Randall Caselman
Bella Vista Church of Christ
March 24, 2002 AM
Making Sense Of The Cross
Reading - Mark 15.16-39
It was this same time of the year... Springtime in the Holy City... PASSOVER... The most important day of the year in Jerusalem. To the Jews... Passover was about two things: It was a day of remembrance... and of anticipation.
- Every household and every person will be remembering that it was on this day fifteen hundred years earlier that God had freed their forefathers from cruel Egyptian slavery.
- It was also a day of ANTICIPATION..
At this time in history, it was commonly believed that on a soon-to-come PASSOVER, God would deliver all of Israel through the promised Messiah. He would, like Moses, once again free them from their bondage and reestablish the glory days of David and Solomon. In fact... There was talk of such a one among them--all of Jerusalem had Jesus on their lips.
Go with me now, if you will, to a spot just outside the city of Jerusalem. To a hill called Calvary-Golgotha...
- A quiet place...
- A place of pain...
- A place of fear...
- A place of death...
- A place of tears.
We find several people already there...
- Those on the crosses...
- The soldiers... a Roman crucifixion squad overseen by a Centurion.
- Jewish officials from the Sanhedrin... and the office of the High Priest.
- Disciples of Jesus including John... Mary... and others.
- Then there are the passersby... the casual bystanders.
What is happening here?... What is going on? Three men have been...
- Accused...
- Tried...
- Sentenced...
- And crucified... Roman style on a cross. Two are guilty... One is not. On the center cross hangs Jesus of Nazareth... The sign says King of the Jews.
What we want to do is examine the cross and what is happening there using our five senses... Sight... Touch... Smell... Hearing... and Taste. We do this by spiritualizing the text. Placing a spiritual significance on what we see happening. Are you ready?
First using our sense of sight, we see the darkness. Luke tells us in his Gospel...
That from noon until three o'clock darkness came over the whole land... For the sun stopped shining. Luke 23.44-45. 44
Spiritually speaking... This darkness represents what happens because of sin in our life. You see... God is light... In Him there is no darkness... There is no sin.
- Sin separates us from God.
- Sin and God cannot coexist... They are mutually exclusive.
- Where sin is God cannot be.
So when God leaves, only darkness is left.
You see, sin throws us into utter and outer darkness. The Bible calls it HELL... Absolute darkness... Where there is...
- Misery...
- Fear...
- Pain...
- Torment...
- Hopelessness...
- And gnashing of teeth.
You see... Hell is nothing more than the absence of God. Without God, all we have to look forward to is the darkness of hell. Jesus knew this... and He cried... My God... My God why have you forsaken Me?
Well... What kind of human ugliness causes God to withdraw from us? What is sin?... We need a Bible definition. 1 John 3.4 says... Sin is a breaking of God's law... A transgression of God's will... Disobedience of His commandments.
James 4.17 tells us... Sin is our knowing to do right... knowing to do good, and not doing it.... He that knows to do right and does it not sins.
Romans 14.23 says... That which is not of faith is sin. Sin occurs when we violate our conscience, when we think and act in a way that is contrary to our convictions.
Well... From these Bible references, we easily see what sin is and that we are all are guilty. Paul agrees. In Romans 3 he writes... We are all under sin, Jews and Gentiles alike... There is none righteous, not even one... For all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. Then we read in Romans 6.22 that... The wages of sin is Death... Eternal darkness... Eternal separation from God.
We must know this morning that we are all sinners, and that we all stand in the darkness of that day at the cross.
Next, this morning... Our sense of touch tells us that... Jesus is dying.
- He has been scourged... Beaten within an inch of his life.
- Men have slapped him,
- Spit in his face.
- The soldiers made a crown of thorns and pushed it into his head and face.
- He has been nailed hands and feet to a wooden cross.
- And He hangs there until He suffocates from not being able to take in a breath.
In crucifixion the only way to breathe is to push on the nails in the feet and pull yourself up by the nails in your hands long enough to get one more breath. When you no longer have strength enough to accomplish this, you suffocate. That's why death is hastened by the breaking of legs.
QUESTION... Do you feel the pain of Jesus?... Do We? We should... Because where he died we should have died. We are guilty... He was not. The Pain... The darkness... The separation from God that He experienced, we should experience, because it was our sins that put him there.
However, Scripture tells us that He has borne our grief... carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement we should have received was given to him. By his PAIN... His bruises... His stripes... His scourging, we are healed. Church... Do we have any idea what Jesus did for us that day in His dying?... I fear not!!
Thirdly... At the cross we smell his sweat. We sense His HUMANITY!! Some... Even in the church today, try to explain away the humanity of Jesus. Several years ago, I preached a sermon entitled The Human Jesus... A man looked at the worship outline and said... You better not make Him too human. No? Folks... This was not some ghost. That was not a spirit hanging on the cross. Jesus was one of us.... He was human. He suffered all the pain and agony that any one of us would have suffered had we been there.
One of the earliest false doctrines to form in the early church was that of Gnosticism. Gnostics believed that Jesus was not human... That he was spirit only. They contended that Jesus never really died. No this was not a ghost, a spirit hanging on the cross... Jesus was one of us.... He was human.
- You could beat Him.... and like us, He could feel the pain.
- You could push a crown of thorns into His brow... and like us, He would bleed.
- You could spit in His face... and like us, it would make Him sick .
- You could mock and make fun of Him... and like us, His feelings would hurt.
- You could load Him up with a heavy cross... and like us, He would stumble under the load.
- You could drive nails in His hands and feet... and like us, He would moan.
- You could forsake Him... and like us, He would cry out... Why!
- You could crucify Him on and cross... and like us, He would die... and He did!
Jesus was human... He was God in the flesh... God with skin on.
You see... Scripture tell us that the human Jesus suffered... bled... died to take away our sins... So... This morning as we remember HIM...
- Smell His sweat!!...
- Feel His pain!!...
- And Then Praise God for His humanity.
This brings us to what we hear... Jesus' last statement was... It is finished. We will examine this more fully in the weeks to come... But this morning we note that... Jesus was not saying He was finished. He said... IT is finished.
Audience!!!... What was finished?
- The scheme of redemption,
- The plan of salvation,
- The mystery in the mind of God through the ages.
- My work on earth is completed.
- The price has been paid.
The Greek is tetelisti.
Tetelestai in classical Greek meant paid in full.
- It was the word written across bills of lading.
- It was stamped on notes when the debt had been paid.
The last thing we hear from the cross is... JESUS paid it all.
Then finally... We taste of blood... His blood. When Jesus instituted the memorial supper, He said, This is my blood of the New Testament... The new covenant... Taste It... Drink it... Partake you all of it. Scripture tells us that it is His blood shed on the cross what saves us. Remove blood from the cross and you have no sacrifice for sin. The Hebrews writer tells us... Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. You see church... Without the shedding of His blood... We can only look forward to...
- Utter and outer darkness...
- Hell...
- Eternal separation from God.
Note with me quickly what Jesus' blood has and continues to do for us. His blood justifies us and saves us. Justification is just-as-if-it never happened. Romans 5.9 says... Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from God's wrath through Jesus. Paul declares to the Corinthians that... The cross and His blood shed there is the power of God unto salvation.
You see... Where Jesus died, that Barabbas should have died. Barabbas was guilty... He should have hung on the center cross. Just as sure as Jesus took Barabbas' place... He also took our PLACE!! Where He died guiltless and sinless... Where we should die... Guilty as a sinner. But instead we are justified... Just-as-if-our-sins-had-never-happened.
His blood redeems and forgives us. Redemption literally means... To buy back. Jesus paid our debt with his blood... He paid the price for our sins... You know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ. As a lamb without spot or blemish. Ephesians 1.7 says... In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace. Revelation 1.5 reads... To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.
Praise God for the cross this morning!!... Amen?... Amen!!
He blood washes... cleanses us. Husbands... Love your wives as Christ loves the church, and gave himself for it, that he might (Listen now)... Sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. Then, 1 John 1.7 tells us His blood continually cleanses us... If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Christ continues to cleanse us from all our sins.
The blood of Jesus also purges our conscience. Listen to Hebrews 9.14 and Colossians 1.20 as they are read together... How much more shall the blood of Christ... Who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God to purge our conscience from dead works to serve a living God... And through Him to reconcile to Himself all things... Both in heaven and on earth... (HOW?)... By making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Folk... There is no earthly reason for a Christian to live with guilt... None. Jesus died on the cross so we wouldn't have to carry the burden of GUILT... So don't!! Forgiveness... Justification... Is just as if it never happened.... So... Let it go. God has forgiven us... Accept His grace gift!
One more... We must know today that his blood was shed for all. When Jesus instituted the Lord's supper... He said... This is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. The Hebrews writer says... He died... Offered his blood once for all... ONE TIME... FOR ALL MANKIND.
Church... Just as PASSOVER was filled with REMEMBRANCE & ANTICIPATION... We to come to the LORD'S SUPPER this morning... Also filled with REMEMBRANCE & ANTICIPATION... Remembering Jesus... the cross... His blood... Our salvation... and anticipating His coming
Will the men who have been selected to serve communion, please make their way to the front as we sing this communion song together... When I Survey The Cross.
The most important decision you and I will ever have to make... The most important question we ever have to answer is this one... What will you do with Jesus?
Will we let go of all our pride and submit to the cross of Christ... Accept Jesus as our Savior...
Lord... And King.
Will we allow His blood to... Wash our sins away.?.. Forgive.?.. and cleanse us?... Save our soul? This is possible by... faith... repentance... and baptism, immersion in water for the remission of your sins.
If... As a child of God, you have needs that you would like addressed by the church, this invitation is for you also.
Perhaps, most of all we just need to... examine the cross more often with an appreciation of what took place there on our behalf.
If you are subject to this invitation... Respond now as we stand and sing this song together.
