Have you noticed that crosses are pretty much everywhere these days? Look in almost any direction and there’s a good chance you’ll see one. You can see crosses perched on the top of church steeples like ours, or carved into gravestones, or engraved in rings, or on decals in car windows, or bumper-stickers on car bumpers. People hang crosses on their living room walls or use them as part of the background on their computer screens. Crosses are especially popular as necklaces these days-suspended on chains that hang around people’s necks-including the necks of people you wouldn’t associate with crosses, like drug-abusing rock stars and spoiled, party-hopping actresses, whose free-sex lifestyles seem to conflict with this-the universal symbol of the Christian faith.
And, speaking of religious symbols, when you think about it-a cross is a very odd choice. Max Lucado writes,
“Isn’t it strange that a tool of torture would come to embody a movement of hope? The symbols of other faiths are more upbeat: the six-pointed star of David, the crescent moon of Islam, a lotus blossom for Buddhism. But for Christianity-an instrument of execution. (Think of it this way.) Would you wear a tiny electric chair around your neck? Would you suspend a gold-plated hangman’s noose on the wall (in your living room)? Would you print a picture of a firing squad or gas chamber on your business card?” Well, we do all of those things with the cross. Many Christians make the sign of the cross as they pray. Would you do that with another executioner’s tool? I mean, would you ever think of making the sign of a guillotine before prayer? You know, instead of the triangular touch on the forehead and shoulders, you could symbolize the dropping of the blade with a Karate chop on the palm! Doesn’t quite have the same feel does it?”
I bring all this up because as we focus on our third-stained glass window, we’re going to be talking about Jesus’ death-or more specifically his crucifixion-because as we all know, Jesus died on a cross much like the one suspended over our baptistery.
Before we go any further, let me continue with last week’s word picture and take a few moments to “knit together” the events that are pictured in our second and third stained-glass windows. Here’s a quick, compressed summary of those years. After His baptism and subsequent three and a half year public ministry, the Gospel record says that Jesus resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem. In that city He
- came face to face with his opponents (Matthew 21:15-23).
- raised His critic’s anger by chasing the money-changers out of the Temple (Matthew 21:12-13).
- revealed spiritual truth to the people (Matthew 21:28-25:46).
- spent quality time with His disciples (Matthew 26; John 14-16).
Later that week in Jerusalem,
- Judas betrayed Jesus (Matthew 26:47-49).
- As a result, Jesus was arrested (Matthew 26:57).
- and was put through several mock trials (Matthew 27).
- He was then condemned to die (Matthew 27:22-25).
This brings us to our text for this morning.
I’ll be reading from Mark 15:22-39.
22 – They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).
23 – Then they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He did not take it.
24 – And they crucified Him. Dividing up His clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.
25 – It was the third hour when they crucified Him.
26 – The written notice of the charge against him read: The King of the Jews.
27 – They crucified two robbers with Him, one on His right and one on His left.
28 – And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “He was counted with the lawless ones.”
29 – Those who passed by hurled insults at Him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You Who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days,
30 – come down from the cross and save Yourself!”
31 – In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked Him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but He can’t save Himself!
32 – Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with Him also heaped insults on Him.
33 – At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.
34 – And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” -which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
35 – When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, He’s calling Elijah.”
36 – One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave Him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take Him down,” he said.
37 – With a loud cry, Jesus breathed His last.
38 – The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
39 – And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard His cry and saw how He died, he said, “Surely this Man WAS the Son of God!”
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
One thing we need to understand in our study of Jesus’ crucifixion is that the manner of His death is central to the Gospel message we are commissioned to share. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of His Cross in the New Testament. In fact, about one fourth of the material in the four gospels relates to the cross and the final week leading up to it.
In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey puts it this way: “the Gospels are chronicles of Jesus’ final week with increasingly longer introductions.” And he’s right, because in these four biographies of Jesus’ life and work, everything leads up to-everything points to-everything aims at the cross. It’s almost as if these two rough wooden timbers were literally the “cross-hairs” of Jesus’ life.
And the rest of the New Testament continues this emphasis. For example, the earliest preaching in the book of Acts focuses almost completely on the cross. In 1st Corinthians 2:2 Paul told the believers in that church that as he came to them, he, “resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” He told the church at Galatia, “May I never boast except in the CROSS of our Lord Jesus Christ, ” (Galatians 6:14) In 1st Corinthians 1:22-24, Paul summarized the heart of the New Testament message by saying, “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who have been brought through the cross to new life in Christ, the cross is the power and wisdom of God.”
Since the cross is so central to our faith, I want us to spend our time together this morning answering three basic questions about it,
- First, how did Jesus’ death on a cross come about?
- And then second, that was His crucifixion like?
- Finally, why did He do it? Why did Jesus die in that horrible way?
Let’s get started.
(1) How did this the darkest day of human history happen? How did Jesus, the Christ, end up on a Roman cross?
Was the death of the Founder of the Christian faith just another incident in the long history of men and women who died for a worthwhile cause? Was Jesus just one more honorable man killed because He bravely went against the flow?
The answer to these questions is a resounding no! The Bible affirms the fact that Jesus’ crucifixion was not merely something done to Him; it was something done by Him. As Jesus Himself said in John 10:18, “No one takes My life from Me. I lay it down of My own accord.”
I love most of what John MacArthur writes and says, but I disagree with the title of His book that deals with Jesus’ crucifixion. He calls it The murder of Jesus. I know what MacArther is getting at, but his title is just not correct because Jesus was not a helpless murder victim. At any moment, He could have called legions of angels to His defense but He chose not to. In accordance with the Father’s will, He gave His life. It was not taken from Him. He allowed the soldiers to beat Him and lead Him through the streets and then nail Him to that wooden cross.
Jesus was not a defenseless victim of fate; He was not a pitiful martyr. No. Jesus’ death was a necessary part-in fact, it was at the core-of God’s foreordained plan. As Revelation 13:8 says, Jesus Christ was, “the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.”
Do you remember the Apostle Peter’s sermon on Pentecost Sunday? In Acts 2:22-23, he said that Jesus was, “nailed to the cross by the hands of godless men and put to death by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God,” In Matthew 20:18-20 Jesus pointedly told His disciples that what was about to happen was no mistake. Do you remember His words? He said, “Listen guys. We are going to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be turned over to the leading priests and the teachers of the law and they will say that He must die. They will give the Son of Man to the non-Jewish people to laugh at Him and beat Him with whips and crucify Him. But on the third day He will be raised to life again.”
So forget any suggestion that Jesus was trapped by the Jewish religious leaders of His day. Erase any theory that He made some sort of miscalculation that last week and as a result was caught and crucified. Ignore any speculation that the cross was the unforeseen consequence of a last-ditch effort to salvage a dying mission. No. The cross was His mission! Jesus died on purpose-no surprise-no hesitation-no faltering.
In fact, the way Jesus faced His death, the way He resolutely marched to Jerusalem, leaves no doubt. He had come to earth for that moment and He knew it.
We see this illustrated in the crucifixion scenes of Mel Gibson’s The Passion. Remember? In that powerful film once Jesus finally arrived at Golgotha, He willing crawled over to His cross. No one had to force him. No soldier had to drag Him there because Jesus’ death was no accident. It was God’s loving plan all along. That’s how the Son of Almighty God ended up on a Roman cross.
(2) This brings us to our second question-namely-what was His crucifixion like?
What kind of death was crucifixion?
Brian Harbour tells of the president of a stained-glass company from Memphis, Tennessee, who visited a church to take measurements for the windows which were to go on each side of the baptistery. The company president was discussing different options for the designs of the windows and asked the pastor, “Would you object if I put a subtle cross in each of the windows?” I know what this designer was suggesting, but to me somehow the words “subtle” and “cross” just don’t seem to go together, because there was nothing subtle about the cross on which Jesus died. What happened on the Jesus’ cross was not a pretty thing; it wasn’t something you could look at as being unobtrusive. No. His death on the cross was an ugly thing-a stark, shocking, horrific thing.
The truth is, crucifixion is the most brutal torture ever invented by mankind. In his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Joseph Klausner, the learned Jewish scholar, wrote, “Crucifixion is the most terrible and cruel death which man has ever devised for taking vengeance on his fellow man.” The Romans, who “perfected” this form of execution, shared his opinion. Cicero called crucifixion, “the most cruel and horrifying death.” Tacitus called it, “despicable.”
And to fully answer this second question as tactfully as possible, let me remind you what was done to Jesus on the cross. For the Romans, crucifixion usually involved a long series of events. First came a horrible scourging-something that was very accurately portrayed in Gibson’s film. The skin of the victim was literally laid open by numerous lashes with a leather whip that had stone or metal tied to the ends of each strip. It was so incredibly painful victims would often pass out. When they did the Romans often threw salt water on the wounds in order to revive him so they could continue to beat a conscious victim which helps you understand why they called scourging “halfway death.”
After being scourged, the victim was forced to carry his own cross to the place of the crucifixion. He was paraded through the streets with a tablet announcing the charge against Him hung around His neck or carried before Him while all the time being driven along like cattle by the soldier’s whips. When the gruesome procession finally arrived at the site of the crucifixion the prisoner was stripped of all, or nearly all of his clothing, which became the property of the soldiers. Then the cross was placed on the ground and the exhausted man was thrown backwards with his shoulders against the wood. The soldier would drive a heavy, square wrought-iron nail through one wrist of the victim and deep into the crossbeam. Quickly he would move to the other side and repeat the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, allowing some flex and movement so as to prolong the suffering. The left foot would then be pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail would be driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees flexed. The cross would then be lifted into place, but not too high. You see, part of the cruelty of crucifixion was to make it so that the criminal would experience the torment of dangling just about the ground. Plus, at that height, his tormenters could easily look him in the face.
As the man slowly sagged down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain would shoot along the fingers and up the arms and explode in the brain. As he pushed himself upward to avoid this torment, he would place the full weight on the nail through his feet causing him to feel the searing agony of the rough metal tearing through the nerves between the bones of his arches. As the arms would fatigue, cramps would sweep through the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps came the inability to push himself upward to breathe. Air could be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled, causing carbon dioxide to build up in his system. Hours and sometimes days of this limitless pain would follow: cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from his lacerated back as he moves up and down against the rough timber.
Then another agony would begin: a crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly filled with serum and began to compress the heart. It would now be almost over, the loss of tissue fluids would have reached a critical level, the compressed heart struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues, the tortured lungs making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. (Adapted from C. Truman Davis, M.D. in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8)
I know this is hard to hear, but I share it because it is very important that we not let the sentimentality that surrounds the birth of Jesus which is pictured in our first window dull our senses to the harsh realities about the death of Jesus that is pictured in the third. We need to understand how it was that Jesus died. This cross beam that we see in so many places was indeed an instrument of execution. It was the place where Jesus died a horrific death.
(3) This brings me to the last question. Why? Why did Jesus die like that?
I want to share four statements that I believe will help us answer this question.
A. First, Jesus died on a cruel cross to illustrate the results of sin.
This mode of execution showed how ugly, how horrific our sins really are.
More and more in our world these days we whitewash sin. We tend to cover up the consequences of immorality. Since our culture believes there is no difference between right and wrong, people think that “sin” if you want to call it that, is really no big deal. Drink yourself drunk, enjoy an extra-marital fling, embrace hedonism for a couple weeks and don’t worry about it because, after all, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!
Look at the plots of prime time Television; go to the most popular movies and you’ll have to admit that we tend to “clean up” sin. In essence we “nice-ify” it-but people, sin is not nice. It always hurts us. It always pays us back with pain and death. It’s hard for us to see this because we live in a fallen world, but the fact is sin is an ugly, filthy thing.
This week I read about a middle school in Oregon that faced a unique problem. A number of girls who began to use lipstick put it on in the bathroom. But after they put their lipstick on, they pressed their lips to the mirrors leaving dozens of little lip prints. I guess they thought this kind of vandalism was kind of cute, no big deal. Well, finally the principle decided something had to be done. So she called the girls to the bathroom and had the custodian meet them there. She explained to the girls that lip prints caused a major problem for the custodian, who had to spend a great deal of his time cleaning mirrors every day. To demonstrate how difficult this job was, she asked the custodian to clean one of the mirrors as the girls watched. The custodian took out a long-handled brush, dipped it into the toilet bowl, and used that watery brush to scrub the mirror “clean.” Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirrors.
Now, this is one creative principal, wouldn’t you agree? Great idea to give them an illustration of the consequences of their behavior! How wise it was for her to provide them with a first hand look at the results of their actions! If you want an illustration of the ugliness of sin, if you want to see how bad sin really is, all you need to is look at the cross. The reason Jesus’ death was so brutal is because on that dark day, He bore on His body the brutal consequences of the sins of all mankind.
People, none of our sins “stay in Vegas.” They all wound up on the cross. All the brutality, all lies, all the lust, all the selfishness, all the gossip, all the greed, all the pride, all the theft, all the murders, all the abuse, all of it was poured out on Him that day. That’s why Jesus didn’t come to earth in our day and age and die of lethal injection. He died an ugly death because our sin is an ugly thing.
Whenever you begin to think of sin as harmless, picture the cross in your mind. Rent The Passion and force yourself to watch it. Remember that it was our sin that put Jesus there. That is the shattering reality which the cross represents. The cross illustrates the final product of our sin.
B. But, a second reason Jesus died on the cross was to reveal the unlimited love of God.
St. Paul’s Cathedral in London has a life-sized marble statue of Jesus, writhing in anguish on the cross. The inscription on the statue declares: “This is how God loved the world.” And that inscription is right! The cross is the clearest revelation of God’s love. As Romans 5:8 says, “God commends His love toward us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Jesus died in the way He did, to show us the extent to which God’s love would go. If Jesus had refused the cross, if in the end He would have decided to come down from the cross, then there would have been a limit to the love of God, a point beyond which the love of God would not go. But He didn’t, so the cross reveals there is no limit. Jesus died for all of us, because God loves all of us. As Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Now, aren’t you glad He didn’t say, “For God so loved the rich, ” or “For God so loved the famous,” or “For God so loved the thin,” It doesn’t say that, does it! Nor does it say, “For God so loved the sober, or the successful, or the young, or the old, or the Republicans, or the democrats.” No, God’s love is wide enough for the whole world, which means you’re included in that love. I am too! And aren’t you glad!? As Lucado puts it,
“Universities exclude you if you aren’t smart enough. Businesses exclude you if you aren’t qualified enough, and sadly, some churches exclude you if you aren’t good enough, but not God. No, when asked to describe the width of His love, Jesus stretched one hand to the right and the other to the left, and had them nailed in that position so you would know He died loving you!”
In his book, Doubting, author Alister McGrath shared the following story to illustrate how the cross proves that God loves us. He writes:
“An aunt of mine died some time ago, having lived to be 80 or so. She had never married. During the course of clearing out her possessions, we came across a battered old photograph of a young man. It turned out my aunt had, fallen hopelessly in love as a young girl. It had ended tragically. She never loved anyone else and kept a photograph of the man she had loved for the remainder of her life. Why? Partly to remind herself that she had once been loved by someone. As she had grown old, she knew that she would have difficulty believing that, at one point in her life, she really had meant something to someone-that someone had once cared for her and regarded her as his everything. It could all have seemed a dream, an illusion, something she had invented in her old age to console her in her declining years-but the photograph proved otherwise. It reminded her that it had not been invented; she really loved someone once and was loved in return. The photograph was her sole link to a world in which she had been valued.”
For you and me the cross is like that photograph. We can look at the cross and be reassured that something that seems too good to be true-something that we might even be suspected of having invented-really did happen. God really does love us!
C. A third reason Jesus died on the cross was as payment for our sins.
You see, Jesus did not simply die. He died for us! As 1 Peter 2:24 says, “It was our sins which Jesus bore on the cross.”
E. V. Hill tells of an evangelist who preached at his church. The evangelist’s message was on the judgment of God. He said,
“All of you who drink, get on out of here! You’re lost!” Some of the people got up and left the sanctuary and milled about in the church foyer. Then he said, “All of you who smoke, get on out of here. You’re lost!” Half of the congregation got up and left. He continued, “All of you who gossip, get on out of here. You’re lost!” And some more left. Then he said, “All of you who think adulterous thoughts, get on out of here.” And the rest left. Finally, when the evangelist was through, E. V. Hill walked up to the pulpit and shouted at the top of his voice, “All you folks out there, come on back in. It was just for such as you that Jesus died.”
Well, E.V. had it right didn’t he! That dark day when the innocent, sinless, Son of God, hung on that cross, suspended between Heaven and earth, He took on Himself the sins of all mankind. He paid it all. He paid for our sins with His precious blood.
A few years ago I preached on Jesus’ final words, spoken from the Cross, and do you remember His last words? “It is finished!” As I told you back then, these three words are a translation of the Greek word, “tetelestai” and back then it was a banking term for “paid in full.” This Greek word was found on tax receipts in the ancient world to signify that they had been paid. So, when Jesus cried, “tetelestai” He was saying that the account for mankind was settled, the debt for man’s sin was wiped out, the payment for mans’ sin was made in full. And please note, Jesus did not cry, “I am finished.” but rather, “It is finished!” This was not a cry of failure but a cry of victory, a cry of completion! With His precious blood, Jesus paid it all.
If you’ve seen the film Amazing Grace then you’ve been introduced to John Newton, the former slave trader who became a Christian and worked with William Wilberforce to end the slave trade in Great Britain in 1833. He’s also the guy who was made famous for writing the hymn, “Amazing Grace.” Before He met Jesus, Newton was known as the “Great Blasphemer.” He had a reputation for profanity, coarseness, and wild living. Here are the words to a poem he wrote after He responded to God’s amazing grace, a poem that reflects his understanding of why Jesus laid down His life. It’s written from the perspective of the soldier who stood at the foot of the cross but we can all relate. Newton writes:
In evil long I took delight, Unawed by shame or fear,
Till a new object struck my sight, And stopp’d my wild career.
I saw One hanging on a Tree In agonies and blood,
Who fix’d His languid eyes on me. As near His Cross I stood.
Sure never till my latest breath, Can I forget that look:
It seem’d to charge me with His death, Though not a word He spoke:
My conscience felt and own’d the guilt, And plunged me in despair:
I saw my sins His blood had spilt, And help’d to nail Him there.
A second look He gave, which said, “I freely all forgive;
This blood is for thy ransom paid; I die that thou may’st live.”
Thus, while His death my sin displays In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of grace, It seals my pardon too.
Newton’s words are profound because on the cross, the price for our sins was paid. His death did indeed seal our pardon. It was finished! And because it was, as Anne Graham Lotz puts it,
“We don’t have to do more good works than bad works to get into Heaven. We don’t have to count prayer beads. We don’t have to climb the stairs to some statue on our knees. We don’t have to be religious.”
We don’t have to earn our way to Heaven because on the cross Jesus paid it all.
D. A final answer to the why of the cross is this. Jesus died there as an invitation.
He hung on that tree on the top of a hill called Golgotha an invitation to all mankind to return to God. With the cross, God was saying, “Come now, let us reason together! Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18) In John 3:14-15 and Revelation 3:20 Jesus said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life, Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in.”
Gypsy Smith, an outstanding evangelist from another age, once expressed this truth in the following words. He said, “I am not afraid of the cross. I know that men used to come there to die, but since Jesus died they come there to live.”
He’s right! Two thousand years ago the perfect Son of God died a painful death on a shameful cross for sinful mankind. And when He cried, “It is finished!” He was announcing a new highway that leads into the presence of God. He invites you to enter that way today. Let us pray.
Closing
Abba Father,
I ask that in these moments You would speak to those present who have never responded to the Cross of Christ. Once again, I ask You to use that Cross as an invitation, an invitation for them to experience Your life-changing forgiveness and love. And Father, speak to Christians today as well. Convict us of our need to share the Gospel with people. Help us not to neglect to share so great a salvation.
I ask all this in Jesus’ name.
Amen
As we stand and sing, I invite you to share any decision you have made, to profess faith in Jesus Christ, or to join our church family. Won’t you come as God leads?