out the life of Jesus. He had three sons, and one of them

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was Herod Antipas. Soon after he ascended the throne, Herod Antipas fell in love with his brother Philip's wife, which was of course an incestuous act. And this woman, Herodias, divorced Philip and proceeded to marry Herod. This marriage was roundly condemned by John the Baptist, and Herod threw John the Baptist

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into prison for it. But he often heard John preach, would call him forth to share the Word of God, and would listen. Then of course came that experience when Salome danced, and Herod offered her whatever she wished, and she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter, and Herod delivered it to her.

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Now from that moment, and to the end of his life, the course of his deterioration was more and more rapid. He fell into feelings of deep remorse and anguish. He actually suggested at one time that he thought Jesus was the reincarnation of John the Baptist. The father of the woman whom he divorced attacked Israel and

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defeated Herod in the very ignominious battle. He was in short a man ashamed, a man being captured by his own fouled conscience. And in the pathetic effort to ease the agony of his days, he turned his court from the austerity of a Jewish court to the constant round of frivolity and novelty of a Roman court. He brought

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in entertainers, dancers, singers, jugglers, anyone who could help him keep his mind off the sorry state of his own experience. He gave himself over into an orgy of entertainment. And so he was glad when Jesus came to him, for he'd heard a lot about the miracles this man could work, and it would be a good show for the

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evening's entertainment. He and Pilate had been at odds, and so Pilate sending Jesus to Herod was an act of compliment, and that tickled Herod's fancy. But even more than that, here was the opportunity, here was the perfect opportunity for a new novelty to ease his inner pain. Luke says that Herod questioned Jesus. He made

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a pretense at being interested. He talked about the legal dimensions of the circumstance. He asked Jesus about his ministry and things of that kind, but really all Herod wanted was a show. Herod is a king. He is the king of hypocrites. I've not been in the ministry very long. Many men in the ministry far longer than

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myself have already forgotten more than I've ever learned. But one thing I know for sure, conversation about Christ is not the same thing as commitment to Him. And the words that cross an individual's lips do not necessarily testify with truth to the state of the soul. Hypocrisy, deadly to the person who practices it, and

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deadly too to the Church. As I thought about examples of hypocrisy, I recalled a painting which hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Many of you, I'm sure, have seen it or reproductions of it. It's by Salvatore Dali, and it's called "The Last Supper." And in this picture there is a table, and

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the twelve are gathered about the table, and there is a cuff and a loaf on the table, and in the background there is an eight-sided window through which you can see the sea. And standing in the background is a large figure with his arms extended. The figure stops right here at the chin. You can see nothing

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above the chin of the figure. And people, Christian people, have used that picture to assist them in their acts of devotion, and I suppose that's all right. But when I look at that picture, it is to me an example of blatant hypocrisy. Salvatore Dali is not a Christian. He is a non-rational mystic. This picture is using

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Christian symbols to suggest non-Christian thoughts. The Jesus represented is very ghost-like, denying the historicity of his life. The eight-sided figure in the background is a traditional symbol of pantheism, far from our Christian faith. Even the figure in the back with arms extended, whom most

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people interpret to be Jesus, is actually the Hindu yaksa figure, and that figure represents all of the world's good people. There is here, you see, a conscious and deliberate intent on the part of Salvatore Dali to impart his message by using hallowed, sacred symbols that have meanings other than what Dali is trying

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to say. I submit to you that that's hypocrisy in art. And yet it takes people in. Just so hypocrisy in life, oft times, parades in the garments of godliness, and takes people in. On the sheep farms in Pennsylvania, dogs are used to control the sheep, and sometimes a dog will become a sheep killer. Now if a dog

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becomes a sheep killer, he does his killing only at night. He always tries to get other dogs to go with him. They even leave the evidences of their guilt in front of other dogs' criminals to try to throw men off the trail. And around the farm during the day, they're very friendly and particularly enthusiastic

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animals, but at night they're killers. That's what a hypocrite is like, parading in the garments of friendliness, godliness, sanctity, but all the time a beast of prey, a fox. So Jesus looks at Herod and answers him, "Not one word." Now it must have been

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tempting to Jesus to answer. He might have driven a wedge between Herod and Pilate, got them fighting with each other, and so gained his freedom. He might have yielded to the request and put on some demonstration of his splendid power, and with this demonstration of power so entertained Herod that he would gain his

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freedom. It might have been tempting to Jesus to do this, but he didn't. He uttered not a single word. That night in the garden when he had been arrested, he spoke to those who came for him. When he stood before Caiaphas, he talked about his coming again on the clouds in power and glory. When he stood before Pontius

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Pilate, he discussed the nature of his kingdom and of truth. Even that night before when he confronted Judas, he had expressed to Judas all the love that that great heart of his could hold. One wonders how in the face of that love Judas could persist in his act of treachery.

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Please turn your cassette to the other side. To this moment Jesus has spoken, born witness, but here before Pilate, absolute silence, not one word. I must press this home. Are you still hearing Jesus? There was a time in your life when the words of his book brought special warmth to

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your heart. You were raised perhaps with the dues of holiness surrounding you in your home. There are experiences in your yesterdays when you can remember the power of Christ being mediated in your life, savingly, wonderfully, strengtheningly. But are you still hearing Jesus? If you're not, beware of the silence of the

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Savior. If a man is ill and he suddenly notices that all those about him are being very quiet, the people speak and whisper, that doors close noiselessly, that footballs are hardly heard upon the floor. When the circumstances which surround him are like that, he knows his situation is critical. Just so, if you're

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not hearing Christ, beware of your spiritual state. Now think of all that Christ could have shared with Herod in that circumstance. Here was Christ sure and strong, and Herod was a man who was weak, altogether unsure, not strong. Here is Christ with magnificent will, and Herod is one of these individuals who's

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pushed about by every zephyr of disagreement. Here's Christ young, but at peace with life and death. And here's Herod, a little bit older, but no peace in his life at all. Here's Christ, a veritable volcano of spiritual power, and Herod is altogether unignited and dead and cold. Here is Christ, the sovereign

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of what he surveys. Here's Herod, unable even to rule his own life. Here is Christ, ruling the course of history, but patient enough to play with little children. Herod, so caught up in the swirl of events that life is going out from under him. Here is Christ, too big to be contained by the past. He erupts out of it, and

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Herod, with some nobility in his past, can only look back upon it now with shame. Christ stands before him. Christ has all of this that he can offer to Herod. And he says not one word. Why? Because Herod toyed with him. Because Herod refused to take God and the Son of God seriously. My friend, if you are no longer hearing the

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voice of God in your life, think man, think woman, think young person, think about the seriousness with which you are confronting the Savior. Don't toy with the Almighty. Remember that cartoon in the New Yorker, in which a man sees a poster which says "prepare to meet thy God," and in the next picture you see him

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combing his hair. That's how he was preparing, combing his hair. Don't have that kind of casual reference to the things that are divine. Understand that God's silence is an act of judgment. God does not reach out against those who defame him, who ridicule him, who don't take him seriously. He does not blast

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them with some catastrophe ex machina, not at all. He just turns away. And in his turning away, their fate is sealed. Remember that awful prophecy in the words of Amos, in the eighth chapter when Amos says "and in those days there shall be a famine, not a famine of bread or a famine of water, but a famine of the Word

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of God. And they shall go from north to south and from sea to sea and they shall seek the Word of God and they shall not find it." There are pulpits today where the Word of God is not being heard because of men who occupy those pulpits, who have toyed with God, and because of congregations that have become frivolous

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in their faith. A terrible famine. A deadly famine. And there are individual lives that no longer hear the whisper of the Spirit. And if this is you my friend, then return and hear again. Well confronted with the silence, Herod strikes out. "Fake, charlatan, fraud." And of course everyone applauds. There's always applaud and

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echoing and parody and parroting in a petty court. And they must have thought it was magnificent wit when Herod put a magnificent robe on Jesus back and bowed down before him and praised him. Funny. Herod had begun by questioning Jesus and ends by answering his own questions. Herod had begun by seeking out Jesus and

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ends up lost with himself. I think of him in terms of the lines which the great historian Green wrote in his "History of the English People." He describes Cardinal Rolsey, who was a man like Herod, and this is what he says of him, "The hand of judgment crawled across the sundial. The event was put off in order that all the

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man's wrongs could be done. Though justice pried out for truth, there was no truth and no justice. And God acted as if he did not hear until the cup of sin was filled. Then the finger of God was extended and the strokes of judgment were heard and the unrighteousness of that life, the fabric of that

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faithlessness, was shivered into ruins. Jesus turned from Herod and in that moment Herod died." Now the scene fades from our view. Luke closes it by referring to the fact that from that time on Pilate and Herod were good friends. Well, that's fine. We

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wouldn't want Jesus to come between friends. We wouldn't want Jesus to interrupt the process of birds of a feather flocking together. He doesn't stand tall and straight anymore, this young ram of God. The brutality of the arrest, the rigor of the forced marches, the beating in the palace of Caiaphas,

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the interrogation before Pilate, the derision and ridicule given him by Herod, they've begun to take their toll. And the horned ram begins to bow his head. But I ask you, who won? The lamb or the fox? Who always wins when the Son of God confronts those who won't take even

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their only hope seriously? Let us pray. And the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of His

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confidence upon you and give you His peace.