Jesus said in John 12:32, “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.” John goes on to write that Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death he was going to die.

 

And here we are, gathered together under this cross; this ancient symbol of man’s inhumanity to man, but transformed by God into the instrument of our salvation.  We are gathered together under the blood of the Lamb, like those families in Egypt long ago, to remember, to watch, to listen, to wonder at a transaction being made on our behalf.

 

Although we are the beneficiaries of what is happening, we have nothing to bring, nothing to add, our job tonight is simply to trust in the promise God has made to us.  That God’s holy and righteous judgment will pass over all those who are under the blood. The old hymn has it right. “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Naked, come to thee for dress, helpless, look to thee for grace. Foul, I to thy fountain fly. Wash me, Savior or I die.” 

 

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are at center stage, fulfilling a plan set forth from the creation of the world. A plan by which God himself pays the penalty for our sins.  Not because we have done anything to earn or deserve it, but because we need it. Without it, we are without hope.

 

Chuck Swindoll writes that God would be no less holy or righteous if he abandoned us to suffer the consequences of our sin. He is absolutely right. God had no moral obligation to send his One and Only Son into the world to take our sin upon himself and give his life for us.

 

It was the Father’s love for us that send Jesus, it was Jesus’ love for us and for his Father that prompted him to leave the joy and security of his Father’s side, to be born into our flesh, to suffer and shed his life blood as the atoning sacrifice for our sin. This is a love not of this world.

 

The Bible says Jesus was made in everyway like us, except without sin. The Bible also says that he was tempted in everyway like us, except unlike Adam and Eve and the rest of human kind right down to your and me, he never took the bait.

 

It wasn’t easy.  Satan always showed up when he was most vulnerable. After 40 days fasting in the wilderness, starving for something to eat, Satan says, “Use your power to save your self.”  Your Father doesn’t know what he’s doing.  If he did, why would he let you suffer like this? It isn’t fair. He gave you the power, use it.  He wants to see you take some initiative on your own.”

 

Seemed reasonable enough! Why not trust in his power rather than waiting for his Father to provide? Two other trials followed each one tempting him to do his own will rather than the will of the one who sent him, to do it his way rather than God’s way. To take the short cut!

 

But the greatest temptation was still to come.  The Scriptures tell us that the devil left him to wait for a more opportune time.  A more vulnerable time. And here it is. Jesus and his disciples are in the Garden. He’s asked them to pray for him, instead they fall asleep.

 

The greatest battle in the history of our planet is being fought just a few feet away, and Jesus is fighting it alone, not for himself, but for us.  Blood drips like sweat from the brow of his head.

 

How can this one who knew no sin, allow himself to become sin and be forsaken by the One he loves the most – for the very people who over and over again have rejected him, killed his prophets, enjoyed the fruits of his mercy and then thumbed their noses at him and returned again and again to wallow in the most hideous kinds of depravity?  Do you know about this?

 

How can he exchange his holiness, for such wretchedness?  How could his father ask him to do this thing? And so the whispering temptations come.. “Did Your Father really say?  Is this really the only way?  Why would a loving Father ask such a thing of his One and Only Son?”

 

Yet, in the midst of this unbelievable trial he continues to cry out; “Father, not as I will, but as you will.”  What if we had answered like he did, when those trials came our way?  But we didn’t, did we? We decided God didn’t know what he was doing. We decided to do things our way. We traded the truth for a lie and what a mess we have made.

 

The struggle deepens. Judas and the soldiers arrive. A phony kiss, a slash of Peter’s sword, the gracious healing of a man’s ear, a midnight kangaroo court in the palace of the high priest, who is suppose to be the agent of God’s truth and justice, but in reality becomes Satan’s agent of cruelty and shameless lies.  “Are you sure Father? I’m to die for these?”  “Yes, my Son, for these.”

 

A second trial at the home of Caiaphas.  There the Sanhedrin, breaking every one of its own rules for justice, condemns him before they even see him. While at the same time, Peter, the strongest, the best, who bragged he would never deny Jesus even to the point of his own death, is outside swearing to a servant girl that he has never met the man.

 

As daylight breaks across the eastern sky, Jesus is dragged before the Roman governor. It’s obvious that the illegal beatings have already begun. “Why me”, Pilate thought.

 

When Pilate learns that Jesus is from Galilee, he sends this “King of the Jews” to King Herod, hoping to pass the buck. Herod and his soldiers mock and abuse Jesus until they tire of the sport and send him back to Pilate. It’s 7am. A crowd has gathered at Pilate’s judgment seat.

 

Each year at Passover, the Romans tried to placate the Jews by releasing a prisoner, so Pilate gives them a choice. The murderer Barabbas, or Jesus.  The crowd incited by the chief priests shouted for the release of the murderer – and Jesus, the righteous substitute takes his place.

 

Pilate, in a further attempt to avoid executing an innocent man, has Jesus scourged. The whole point of scourging was to torture a man as much as possible without killing him. He was further abused with every humiliation they could imagine. Still the crowd refuses to back off on their demand for his life. “May his blood be upon us and are children” they scream.

 

It was nine a.m. when they reached the place of the crucifixion. You know the story, crucified between two thieves. The chief priests and the crowd shouting insults and taunts.  What’s going on here?  Why is this happening? 

 

Why this torture?  The Passover lambs weren’t tortured. Their executioners were trained to kill with as little pain as possible. Yet these executioners are trained to produce as much pain as possible. What does this torture of Jesus have to do with our salvation?

 

Elie Wiesel, a Jewish teenager who survived the Holocaust, takes exception to the idea that the suffering of Jesus on the cross was greater than the brutality he witnessed in the Nazi death camps.  He witnessed torture and acts of brutality that were beyond comprehension. The same thing has happened again and again over the centuries. In our own life time in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, Russia, Namiba, and in homes in our own community.

 

We were all there under the cross. The abusers, the abused, the passive bystanders who refused to intervene.  We were all there under that cross. The prophet Jeremiah laments, “Is it nothing to all you who pass by?”  

It was just a few years ago when 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda while the world watched and did nothing.  The Nazi’s murdered millions before anybody stepped in to say “no”. 

 

Slavery, especially of children is on the increase in the world.  We continue to justify murder as a valid solution to the problems of life, although we give it nicer names. Many insist, if we could get rid of God, we could create heaven on earth, a new utopia. Yet, how many times have we tried and always ended in either anarchy or tyranny? “Are you sure, Father, my life for such as these?

 

How does the cross speak to these hideous things?  First, Jesus identifies himself with the abused, shamed, humiliated, the tortured, the exploited, the falsely accused. He refuses to pass by on the other side or to live in denial of these thing.

 

Second, he refused to retaliate in kind. At any point in his ordeal, Jesus could have said, “Enough”.  He could have used his power to escape.   But he humbled himself and became obedient even to death on the cross. Satan did everything in his power to get Jesus exalt himself and escape the cross. But Jesus stayed the course.

 

He committed himself to accomplishing his Father’s will, and because he stayed the course his blood shed on the cross becomes for us the only place of true security that causes judgment to pass over all those gathered beneath it.

 

Some of you here tonight know what it is to be physically, emotionally, sexually abused. Some of you have been tortured. I can’t explain to you why God allowed this to happen. I can tell you it was evil. We live in an evil world and the final Day of Judgment has not yet come. I can tell you that Jesus has been there and he has conquered this evil with the power of his love.

 

Some of you have participated in the torture or abuse of others. Some of you have stood by silently while others were abused or shamed.  Some of you have fallen to temptation. You have listened to that lying voice that has whispered. God doesn’t know what he’s doing. He isn’t on your side. He can’t be trusted. He doesn’t know what’s best for you. And you have tried it your own way only to find yourself enslaved and unable to free yourself.

 

Jesus looked down from the cross and prayed for us all, “Father forgive them they don’t know what they are doing.” 

 

I want to tell you by the power of the cross, the cycle of violence, addiction, and unbelief in your life can stop, right now, tonight. Jesus died on the cross to set you free. You can drop the chains you’ve been dragging at the foot of the cross, tonight.

 

You can nail your anger, your bitterness, your resentment, your wounds, your need to be in control to the cross. You can allow God to crucify your old sinful nature right along with Christ so that a new person can be raised to life.

 

This isn’t magic.  It is a mystery of grace available to anyone who will gather together under the blood of his cross and trust him alone to save.  

 

God made Jesus sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of Christ. Do you need it? Do you believe it?