apothanein kerdos
Apr 11th 2009, 12:52 AM
This is something I wrote concerning His death. It's part of a larger "project" I'm putting together and has yet to go through the editing process (so keep both of those in mind). Anyway, I feel compelled to post it here for you. Don't know if it will help you along your way or provide more questions (or both!), but here it is:
UPON THE CROSS, WE HAVE HOPE
THE TRAGIC BEAUTY OF THE CROSS
No other symbol in human history has been so controversial as that of the cross; nations have been conquered by it, peace treaties solidified by it, laws made against it, people burned because of it. In the American context some people wear a jewel encrusted cross around their necks without even knowing what the cross is. Others feel their civil rights have been violated if a cross is put up in view of the public. Even others feel it’s their duty to make sure the cross can be seen all across town.
One thing is consistently true about the cross – it is controversial, hated, loved, part of pop culture, but rarely, if ever, understood. So few people truly understand the deep meaning of the cross. If they knew, would they wear it around their necks as a decoration? If they knew what the cross meant, would they be so quick to use it as political fodder in pushing a conservative (or protecting a liberal) agenda? If we understood it fully, what it means, the hope that is on the cross, would we treat it so flippantly?
Jesus in the garden
Jesus Christ found Himself in the garden once again. This was not the Garden of Eden, yet here, on the verge of lifting the curse of the Fall, Christ found Himself in a garden. There was no serpent; there was no curse to be had. Humanity was not to be discovered by God hiding in shame, but instead, humanity would discover God in the flesh standing in the midst of the garden as a willing sacrifice. This time, Christ was in the garden because He was about to bring redemption.
Jesus knew what was coming. He had said as much to the disciples prior to arriving. He knew that He was about to face physical and spiritual torment, all for our sake. He was so distressed by this that when He prayed in the Garden He began to sweat blood (Luke 22:44). This is not hyperbolic literature; Jesus was in such a state of despair that He fell to the ground and began to pray, to ask God to remove the cup of wrath that was to come (Mark 14:32).
In His time of need, those closest to Him couldn’t even pay attention (Matthew 26:40). Here is Christ, crying out in a loud voice, sweating blood and His closest friends couldn’t pay Him heed. Truly Christ was alone in His sorrows and troubles.
As His disciples slept, a crowd slowly began to move toward Him. Since it was dark, the mob needed to identify who Jesus was. One of Jesus’ own, Judas, walked up to Christ and greeted Him with a kiss (Mark 14:33-35). The Son of Man, betrayed by a kiss! The mob moved in, with their swords and clubs, these guarders of the temple, to arrest Jesus.
At that moment, Peter unsheathed his sword and swung away, slicing off the ear of the high priest’s servant (John 18:10). Too often we chastise Peter for doing this action. But what would we have done? Here in the garden stands Jesus Christ before trained soldiers and Peter is willing to fight them all for Christ. How many of us would have run? None of us are worthy to condemn Peter for, though he lacked faith in that moment, he held more bravery than any of us can claim.
It is only Christ who can correct Peter in this instance. Jesus tells Peter to put His sword back and then heals the servant’s hear (Luke 22:51). What grace! In the original Garden Adam and Eve rebelled against God and brought about our curse. In His return to the garden, humanity once again rebels against God in the flesh and comes to arrest Him. Instead of cursing them and striking them down, He shows grace, He heals them. In their rebellion, He still heals them and willingly goes away with them while His disciples scatter and abandon Him.
God on trial
Jesus stands on trial before the Jewish council. The just man stands on trial before the unjust. He stands accused of blasphemy (Luke 22:71). According to the Pharisees, Jesus has blasphemed and broken rank with tradition. What is it He had done? He has made Himself equal to God (Mark 14:62-64).
Truly, if Jesus wasn’t God, then we should thank the Pharisees for they did the world a favor. They rid us of a mad man or a liar who deceived multitudes into thinking He was someone He was not. If Jesus was not God in the flesh, the second person of the Trinity, then even if we think the trial an overreaction we should still be grateful for some type of reaction. If Jesus isn’t God, then the trial is justified.
Jesus is God though and so the trial is a sham. He had made the claim and even said that He would sit at the right hand of God. The truth is what condemned Him. The just judged by the unjust.
Yet, in all of this, He never once defends Himself (Mark 14:61). He could have defended Himself, but He chooses not to. Why is this? Why does He purposefully shame Himself? Why does Jesus Christ our God remain silent against His unjust accusations? He does this so He can experience shame, shame that we deserve. He takes on the shame, He allows the false accusations, He offers up no defense so shame is brought upon Him, shame that we should suffer through. The shame Adam and Eve felt in the Garden, the shame they rightfully earned and the shame all of us earn, is the shame He brings upon Himself.
After a series of events and other kangaroo courts, He is taken before the Roman governor, Pilate. After an examination, Pilate declares that he finds no fault in Jesus (John 18:38). In light of this, he orders that Jesus be flogged even after finding no fault in Him. Pilate is famous for his saying, “What is truth?” and like a skeptic, like a postmodern, he does not know truth. Like a skeptic, he cannot get rid of Jesus, he cannot cast Him away, but he can certainly flog Him. He can attack Jesus and leave Him maimed, but he cannot bring himself to kill Jesus Christ.
Jesus is taken to be flogged, one of the most brutal events in human history that can never be recreated. Jesus Christ, the God of everything, through whom all things were created that are created, was being ripped apart by the crowning achievement of His creation. He has a crown of thorns jammed onto His head. He was whipped with a whip that had shards of iron and bone at the end; it is not uncommon to dig up bones of flogging victims and find marks of such floggings on their spines and ribs. Such a whipping would have ripped apart His flesh, dug into His bones. He did this because He loved us; He took the punishment we deserve.
After the flogging, Pilate asked the religious leadership if they were satisfied. They were not. They wanted Him dead. Pilate, after trying to persuade Jesus, caves in and orders Christ to be crucified (Matthew 27:24). He washes his hands of the blood and says he is not guilty, but no amount of water shall ever wash away his guilt. Not because he orders the death of Christ – Christ willingly laid His life down – but because he is a human being, a sinner.
The anti-Semite tries to point the finger at the Jews for condemning Jesus. The student of history tries to blame the Romans. Both of them are wrong. It is neither the fault of the Jews or the Romans. It is your fault. It is my fault. Every human being who has ever been conceived contributed to the death of Christ and condemned Him. Our sins cried out for His death. Our sins yelled out “Crucify Him!” Our sins tried to wash His blood off our hands. But the blood will not go away; we all stand guilty.
God is dead
Jesus is marched up the hill to Golgotha with His cross carried by another behind Him (John 19:17). It is here that He will face the effects of the Fall head on. It is here where Genesis 3:15 will begin to be fulfilled.
As He reached the top of the hill, His cross was raised and He was placed between two criminals, both of whom mocked Him (Matthew 27:44). The just mocked by the unjust. The criminals, who are actually guilty, even on the verge of their own deaths mock Christ. But one of them is wise. He sees the innocence of Christ. He begins to realize the tragedy that is occurring here and repents, recognizing that Christ is innocent (Luke 23:40-43).
We are those criminals! We should be on that cross instead of Christ. We are the ones who are actually guilty, who have committed trespasses. Yet here we are, mocking Him in our sin. Will you recognize His innocence? Or will you continue in insolence against Christ? We are the criminals, we are the villains, we are the guilty who have put Christ up on the cross.
What pain Christ would have suffered. After the cross slide into the posthole made for it, His shoulders would have been dislocated. This is because of the nails put in His wrists or hands (the placement, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t really matter). This would have forced Him to lift Himself up on His feet in order to breath; He had to do this with a nail jammed through both of His feet. Anytime Jesus wanted to take a breath, He would have to purposefully rip His feet in order to accomplish this.
The nails would have been anywhere from seven to nine inches long; there is no escaping this pain. He had already been flogged and was on splintered wood, so when He lifted Himself up to breath the splinters would have been stabbing into His already broken back. Jesus Christ, King of all creation, laid bare, naked, and in pain for all to see.
Some have contested that this physical pain, while bad, isn’t the worst pain one can experience. They ask, “How can Christ’s pain be of any significance?” I would agree that His physical pain, though horrendous, is not the worst way to die. But the cross isn’t just about the physical death of Jesus. We often forget the spiritual aspect of the cross.
As we saw in the last chapter, Jesus was in perfect union with the Father. But look at what He cries out before He dies. “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). This is such a pain none of us can ever feel! Here is Jesus Christ, who has had a close relationship with the Father since eternity’s past, forsaken by the One He loves. As Martin Luther declared of this event, “God forsaken by God, who can understand that?” It is truly a great mystery, but who would want to understand it? Who would want to understand the separation that Christ endured on the cross?
We don’t have to though, because He did it for us. Christ endured such a separation, one that we deserved. He did this because He had taken on all of our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5-6). He had taken on our sin and the Father could not look upon Him. Look upon the cross oh fallen man and see the Trinity divided! See the fellowship broken because of you! See the Man of sorrows, naked, bruised, ashamed, and forsaken on the cross. Look upon the cross on sinful man and realize that it should have been you!
Look upon the cross and see that Christ is suffering the wrath of God, a wrath intended for you (Isaiah 53:10). Look upon the cross and see what your sins have done. Here is Christ, God in the flesh, dying for you. Our sins have angered God, our sins have brought about His just and holy wrath, but here is Christ taking it all upon Himself.
Christ cries out, asking why He has been forsaken. The darkness has covered the mountain. The climax of our fallen state has been reached. Yet, we see the light of things to come. Christ reaches declares that it is finished (John 19:30); he then commits His spirit to the Father (Luke 23:46). Christ is reconciled again. He has completed His task, He has taken on the Fall, He has been forsaken by God, and He has been reconciled.
What did He accomplish?
Christ was taken and laid in the tomb – but what exactly had He accomplished? In His death, did He become a great revolutionary? Was He a martyr for some unspecified cause? What did Jesus accomplish, if He accomplished anything at all?
Upon the cross, we see accomplishment we see our hope. In His death, He ransomed us from the Devil and the Fall. He offered His life as a ransom for this reason (Mark 10:45). He ransomed us from the power of Satan and his minions. With His life, He ransomed us from this fallen world. No longer do we have to worry about being in rebellion against God. No longer do we have to worry about being overcome with evil. Christ has saved us from this out of His love for us.
On top of this, He was a substitute for our sins (1 Peter 3:18-22). The shame He felt, the pain He felt, the separation from God He endured; this was all meant for us. He took our sins and laid them upon Himself. He was our substitution. We deserve the punishment for our sins, but He willingly and lovingly took them upon Himself. He didn’t have to do this, He chose to.
Why death?
Why did Christ have to die? Why did an innocent man have to suffer on the cross? God is a God of justice and when His character and holiness are violated, He must act in justice against such violations. If He ever failed to do so, then He would cease to be good.
God is perfectly Holy and infinite in His goodness. He can never become “more good” or “more holy,” because there is nothing to add. He is not maxed out – with God, there isn’t a limit on how good or holy He is. He is both for an infinite measure. Thus, any violation against Him, no matter how petty, is infinitely evil. It violates His goodness, which is infinite, so the infraction is infinitely evil.
This is why Hell is eternal. This is no pleasant thought, but it is true. Hell is eternal because our rebellion deserves an eternal punishment; our rebellion is infinitely evil, so the punishment must be eternal.
But rejoice o sinner, for God has provided an escape! Christ died because, being eternal, He can fulfill the requirements for our sin! In His death He took on our sins and in His death He killed our sins. In one of the greatest mysteries of the Bible, Christ took our sins with Him to the grave, killing them and nullifying them, and doing so with authority because He is God.
It is replayed in our idea of the cinematic hero who will latch onto a great evil before casting himself into the abyss, to kill both the evil and himself. He latches onto the antagonist and, in a final act, kills himself, but also ensuring the death of the antagonist.
This is as close as fallen humans can come to understanding what occurred on the cross. Christ took our sins, brought them upon Himself, and when He died He destroyed those sins with His death. Such love, such mystery!
Yet, when we look upon the cross and wonder why this innocent man is suffering, we can know this; Christ is on that cross because He loves us. God loves us and He shows this to us by having Christ die for us (Romans 5:8). This is the ultimate demonstration of not only God’s love, but also Christ’s love (John 15:13). Christ is willing to die for us, to endure unknowable pain, to take our sins and cast them to the grave (Romans 5:8), all because He loves us.
Rejoice, oh broken child
Look upon the cross oh broken child. Realize that the curse has been paid for in the God-man Jesus Christ. Look upon the cross, those who are trodden down by sin and see your sin laid upon Immanuel. For the guilty, for the broken hearted, for the hurting, for the sinners, look upon the cross, where we find hope. Upon the cross, we have hope. We have hope of restoration with God. We have hope of forgiveness. The cross is what sinners dare not dream! Of a perfectly holy God coming down to dwell among humans and then to die for our mess. We dare not dream of such a thought.
For those who are hurting and broken, Christ took your pain on the cross and killed it. For those who have sinned and feel there is no forgiveness, Christ took your sin upon the cross and killed it. Our iniquities are no longer ours; they have been killed on the cross. If you should only confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, then you will receive the justification He offers.
