So
the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to
the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). There they
crucified him… John 19:17-18
I
admit that when Carl asked me to preach on this passage, I was dismayed. This
is one of the most familiar stories in the whole Bible – what is there to say
about it that all of you would not have already heard? The gospel writers are
very terse, really. John spends just 26 verses here describing the
pivotal event in the history of the world. We sing about the blood of Jesus. We
might wear a cross about our necks. It is all very familiar and well-worn. It
is easy to gloss over the reality of what was happening that day. The soldiers
took charge of Jesus, and they crucified him. Yes, I know it is what saved me,
but let’s just move on to the resurrection and happier parts of the story.
Jesus’
death has become too familiar. In history recently we were reading accounts of
the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror when thousands of people were
publicly executed by the guillotine. It became a spectacle, an entertainment,
for the crowd which came to watch. We read about the tricoteuses, the women who
would bring their knitting and socialize during the executions. It became so
commonplace that the spectators’ emotions were dulled, and they probably
thought little of what was actually happening.
Jesus’
death was much more horrific than an execution by guillotine. The Romans had
perfected the process to provide maximum pain and suffering before the victim
died. It was an “excruciating” death – that’s where that word comes from.
Sometimes I think we gloss over the crucifixion, not in fact because it is such
a familiar story but because “we don’t want to go there.” We don’t want to
think about what it was really like.
Of
course it is possible to go too far and become fixated on every gory detail,
but I think we need to some extent come to terms with what Jesus suffered. We
need to ask God to give us a small glimpse of what it was like that day, to let
the horror and raw pain and loss and injustice touch our hearts. I used to be amazed
when we would worship with simple village people in Bajhang and when they would
read about Jesus’ suffering and death they would begin to weep and sob. It
really meant something to them. When was the last time you wept on Good Friday?
Yes,
it was a sad day, the worst day. We cannot really imagine what it would have
been like to have been there, to witness the agony, the cruelty, the derision,
the humiliation, and the sense of hopelessness. But in any case it needs to be
more than just an objective appreciation of what Jesus suffered. We need
to be touched anew with why he suffered. He died for me. He died for
you.
I
asked John if we could sing “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” this morning
because there was one particular line from that song that ran through my head
while I was preparing this sermon: “It was my sin that held him there, until it
was accomplished.” It was my sin that held him there.
If we
were able to fully comprehend the implication of this, we would be completely
overwhelmed. “Woe is me, for I am undone” – as Isaiah put it. The holy,
spotless Lamb of God, the only person not deserving to die, is there on that
cross. And it’s because of me, all the evil things I have done, all the times
that I have insisted on going my own way instead of walking in God’s way. Jesus
was crucified for me. I know you have probably heard that a hundred times, but
it is something that we have to keep coming back to again and again. It is the thing that gives hope, proper humility, and a true conviction to turn from
sinful ways to follow him wholeheartedly.
So
the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the
place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). There they crucified
him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle. John 19:17-18
The
soldiers took charge of Jesus. This was the Roman Empire at work. The Jewish
leaders had drummed up a secular charge against Jesus, so that it would be the
Romans who put him to death. Perhaps they were afraid of how people would
react; perhaps they were afraid of getting into trouble with the authorities.
We don’t know for sure. Clearly they did still execute people for religious
crimes, as we see with the stoning of Stephen just a short time later. However,
they did not crucify people. This was the Roman punishment, designed to strike
fear in the hearts of everyone who saw it. It was a public event. We don’t know
for sure where Golgotha was, except that it was outside the city. There is no
indication that it was on top of a hill. It was probably along a main road into
the city, so that it would serve as an explicit warning and intimidation to the
people coming and going.
Jesus
was expected to carry his own cross, perhaps just the horizontal piece, called
a patibulum. But even this was too much for Jesus, who was weakened from his
flogging, and we know from the other gospels that Simon of Cyrene was made to
help him.
There
they crucified him. None of the gospel writers goes into the details of what
the soldiers did. Most scholars suppose that they nailed through his wrists
into the crossbar and hoisted it onto a stake, then nailed through his heels or
through the top of his feet into the stake, with his legs bent, so that he
would have to raise himself up to get a breath of air. The nails did not break
any bones, but they probably severed some major nerves, so this was
excruciating agony, fighting for every breath, his raw and bleeding back
grinding against the stake every time he tried to raise himself up. Everything
about the arrangement was designed to inflict suffering and ensure a slow,
painful death.
Did
you know that crucifixion still happens? I read on the news that just a couple
of weeks ago a man in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to die by crucifixion for armed
robbery – crucifixion for three days. I believe in the end he was executed by
firing squad, but several people each year are still being crucified in Saudi
Arabia. It’s hard to imagine that such cruelty can still be officially
sanctioned in our world today.
Jesus
was crucified with two others, criminals whose misdeeds warranted this most
severe of punishments. One on each side and Jesus in the middle. Even in his
death, Jesus is identified with sinners – in the middle of them, where he had
spent his entire ministry.
Pilate
had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH,
THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where
Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin
and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write
‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”
Pilate
answered, “What I have written, I have written.” John 19:19-22
Pilate
wanted everyone to be able to read this sign. He had it written in the common
languages of the area. He wanted to get back at the Jewish leaders for
pressuring him to condemn Jesus. He had been wavering during the trial, knowing
that Jesus was innocent. From Matthew we know that Pilate’s wife had sent him a
message to that effect, too. He probably recognized that there was something
special about Jesus. He had a glimpse of something more than just a common
criminal or imposter. But he missed his opportunity and gave in to the tumult
of the crowd. In the end he decided that Jesus was irrelevant, as many people
unfortunately do today. But he resented being pushed around by the Jewish
leaders. So with his sign he mocked them by making a gory spectacle of “their”
king.
When
the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four
shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was
seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. “Let’s not tear it,” they said
to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”This happened that the
scripture might be fulfilled that said, “They divided my clothes among them and
cast lots for my garment.” So this is what the soldiers did. John 19:23-24
It
was common practice for the soldiers to get the possessions of the condemned
person. Jesus didn’t really have anything besides his clothing. No one knows if
Jesus was naked on the cross. It was common practice and would add to the
humiliation. Perhaps he was allowed to keep on a loincloth. The reference to
the clothing is from Psalm 22, a passage with so many connections to the
crucifixion narrative: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – one of the
seven last words of Jesus; a reference to the mocking of onlookers; a mention
of bones being out of joint, which was likely the case as Jesus’ weight sagged
on his arms for hour after hour; a reference to his thirst, as we will see in a
moment; the piercing of his hands and feet; as well as the dividing of his
clothing. The psalm ends with an amazing verse, however, speaking of the Lord:
They
will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done
it! Psalm 22:31
The
psalm is not specific about what the Lord has done. But what a wonderful echo
of Jesus’ final words, “It is finished.” Salvation has been accomplished, the
ultimate act of righteousness. But we are jumping ahead of our text. The
suffering is not yet over. Next is one of the most heartrending parts of the
story.
Near
the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of
Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple
whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and
to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took
her into his home. John 19:25-27
Jesus’
mother was standing near the cross. Can you imagine what she was going through?
As a parent, I know there is nothing more painful for me than to see my child
suffer. And it’s one thing if he or she is really sick or injured – it’s even
more painful, if they are hurting because of some injustice or cruelty. Mary
was looking at both: the agony of Jesus’ torture and for what? He had done
nothing wrong; he was completely innocent. Her precious child, her baby, was
writhing in pain, and she could do absolutely nothing about it. I’m sure it was
one of those situations where she couldn’t stand to be there and she couldn’t
stand to not be there. Her heart was breaking – and that serves as a reminder
to us of what God the Father was going through at this time, too. Yes, he had
figuratively “hidden his face,” but his heart of love was breaking to know that
his precious son was not only suffering the worst death imaginable, but bearing
the sin of whole world in the process.
So
what happens? Jesus reaches out to his mother in love. He sees how alone and
vulnerable she is, even with her sister and the other women there. Her other
children are not standing with her. Perhaps they don’t believe in Jesus yet.
Perhaps Mary is not even able to live with them. The women had been traveling
around, helping to take care of Jesus. Now Jesus would be gone, and Mary at
least seems to have nowhere to go. Jesus asks John to take care of her – and
not just to provide for her, but to love her as his own mother (who was also
there at the cross, too, it seems). And Mary would think of John as her son.
I
find it interesting that the gospel writers make a point of naming several of
the women who came to be with Jesus as he died. Mark tells us that “many” other
women who had come with Jesus to Jerusalem were there. Where were the
disciples? Apart from John, at this juncture, they don’t seem to be around.
Perhaps they were afraid of also being arrested and didn’t dare to appear
publicly. So it was left to the women to stand with Jesus in his suffering and
death.
Later,
knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be
fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they
soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and
lifted it to Jesus’ lips. John
19:28-29
Jesus
was, no doubt, thirsty. He had been on the cross for somewhere between 3 and 6
hours. He had lost considerable blood. He was close to death, close to accomplishing
his purpose for coming to earth. His thirst is a reference to Psalm 22, like I
mentioned, and being given vinegar to drink is mentioned in Psalm 69. The wine
vinegar was evidently a drink of the common people. Someone soaked a sponge in
it and lifted it to Jesus’ lips on the stalk of a hyssop plant. Do you know why
John bothers to mention that it was a hyssop plant? This is a reference to the
ceremony at Passover where the blood of the lamb was sprinkled on the doorframe
of the house to “save” the people inside. The hyssop plant evidently has a nice
straight stalk, but also furry leaves that make it suitable for sprinkling
blood. I haven’t really talked about the parallels between the Passover story
and the death of Jesus. The symbolism is all over the place, starting of course
with the fact that Jesus was killed at the Passover time. As the sacrificial
Lamb of God, he was the fulfillment of that salvation story, passed down from
the time of Moses.
When
he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed
his head and gave up his spirit. John
19:30
Jesus
knew that his purpose had been accomplished. His entire life had led up to that
moment. Not only had he paid the price for the sin of the world, satisfying
God’s righteous judgment, he had also defeated Satan once and for all, in what
seemed to be the moment when evil had triumphed. As it says in Colossians 2:
He
forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness,
which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to
the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public
spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Col 2:14-15
Incidentally,
this is one of those places where the new version of the NIV is very different
from the old version (in your Bibles), where verse 14 says, “having cancelled
the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood
opposed to us.” One seems to refer to doing away with the law, the other with
cancelling our guilt. In any case, our sins are forgiven, the requirements of
the law are satisfied, and Satan’s power is destroyed.
Jesus
bowed his head and gave up his spirit. It was a sudden death, not the slow,
lingering death of a typical crucifixion, which could last for several days.
Jesus was weak, stressed, dehydrated. Some scientists have speculated that he
could have died of cardiac rupture – literally of a broken heart. We need to
remember that a large part of Jesus’ suffering was emotional and spiritual as
well as physical. He was “despised and rejected.” The Father had turned his
face away, as our song says. His closest friends had abandoned him. He was
suffering the worst injustice imaginable. And we can’t imagine what it felt
like to carry the sins of the world. “He himself bore our sins in his body on
the cross,” as it says in 1 Peter 2. Somehow he felt the guilt of every sin
that had ever or would ever be committed.
It is
natural for us as humans to hang on to life. It is never easy to die. Something
within us keeps fighting to live, to take one more breath. Jesus didn’t just
fade away. He gave up his spirit. Somehow, at the right time, he knew when to
die. And it was over.
Now
it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath.
Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during
the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken
down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had
been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to
Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead,
one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of
blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is
true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may
believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not
one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will
look on the one they have pierced.” John
19:31-37
John
wants to make it very clear that Jesus’ bones were not broken. It was common
practice to break the legs of a crucified person to hasten their death, because
then it made it impossible for them to lift themselves up to breathe. But since
Jesus was already dead, this was not necessary. However, it’s interesting that
sometimes you hear people in communion refer to “the body of Christ broken for
you.” This actually comes from the King James rendition of 1 Corinthians 11:24
which relied on a later manuscript that inserted the word broken. The
earliest Greek manuscripts of the gospels and 1 Corinthians say that Christ’s
body was given for us or simply for us. The reason this is
important and the reason John makes a big deal of it here is once again the
connection with the Passover lamb, which according to Exodus was to be prepared
and eaten without breaking any of its bones.
The
other reason the unbroken nature of Jesus body is important is because of what
is referred to as his body on earth now, namely the church. When Jesus was
praying for all believers, back in chapter 17, his first request was that they
would be one, just as he was one with his Father. His unbroken body on the
cross symbolizes the unity that Jesus desires among all believers. This unity
in the Holy Spirit ought to override any physical differences or minor
differences of opinion that we have and serve as a key aspect of our witness to
the world.
One
of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear. He could have done this from
below without breaking any bones, but penetrating the heart. The water may have
been serous fluid collected around the heart, followed by blood as the heart
itself was perforated. And as Carl mentioned, the flow of blood and water is
reminiscent of the drain from the temple down into the Kidron Valley, which
flowed with blood and water from the sacrifices there.
We
know from Hebrews 9 that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness
of sin, but we don’t really relate to animal sacrifice here in America. It’s a
much more familiar concept in Nepal, where huge numbers of animals are
sacrificed each year, mainly goats and water buffalos. Every Hindu family is
expected to sacrifice an animal during the main festival in the autumn called
Dashain. The importance of blood offerings is built into the culture, though
most people would say that the sacrifice is to appease the gods or spirits and
not directly related to the forgiveness of sins. One of my memories as a child
was one time that we were trekking through eastern Nepal just after the main
sacrifice day during Dashain and in a village where we were going to stay overnight
we came across an older woman who was weeping. She was saying over and over,
“My sins, my sins, what can I do about my sins?” It was so striking that after
all that blood being shed there was still no assurance of forgiveness – just
fear and remorse. My father was able to share with her about Jesus’ sacrifice
once and for all, the forgiveness of sin through his blood, and the assurance
by faith in him that we can be acceptable before God.
In
our western culture, it seems to me that we tend to focus on the
substitutionary nature of Jesus’ death. He died in our place, taking the
punishment that we deserved. In Nepal, people relate more easily to the idea of
his being a perfect sacrifice, redeeming us through his blood. There are lots
of things like that in the Bible that make more sense in Nepali culture than in
ours. As another example, part of the Dashain ritual that I recall seeing as a
child is to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificed animal on the top and sides of
the doorframe at the front of each house, to protect the house from evil
spirits. This is amazingly similar to the Passover ceremony.
Later,
Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a
disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s
permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus,
the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. John 19:38-39
All
the gospels mention Joseph of Arimathea, but only John mentions Nicodemus
accompanying him. The two have evidently been secret followers of Jesus,
despite being part of the Sanhedrin, the council that condemned Jesus to death.
I wonder what was going through their minds at this point. They are described
as “looking for the kingdom of God,” and they had been attracted to Jesus’
teaching, despite Nicodemus’ confusion about the need to be “born again.”
Perhaps in their hearts they had recognized him as the Messiah and the Son of
God, but they had not been willing to make a public confession. Did they now
feel guilty about not supporting Jesus more publicly or were they saying,
“Phew, I’m glad we didn’t risk our position and careers on something that
didn’t work out.” Perhaps they were just utterly bewildered, along with the
rest of his disciples.
In
any case, they do take the potentially risky step of asking Pilate for Jesus’
body. Pilate has to approve them taking it, to ensure that Jesus is actually
dead. There is certainly a measure of devotion here.
Nicodemus
brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’
body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was
in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was
crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one
had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the
tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. John
19:40-42
The
Jews did not practice embalming, so this was not intended to preserve the body,
but to perfume it. The myrrh harkens back to the gift of the wise men at Jesus’
birth, foreshadowing his death as the reason for his coming to earth.
Seventy-five pounds seems like a huge amount of spices, but it was not
unprecedented for an important person to be buried with such a large amount.
The fragrant spices and the clean linen would have been such a contrast to
bruised and bloody body of Jesus. Joseph and Nicodemus had to work quickly and
bury Jesus nearby, since the Sabbath was about to begin.
And
so we get to the end of this part of the story. Jesus’ disciples are still in
shock. The Jewish leaders are relieved, thinking that Jesus is finally out of
the way. Followers of Jesus who witnessed his suffering and death are grieving,
wondering how this could possibly have happened. Was Jesus really who he said
he was?
Aren’t
you glad that the story doesn’t end there? After the Worst Day comes the most
amazing miracle ever – the source of inexpressible joy and hope. Jesus died for
me and he was also raised for me. As it says in Romans 6:
We
were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just
as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may
live a new life. Romans 6:4
No comments:
Post a Comment