The question by which the whole world is judged is “What do
you think of Jesus dying on the cross?”
A person’s answer to that question determines whether they are a
Christian or not. Tonight I’d like to
consider some of the answers to the question, “What do you think of Jesus dying
on the cross?”
First there are those who think that it is all ridiculous—a
waste. Jesus was surrounded by such
people in the time of his suffering.
They all mocked him. They had a
very simple challenge whereby Jesus could have proven the validity of his
claims. They all said, “Just come down
from the cross. If you are really God’s
Son, then prove it. You did miracles
before, just do one more, and then we’ll believe you.” The fact that Jesus continued to be nailed to
the cross and writhing with the pain of it all only made them all the more
confident that Jesus was someone they need not take seriously.
These people are evil, and like the sons of thunder, it
seems good to me that fire should be called down upon them so that their
smirking grins would be wiped off their face.
But Jesus loved them. That is why
he didn’t do what they asked and come down from the cross. He stayed on the cross in order to bring about
their redemption. And he prayed for
them: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” God’s kindness is meant to lead us to
repentance. Some of these hard-hearted
people indeed are converted. The thief
on the cross next to Jesus is one of them.
He at first reviled Jesus together with everybody else. But then he saw Jesus’s kindness and prayed
that Jesus would remember him when Jesus came into his kingdom.
Not all people, though, are converted. Some, even though they hear that what Jesus
did was done for them, will spit on that grace from God just as the crowds spit
upon Jesus when he was making his way to Golgotha. The level of contempt for a person has to be
pretty high before they will go to such lengths as to spit on someone. But with brazen unbelief, this is what some
do.
But most unbelievers are not so brazen in their
unbelief. Most unbelievers are plagued
with a little bit of doubt. They wonder
whether Jesus just might be the Son of God.
The look and see how many Christians there are and they want to play it
safe by saying nothing either for Jesus or against him. They look on from afar to see how things will
turn out. Their hope for neutrality,
however, is impossible. Nobody’s
neutral. Jesus says, “Whoever is not
with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” The idea of spiritual neutrality—that we are
somehow separate from both the devil and Jesus and are independent—is a very
harmful idea. Everybody, without
exception, is under the power of either one or the other.
This neutrality and stand-offish-ness also overtakes us as
believers. We as Christians have very
definite notions about who Jesus is. We
affirm that he is the Son of God. But
Good Friday is uncomfortable. In our
heart of hearts I don’t think we are very different from St. Peter, who, when
Jesus told him about his upcoming suffering and death, said, “Far be it from
you Lord, that such things should happen to you.” Isn’t there a more cheerful way of being the
Son of God and the Messiah? Isn’t there
a less bloody and appalling way for us to go to heaven?
Without our knowing it or intending it, therefore, we
Christians create something of a cross-less Christianity for ourselves. There is no denial of what happened or even
the meaning of the cross, but we don’t want to look at it. Does not that line from the prayer you sang
to Jesus tonight strike you as odd, “Remind me of Thy passion when my last hour
draws night”? “O Jesus, remind me of
your suffering and death when I am struggling to breathe and death is at my
door.” It’s easy for even those who
consider themselves good Christians to secretly think, “No thank you! This whole situation is stressful enough as
it is. Why should something so jarring
be brought to mind at such a time? Can’t
you just say a nice psalm or something?”
What this shows is that we are not all that different from
that great unbelieving horde of people who look on Jesus from afar and are
afraid to commit one way or the other.
And it’s no surprise that we are quite like them because we are cut from
the very same cloth. A Christian’s
flesh, a Christian’s old Adam is no different whatsoever from the flesh, from
the old Adam of an unbeliever. To Adam
God said, “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” The cross is God’s wrath and death to the old
Adam. That is the reason why it is so
uncomfortable to all people who still have their sinful flesh—and that includes
everybody who is living.
Do you remember when you were a kid and you had done
something wrong and Dad found out about it?
The offense was bad enough that the punishment called for a licking and
that was the sentence imposed. I
remember that at least on one occasion I pleaded with my dad for there to be
some other way that could be found so that I wouldn’t get spanked. But my dad was a good dad and the sentence,
once it was given, was not going to be repealed. I was spanked because that is what the Law
required.
This is how it is with our old Adam too. Our old Adam says to our heavenly Father,
“Please, please, please let me go. I’ll
promise to be good. I’ll make it up
you. Isn’t there some way that I can
avoid the punishment of death?” Do you
remember how terrifying it was as a child when you got caught and punishment
was at your door? That is a very
disagreeable experience and so we did everything we could to avoid it. We got better at concealing our crimes. We got better at lying about stuff once we
got caught. The goal is to get away with
it. “You won’t get caught,” we tell
ourselves over and over again.
And we would like to keep telling ourselves that all the way
to the end. “You won’t get caught,” is a
very comforting word to our old Adam.
“Just put God and judgment out of mind.”
This is like spiritual morphine.
It deadens the pain and makes you sleepy.
And so the old Adam hates the cross of Christ because the
cross shows us that God means it when he says that sin will be punished
according to the sentence that was given to Adam. The greatest hope of the old Adam is the same
as that of the naughty child: that we won’t be judged. The old Adam’s devotion to this hope is
unbelievably strong. The first element
to this hope is that there is no such thing as judgment, that is to say, that
we won’t get caught. And if we do get
caught, then we’ll somehow get off the hook.
The cross of Christ very rudely says that that aint gonna happen.
I think it is very useful to know about the way that our old
Adam thinks and what our flesh prefers as far as how we’d like things to go so
that we know that it is not to be trusted.
It leads us astray into false hopes that will disappoint us in the
future, but right now appear to be quite viable ways of living and believing. Since we’d prefer it if we never got caught
in the first place, it makes the true hope of Jesus’s cross seem distasteful to
us and frightening. This false teacher that
resides even in our own heart must be silenced, so that we can listen to the
truth.
This brings us to the last way of answering the question,
“What do you think of Jesus dying on the cross?” The truth is that the cross is your life,
your hope’s foundation, your glory and salvation. It is not something to be tucked away in a
closet, perhaps pulled out once a year on Good Friday to look at. God has revealed to you his plans and his
heart. In order that you could be spared
the punishment that you deserve for your wickedness, he sent his dearest
treasure whom he perfectly loves—his eternally begotten Son—to fulfill the Law
on your behalf and to suffer in your place.
You are released from the Law and set free from its punishments, but not
in the way that our flesh would like that to happen. Our flesh would just like to ignore God’s Law
like Adam and Eve did in the Garden when the serpent told them that they
wouldn’t get caught, and that even if they did it wouldn’t be so bad. The devil is a liar. What came with sin was death and death under
God’s wrath is the stuff that nightmares are made of. To defeat death required a costly
sacrifice—one that surpasses our understanding.
With the cross of Christ we deal with things that can make
your heart race. It is certainly
different than the dreamy attitudes most people take towards death. But we should not be afraid of the cross of
Christ. It is God’s gift of salvation
for you and for me and for the whole world.
There isn’t a single sinner that Jesus did not atone for. The offer of salvation is for all people, but
it is an offer that is given according to the truth and it will not share the
stage with lies. The lies must be put
aside so that we do not trust in them (which we are ever so prone to do), but
trust in the truth of Jesus’s salvation by his atoning death.
So if you are asked what you think of Jesus dying on the
cross you should answer that that is your Savior whom you love and trust. His cross is the best thing that has ever
happened to us because we would be punished as we truly deserve without
him. That Jesus’s sacrifice is
sufficient and well pleasing to God is proven by Jesus’s resurrection from the
dead. Jesus rose from the dead and now so
will we because of him.
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