Corinth Reformed Church
150 Sixteenth Avenue NW
Hickory, North Carolina 28601

Robert M. Thompson, Pastor
March 16, 2008
(more sermons)

A unique message

We stand today and next Sunday on the twin peaks of faith that distinguish Christianity from every other faith. The cross and the empty tomb make our faith unique. Our belief in a Creator, our system of moral values, our worship life, our proclamation that Jesus lived, preached, and performed miracles -- these aspects of faith, if not shared by non-Christians, at least are non-threatening.

But when we preach Christ risen from the dead, that, if true, makes him unique and our faith more than just one among many legitimate options. We will return to the resurrection next Sunday.

Today is not only Palm Sunday but Passion Sunday. Good Friday is five days away, but this is the Sunday we preach Christ crucified. And it seems to me that the cross in the last generation has become even more unpalatable to the modern mind than the resurrection. A skeptical world can at least acknowledge that there is a possibility of something happening beyond our understanding. And if we want to believe Jesus is risen, that's our right.

But the message that Jesus Christ was crucified, and that died for our sins to make possible the only way to God, is as perplexing and offensive now as it was in the first century, if not more so. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, "We preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:23). To see the wisdom and power of God in that impaled body, beaten and bleeding, struggling for breath, helpless before human injustice is inconceivable to the unbeliever.

But for the Christian, the cross is not only significant, it is essential. P. T. Forsyth, the English Congregationalist, said, "You do not understand Christ till you understand his cross." Emil Brunner, the Swiss theologian, wrote, "In Christianity faith in the Mediator is not something optional...if we are only united on the 'main point'....it is the 'main point'; it is not something alongside of the centre; it is the substance and kernel, not the husk." Stephen Neill, the Anglican scholar and bishop, wrote, "In the Christian theology of history, the death of Christ is the central point of history." John R. W. Stott, another Anglican scholar, included all these quotations in his book, The Cross of Christ, and then added his own: "The only authentic Jesus is the Jesus who died on the cross."

Today I invite you to journey with me deeper into the cross through the reflections of someone who was there the day Jesus died.

Crucifixion

Like the other three gospel writers, John is remarkably brief about the crucifixion itself. Verses 17-18 say, "Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him, and with him two others -- one on each side and Jesus in the middle."

"Here they crucified him." Why is there not more detail? One possible reason is that John's readers were familiar with crucifixion. The word itself was enough to send shudders down their spines.

It has been about eight years since I preached a series of sermons on Jesus' final twenty-four hours, broken into three-hour segments. In that sermon series I described in some detail what happened to the victims of crucifixion. I will not take time to repeat everything in that sermon (available from the church office by date -- April 9, 2000), but here is a summary of what I said.

In Jesus' case, he is first scourged -- beaten bloody across the shoulders, back, and legs, with a short leather whip that had balls of lead attached to the thongs. Only when the victim is near death does the beating stop. (Scourging by itself was so terrible that the Romans rarely combined it with crucifixion.)

At that point the cross beam, weighing about a hundred pounds, is placed on his shoulders and tied to his arms. A wooden placard is hung around his neck with the charges against him that would later be fastened above his head on the cross.

After the walk to the place of execution, the victim is stripped naked and placed on the ground where heavy, square wrought-iron nails are driven through his wrists (for support) into the wood. The arms are not stretched too wide, because some allowable movement will intensify the torture, as we will see.

The cross beam is now lifted up to the vertical post and attached, with the placard nailed above his head. The legs are moderately flexed and a nail is driven through the arches of both feet. At times a small wooden platform is also placed under the feet.

The allowable movement by arms and legs serves to extend the time of suffering. Eventually the crucified victim will die of asphyxiation, because the sagging body cannot allow the lungs to expand. But in the meantime, there is constant motion between resting on the legs to relieve their pain and pushing up to get a breath -- all the while rubbing the raw back against the rough wood. The whole process is designed to extend suffering over many hours, if not days -- to maximize pain, humiliation, and shame as a deterrent.

And John simply says, "and they crucified him." Again, his brevity may be because he need say no more to his readers. It was practiced for at least two hundred years before and two hundred years after Jesus -- although it was considered to be the "slaves punishment" and supposedly was never to be applied to a citizen.

But perhaps John's guarded summary of what happened to Jesus is because it's not the real point of the story. If you come away from John 19 feeling sorry for Jesus because of the physical pain he endured, perhaps you missed the point. John was there. He saw all that happen. But the details were not his primary concern.

The titulus

His primary concern was who was there on the cross, and why. And he finds the answer to those questions in an unlikely source -- the wooden placard above Jesus' head. It had probably been hung around Jesus' neck as he walked along the Via Dolorosa.

John was there. He stared at that sign (called the "titulus") a long time. "King of the Jews." Pilate ostensibly wrote it for legal reasons, but in his mind he probably intended it as sarcasm. What "king" would hang there through the heat of the day and cold of the night while gawkers stared at his exposed suffering?

He also clearly intended this message to reiterate to the Jewish leaders who was in charge of Palestine. And it wasn't them. Thus a rather insignificant detail (namely, that they wanted him to alter the wording of the sign to embarrass them less and Jesus more) brought a snub from Pilate. This was his crucifixion, his territory, his responsibility. And so, still today, we say that Jesus was "crucified under Pontius Pilate."

But John's purposes is neither to remind the world perpetually of Pilate's ignominious role in Jesus' death nor of an apparently minor squabble of the wording on the titulus. John saw in that sign another example of someone during Jesus' lifetime saying more than he knew. Jesus was and is "the King of the Jews."

In fact, by writing the sign in three languages -- Aramaic, the common language of the people, Latin, the legal language, and Greek, the language of commerce in the entire civilized world -- John wants us to realize that Jesus is King not just of the Jews but of the whole world. Jesus himself had said earlier, "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (John 12:32). John wants us to see in this moment that Jesus' death on the cross is the salvation of the whole world.

Scripture fulfilled

John also wants us to deepen our appreciation for the Holy Scriptures. So he notes the action of Roman guards in dividing the clothes they had torn off Jesus' body as booty. In the grand scheme of things, what to do with a few pieces of cloth is not terribly important. But the fact that this death makes a connection with Psalm 22 shows that this death fulfilled God's purpose long in advance.

Jesus' mother and John

The third vignette John points to is the one where he himself comes into the story. A group of women is standing near the cross, including Jesus' own mother. Can you imagine what that day was like for her? Can you possibly imagine? No one can.

Only a mother could begin to connect with this agony. Only a mother who has lost a child in death can identify in any small way. But how many mothers have actually watched their sons die such a cruel and unusual punishment without justification? And no mother but this one had been visited by an angel before his death proclaiming that her son would be the Son of God. Simeon had prophesied in the temple at Jesus' dedication that a sword would pierce her soul. That day it sunk deep.

But again, John's purpose is deeper than eliciting sympathy. He wants more from us than simply wanting to be there putting our arms around her for comfort. John remembers that the Savior commended Mary into his care that day. "Woman, behold your son. Behold your mother."

Here was Jesus honoring his mother, as he had taught others to do. Here was Jesus hating his mother, as he had taught others to do. He could have saved himself and in the process spared her all this pain -- but he could not do so and fulfill the will of God. Sparing her pain was not his life purpose. And so he chose the path of obedience, but he commended her to the care of his best friend.

What John wants us to see is that right up to the end Jesus was perfect. He was loving others and he was obeying his Father. That's critical for what was happening that day.

Finished

Still in control of his mental faculty, still aware of all that was happening around him, Jesus asks for something to soothe his parched lips and throat. He had earlier refused a liquid sedative that would dull his body and mind. Now he just needed to say one final word: tetelestai. In English, three words: "It is finished." Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Notice he gave it up; it wasn't taken from him. John sees him "in control" even at the point of death.

Have you ever been in the presence of someone who died? I have, several times. The most recent was yesterday. Pastor Bill had been with the Long family until the wee hours of the morning Saturday. Then everyone, including her husband, Jeff, went home for a few hours of rest.

I came about 8:30 Saturday morning, and at that point Jeff didn't know if his dear wife would continue breathing even for days. The hospital staff had said told Jeff they might move her out of ICU. Her pulse was still over 100 when I came. But within minutes, things changed, and I just started to sing "Amazing Grace." Just as I finished the final verse, "When we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun," she took her final, shallow breath and transitioned into eternity.

Every time I have been with someone who died, I have found it to be a profoundly holy moment. There is an awareness of the presence of God that is truly inexplicable. There is a sense of peace -- that the misery of this life is over and the comfort of the life to come has begun. It was that way for Jeff and me yesterday on either side of his wife's bed.

What was it like for Mary, John, and the other close followers of Jesus at the cross that day? I don't know. Was there that sense of peace? I suspect there was. Whenever you see someone suffering, you just want it to end. But this wasn't just "someone" -- and I suspect that given who he was there was a supernatural sense of inexplicable peace when he gave up his spirit.

But decades later while writing his gospel, John clearly wants our minds to transcend the human elements of suffering, sympathy, anger, blame, grief, comfort, and even resolution. He wants us to see this moment in its cosmic significance. He wants us to embrace the centrality of the cross for our salvation.

He wants us to see that this was the King of all the world, perfect to the end, voluntarily yielding his life in fulfillment of Scripture so that he could declare at the end, "It is finished." Everything has been done to satisfy every requirement to bear the consequences of our sins and make possible eternal life. Amen.

Copyright 2008 by Robert M. Thompson, Pastor. Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright 1978 by New York International Bible Society.