The Denier, the Betrayer, and the King

Passage Reading

English Standard Version Chapter 26

Peter Denies Jesus

69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” 70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” 71 And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 72 And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” 73 After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” 74 Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. 75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

Jesus Delivered to Pilate

27 When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. 2 And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.

Judas Hangs Himself

3 Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” 5 And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. 6 But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. 8 Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, 10 and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”

Prayer

Gracious God, we thank you for your Word, which cuts us to the heart like a double-edged sword. We thank you that you have given your revelation to us, that we can examine it and study it to see your person and your character revealed to us. We pray this morning as we walk through this passage that your Spirit will speak with us, that He will lead us and guide us to learn what we ought to learn and that all of it will result in a deeper understanding and appreciation of what you have done for us through Christ and our love and affection for You will grow. Move our hearts and call us to yourself, we pray. Amen.

Introduction

Robert Robinson, the author of the hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” drifted from the happy communion with the Savior that he had once enjoyed, and in his declining years he wandered into the by-ways of sin. As a result, he became deeply troubled in spirit. Hoping to relieve his mind, he decided to travel. In the course of his journeys, he became acquainted with a young woman on spiritual matters, and she asked him what he thought about a hymn that she had just been reading. To his astonishment, he found it to be none other than his own composition. He tried to evade the question, but she continue to press him for a response. Suddenly, he began to weep. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he said, “I am the man who wrote that hymn many years ago. I’d give anything to experience again the joy I knew then.”

Like Robert Robinson, our passage this morning finds us with two men who have also drifted away from communion with Christ - Peter and Judas. Both have known the presence of the Lord, and both have, in the darkest hour, turned away from him - one with malicious intent, and one because his courage failed.

Today’s passage is a study in contrasts. The very structure of the text keys us in to this idea. Our text this morning takes the form of a chiasm. The word “chiasm” finds its root in the Greek letter chi, which looks somewhat like an “X” in the English alphabet. It refers to a grammatical structure where concepts are paralleled and inverted around a central pivot point. We see this structure quite often in the Psalms, but it can also be found in the narrative books and the Gospels. In our passage this morning, we see the two parallel and inverted passages take place in the brief narratives about Peter and Judas, and they center around the pivot point of the chief priests and elders determining that they are going to put Jesus to death. The structure of the passage itself shows us that we need to consider the narratives of Peter and Judas in light of the condemnation of our Lord. But how do these concepts fit together? How are we to understand these narratives?

To answer that question we are going to examine three contrasts that we see in this passage. The first is between Peter and Judas. Both men have betrayed their Lord, both men find themselves under deep condemnation as a result of their actions, but they have two remarkably different responses. The second is between Jesus and Judas - we will examine the nature of their deaths and the implications of each of them. The final contrast is between Jesus and the religious leaders, where we see the possibility of redemption with Jesus contrasted with the condemnation that comes under the chief priests and elders.

And with that, let’s jump in.

Peter and Judas

Last week we looked at the “trial” of Jesus before the chief priest and the religious elders. Despite running away in the garden, we see in verse 58 that Peter has followed the mob back to Jerusalem and as far as the courtyard of the high priest’s house. Despite his fear, he still wants to see what is going to happen to Jesus. While he is with the crowd in the courtyard, he is approached by about the least threatening person possible - a slave girl. If you consider the social hierarchy of 1st century Judea, you’d have a number of different layers. At the top (much to the chagrin of the chief priests and elders!) would have been the Roman governmental authorities and other Roman citizens. Beneath them would have been the leaders of the Jewish establishment, the Pharisees and the Sadduccees. Beneath them would have been the free-men and commoners (like Peter, although he would have been at the bottom of his social group as he was both a Galilean and a fisherman), and finally at the very bottom it would have been the slaves. But even beyond the social hierarchy, this slave girl would have been utterly nonthreatening. The testimony of a woman in both Jewish and Roman law was generally not admissible, so even if she had accused Peter of a crime, she likely wouldn’t have been able to testify against him! The point that I want us all to see here is that this is an incredibly low risk situation for Peter! Having been identified by this slave girl, he could have owned up to his allegiance to Jesus. But he was afraid, and he did not. He says that he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and he moves further away from the house, back towards the gate. I love Matthew’s use of positional language here in the narrative - Peter’s denials are moving him progressively further and further from Jesus! He could have been in the very room had he been faithful in the garden. He could have remained in the courtyard had he answered the slave girl truthfully! But his faithlessness and fear is moving him further and further away from the Lord.

At this point another slave girl identifies him, but this time the stakes are raised. She speaks not only to him, but this time to the entire crowd that has gathered in the courtyard. Perhaps sensing the higher stakes, Peter responds with a more emphatic denial and an oath - “I don’t know the man”. The fact that he swore an oath here is important, especially in light of that fact that way back in Matthew 5.33-37 Jesus admonished his followers not to swear oaths, but to simply let their “yes” be “yes” and their “no” be “no”. What we see here instead is Peter showing that he fears the men more than he fears his Savior - he is answering the question on their terms with the answer that he believes they want to hear!

Still the pressure ramps up - now there is a group in the crowd that approaches Peter and calls him out as a follower of Jesus. His denial goes even further this time, he not only swears again that he doesn’t know Jesus, but he even calls down a curse on himself if he is lying. There is something tragically poetic about this, as Peter is indeed under a curse because of his denials! He is condemning himself in his attempt to save himself. And the moment he does, the rooster crows, and Peter remembers what Jesus had said. He is immediately seized with deep shame - he recognizes what he has done, and weeps bitter tears as he flees from the courtyard.

Now, I think that since we know the end of the story, it’s easy for us to excuse what Peter has done here and rationalize it away as a foregone conclusion in light of Jesus’ prediction that the denial will happen. But the bitterness of Peter’s tears here show that he understands it to be something deeper and more serious. Perhaps he is calling to mind the words of Jesus in Matthew 10.32-33:

English Standard Version Chapter 10

32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

I want us to stop for a moment here and think about how precarious a position Peter finds himself in after these denials. He is, to be blunt, no better off than Judas is! They have both betrayed their Lord! They have both denied him! They have shown themselves to be unfaithful and untrustworthy. No wonder Peter cries those bitter tears! He fully grasps the magnitude of what he has done!

As a brief aside here - do we fully grasp the magnitude of what has happened? Do we understand the seriousness of denying Christ before men? Have we ever done anything like this? I’m ashamed to say that I have. I’ve said less than I should have at times before when I’ve been questioned about what I believe and who my allegiance belongs to. When I read about Peter’s response, it brings me to shame that I feared man more than I feared God. I’ll bet that we have all had these moments, and that is why this story is so important - it shows us both the seriousness of that denial, as small as it may seem in the moment, and the proper response that we ought to have toward it. It ought to grieve our souls. It ought to cause us to weep bitter tears as we see the actual state of our hearts.

We will leave Peter here for the moment, because it’s important for us to consider the parallel story in our passage today about Judas.

Matthew says that Judas “changed his mind” when he saw that the chief priests and elders intended to kill Jesus. In past sermons we’ve heard about some of his potential motivations for handing Jesus over - perhaps he thought that being handed over to the leaders would force Jesus to reveal his nature as the kind of Messiah that Judas expected and hoped for, though that obviously did not happen. Perhaps his conscience had finally gotten the better of him, and he realized that he had delivered an innocent man over to death. Regardless, he “changed his mind”. The word used here is different from the word typically used for “repentance” in the original Greek, and Matthew’s choice of that word gives us some insight into the heart of Judas. He has recognized that what he has done is wrong. He is wracked with guilt. But he has not repented. Instead of returning to the Savior to seek forgiveness, he returns instead to the very men who desired to deliver Jesus over to be killed. He goes back to the chief priests and the elders and tells them that he has sinned and has betrayed innocent blood. But the chief priests and elders have no interest in rectifying this wrong - on the contrary, they still believe that killing Jesus is to their benefit! They respond with some of the coldest words in the Scriptures: “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” Judas sees that there is no chance of rectifying this wrong, but instead of weeping the bitter tears of repentance that Peter does, he simply despairs. He flings the money into the temple, goes away, and hangs himself in his despair.

Early in my career I was working on a project in Papua New Guinea, and I struck up a friendship with one of the Operations Reps on the project. He’d “been around the block” a few times to say the least. He was a colorful man, with a checkered past. One Friday night we went out for dinner and drinks after work, and the conversation turned to religion. Unprompted, he turned to me and said “Jon, I’ve heard a lot about grace. But I can’t believe that God would ever have grace toward me. Not with what I’ve done. I’m beyond redemption.” That, friends, is despair unto death. It might not take the same desperate form as Judas’ despair did, but it is just as deadly. It drives us away from the only one who can forgive our sins and draw us close to God.

So we find ourselves with a startling contrast between the two men - bitter tears of repentance for Peter, and despair unto death for Judas. Peter’s godly grief ultimately drives him back towards Jesus. As the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 7.10:

English Standard Version Chapter 7

10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

We read in John 21.15-19 of Peter’s restoration, how he finds himself with the risen Lord on the shores of Galilee with the opportunity to respond differently. With a tender heart, the Lord gently restores him through Peter’s affirmations of love, and after this process, he gives Peter a simple charge: “Follow me.” Despite his denials, Peter’s condition is not hopeless. His grief and bitter tears produced in him repentance, which drove him back into the loving arms of Christ. Judas’ grief was worldly. We see this in his response of returning to the chief priests and elders in an attempt for absolution rather than returning to Jesus. It could lead no where but to death. The contrast shows us this - that no matter how hopeless the circumstances may be, if we cling to Christ, we have hope. Peter didn’t know that the resurrection was coming, but he still repented of his sin and turned to Jesus. How much more can we know hope because we know how the story ends!

Friends, when you are made painfully aware of your sins and your failings, where are you driven? Are you driven into the loving and tender arms of the Savior, the one who is “gentle and lowly in heart”, whose yoke is easy, and whose burden is light? Or are you driven into the arms of the world, in an attempt to either undo what you have done or simply rationalize it away, slowly drifting further and further away from the only one who can restore you?

The fate of these two men pivots on the subject of the center of our passage today - their response to the atoning death of Christ.

Judas and Jesus

This brings us to the second contrast that we see in our passage today, a contrast between the death of Judas and the death of Jesus. Don’t worry, we haven’t missed anything in our reading of today’s passage, and I know we won’t actually get to the narrative of the crucifixion until verse 32, but remember that the pivot point of this passage is the decision of the chief priests and elders to put Jesus to death. Matthew sets up for us a contrast between the death that we deserved (Judas) and the death that Christ died on our behalf. He shows us what the consequences are of being apart from Christ in the death of Judas.

In Judas’ despair we see the consequence of unrepentant sin. Ultimately, despite our best efforts to undo whatever we have done by our own power, it will lead to death. And not only will it lead to death, it will lead to a cursed death. Deuteronomy 21.23 reminds us that a hanged man is cursed by God:

English Standard Version Chapter 21

22 “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Judas has certainly committed a crime punishable by death - he has borne false witness and has betrayed innocent blood. He has turned his back on the Lord of Life, the only possible thing that he can be is cursed! His death clearly shows us the startling consequence of being outside the mercy of God. If we are outside of God’s mercy, we are cursed, we are hopeless, we have nothing to look forward to but death.

It is a sobering picture of where we find ourselves if we persist in our sin and refuse to repent - outside of God’s mercy, hopeless and cursed. This is the consequence of despair unto death. It calls to mind the famous words of Ephesians 2.1-3:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But thankfully, there is hope:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Friends, I want us to meditate for a moment on the death of Christ. Here was God’s only Son, the one person in the world who had upheld the Law, the one person who had never sinned. And yet, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.21:

English Standard Version Chapter 5

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Our Lord also hung on a tree. He was cursed by God, but in that curse he took on our curse. He took our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. He was cursed for our sake. As the prophet Isaiah says, speaking of Jesus:

English Standard Version Chapter 53

4  Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

5  But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

We see here an important contrast in the deaths of Judas and Jesus. One shows us what we deserve because of our sin and rejection of God. The other shows us of the incredible mercy and grace that God has showered upon us through His Son. Jesus’ death and resurrection tell us that we need not despair unto death - there is forgiveness for even the most grievous of sins in the outstretched arms of our Savior. Had Judas returned to Jesus, it would not have spared Jesus the cross, but it would have spared Judas the noose! Our Lord went to the cross willingly on our behalf, knowing that this was the plan of the Father from before the foundation of the world. His blood covers a multitude of sins - no one is too far from His grace.

If you are here today and you are not a Christian, I urge you wholeheartedly to consider Jesus. No matter what you have done, no matter how far from God you feel, there is hope for redemption in his death and resurrection. He was cursed by God on our behalf. He bore our sins and our sorrows, he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, and as a result, we can have peace with God! There is no need for despair - there is always hope in Jesus!

Jesus and the Religious Establishment

There is one final contrast that I want us to discuss this morning, and that is the contrast between Jesus and the religious establishment. For this, let us return to the story of Judas, where he comes to the chief priests and elders to tell them that he has sinned. As I said before, they respond with some of the most chilling words in the Bible - “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” The callousness of their attitude towards Judas ought to evoke disgust within us immediately. It’s almost enough to look towards them incredulously and say “You had ONE job!” The job of the priests was to serve as the mediators between Yahweh and his people. According to Jewish law, if someone were to come to the priests and tell them that he had sinned, they were supposed to hear his confession and tell him what he needed to do in order to make atonement for his sin. What makes the actions of the priests even more scandalous is that Leviticus 5 spells out the specific steps that someone needs to take in order to atone for failing to testify truthfully! Dealing with Judas and helping him to repent and atone for his sin is something that is quite literally in the job description of the priests! But here they callously step aside from their responsibility and tell Judas to deal with it himself. They have revealed themselves as powerless to save. It is a startling example of how there is no real salvation under the Law - salvation can only come through the person of Christ. The Law (and those who are administrating it) can only condemn the sinner. They are powerless to bring about any sort of redemption!

So Judas leaves and he does take matters into his own hands, committing suicide because of his hopelessness. And after this we get to see an even stronger indictment of the chief priests and elders - they start to discuss what they should do with the 30 pieces of silver that Judas has returned to them by throwing it into the temple. They come to a remarkable conclusion - “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money”. They are so concerned with the minutiae of the Law that they have failed to consider the fact that they took these thirty pieces of silver out of the treasury for the explicit purpose of purchasing the betrayal of Jesus so that they might condemn him to death! They are the ones who have made this blood money! In this action we see the truthfulness of Jesus’ declarations of woe to the scribes and the Pharisees in Matthew 23.13-29. I know this is a long passage, but I want to read it in its entirety to show how utterly bankrupt and hypocritical the religious leaders of Jesus’ time had become:

English Standard Version Chapter 23

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ 19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. 22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

The religious leaders are supposed to be pastors. They are supposed to help mediate between God and the people. But what we see here is that they have utterly neglected their duty. Worse than that, they have rejected the Son of God himself! Matthew drives this point home at the end of this passage, where he quotes a composite of Zechariah 11.13 and Jeremiah 19. The quotation from Zechariah is the more pertinent of the two to our point this morning, but it is worth saying that these kinds of composite quotations were common at the time of the New Testament, and would often reference the more obscure passage to make sure that the connection between the two wasn’t missed. Matthew isn’t mistaken here in the source of his quotation - he is pulling together two different passages that speak to the same idea and he wants to make sure that we don’t misunderstand the less obvious of the two passages.

In Zechariah 11, Yahweh speaks to Zechariah and tells him to become a shepherd to Israel. Ultimately, the people reject him and his leadership, and he is paid his final wages - 30 pieces of silver. As Richard mentioned a few weeks ago, this was not a massive sum of money. It was a few months’ worth of wages, and was hardly a sum worthy of someone who was doing the work of shepherding the hard hearted people of God! In fact, some commentators equate the amount of money at stake here as the typical value of a slave! The payment of these wages and Zechariah throwing them back into the temple show the utter rejection of the people of God’s chosen shepherd - something that has clearly just repeated itself here in the condemnation of Jesus. The religious establishment has completely and utterly rejected their shepherd. They have continued a pattern that has been seen throughout the history of Israel - rejecting the leaders that Yahweh has chosen for them and seeking to follow after others, ultimately leading to their destruction and downfall.

So like the chief priests in the time of Zechariah, they have the pitiful price that they have valued the shepherd at returned to them. And what do they do with it? They use it to purchase the potter’s field, which will be used as a burial place for foreigners. I love the way that the NAC commentary puts it: Unclean money buys an unclean place for unclean people! But there is incredible gospel truth lurking in this narrative. The people of God have rejected his Messiah - they have valued him the same as they might value a slave. But the money used to betray him purchases a field that is used for the burial of foreigners - people who would otherwise have no claim on the Promised Land that Yahweh had given to his people. In this purchase, we see a foreshadowing of what the death and resurrection of Christ will actually do. It will provide a place of rest and a place of belonging for those who had no claim to the covenant, to those who were outside the people of God. The purchase of the field foreshadows for us how the death of Jesus brings those who would otherwise have no claim to Yahweh’s promises into his presence. Unlike the religious leaders who seek to “shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces”, the atoning work of Jesus opens the doors wide for those who would otherwise be unable to enter into Yahweh’s presence! His death literally tears the curtain that stood as a barrier between the people and the presence of Yahweh. In his death, there is forgiveness. In his death, there is mercy. In his death, there is life for those who were dead.

Friends, I hope that we can see what Matthew has placed the brief passage of Jesus being condemned by the chief priests and elders in the middle of these two narratives about Peter and Judas. The outcomes of those two stories truly do pivot on his atoning work on the cross. Because of the cross, there is hope for those who have denied him (as we all have!), if they would only turn in repentance and seek his face. And there is only hopelessness and death for those who refuse to recognize his lordship and repent of their sins.

We opened this morning with the story of Robert Robinson - as he continued to speak with the young woman, she reassured him that the streams of mercy had never ceased, and as he listened his heart was turned back toward God. Our sin can do two things to us - it can either cause us to abandon all hope of redemption, or it can drive us into the loving arms of our Savior, who has carried the curse that we deserved on the cross, and who has risen victorious. It can drive us to despair, or it can drive us to redemption. Where does it drive you?

Let’s close in prayer today with a prayer from “The Valley of Vision”.

Closing Prayer

Our Father,

Enlarge our hearts, warm our affections, open our lips, supply words that proclaim “Love lusters at Calvary”.

There grace removes our burdens and heaps them on they Son, made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for us.

There the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow;

There thy infinite attributes were magnified, and infinite atonement was made;

There infinite punishment was due, and infinite punishment was endured.

Christ was all anguish that we might be all joy, cast off that we might be brought in, trodden down as an enemy that we might be welcomed as a friend, surrendered to hell’s worst that we might attain heaven’s best, stripped that we might be clothed, wounded that we might be healed, athirst that we might drink, tormented that we might be comforted, made a shame that we might inherit glory, entered darkness that we might have eternal light.

Our Savior wept that all tears might be wiped from our eyes, groaned that we might have endless song, endured all pain that we might have unfading health, bore a thorny crown that we might have a glory-diadem, bowed his head that we might uplift ours, experienced reproach that we might receive welcome, closed his eyes in death that we might gaze on unclouded brightness, expired that we might for ever live.

O Father, who spared not thine only Son that though might spare us, all this transfer thy love designed and accomplished; help us to adore thee by lips and by life.

O that our every breath might be ecstatic praise, our every step buoyant with delight, as we see our enemies crushed, Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed, sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood, hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open. Go forth, O conquering God, and show us the cross, might to subdue, comfort, and save.

Amen.