The Passion of The Christ
Murder at
Golgotha
Grace Emmanuel Church
Pastor Sam Chess
We
have spent many painful moments reviewing the death of Jesus Christ
and the evidence that what he experienced literally killed him, in
fact, probably ruptured his heart. In spite of what some say; he did,
in fact, die of massive heart failure, and was wrapped in 75 pounds of
embalming spices by none other than Joseph of Arimathea, and
Nicodemus. And was laid in a new tomb, a huge stone rolled in front of
the door, Rome’s seal put on the door and a contingent of guards put
outside the door. Yet strangely by late Sunday morning , the tomb is
empty…the guards are bewildered, officials are scrambling to spin the
story to their benefit, and Jesus is seen outside town by first a few,
and eventually many, many people.
What we
looked at last Sunday and Wednesday evening were some of the gorier
parts of the death of Jesus.. but those parts give clear evidence of
what really happened that day. I want to start out today by bringing
up some other aspects of the crucifixion that Jesus endured. As awful
as some parts of the crucifixion were, there may have been some
associated parts, that we tend to overlook, that were just as hard to
bear as the cat-o - nine tails tearing into his flesh. The Passion
movie captured, perhaps as well as any thing we have ever seen, what
is going on outside Jesus body… what it could only allude to, was what
was going on inside of Jesus.
I. The
Physical Pain of the Crucifixion
The Romans
had learned the art of crucifixion from the Persians. By Jesus time
they had already crucified some 30,000 people. The site of crosses was
a common view to the Jew. I find it interesting that when Titus sacked
Jerusalem in 70 AD., just four decades after Jesus death, Josephus
says; they crucified so many Jews that there was no wood left to make
crosses and no place to set them up. Undoubtedly some of those who
ended up on crosses in 70AD were some of the same people who put Jesus
on the cross in 29 AD. There’s probably a lesson there somewhere!
The nails
that fixed Jesus to the cross were driven not through the hands but
through the wrists. Nails in the hands would simply have ripped out
with the weight of Jesus body. They purposely put the nails through
the sensorimotor nerves and the Achilles tendons. The jarring blow of
dropping the cross into the hole was carefully preplanned.
(Psalms
22:14) I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. (NIV)
The
Roman’s point was to maximize the pain and prolong the horror without
allowing the victim to lapse into unconsciousness to relieve the
torture. The Emperor Tiberius believed that death was a escape, so
execution was no real punishment unless the victim endured as much
agony as possible before they died. They perfected the art of dragging
out the dying process; the nausea, fever, intense thirst, cramps,
incessant pain….
Truman
Davis MD- As the arms fatigue great waves of cramps sweep over the
muscles knotting them in deep, throbbing, relentless pain. With these
cramps came the inability to push himself upwards. Hanging by his arms
the pectoral and inter-costal muscles are paralyzed. Air can be drawn
into the lungs but cannot be exhaled. Jesus fights to raise himself to
get even one short breath. Spasmodically he is able to push himself
upwards to exhale and bring in new life-giving oxygen…A deep crushing
pain forms in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills up with water
and begins to compress the heart. It’s now almost over- the loss of
tissue fluid has reached a critical level. The compressed heart is
struggling to pump heavy thick oxygen-less blood into the tissues. The
tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of
air. The dehydrated tissues send a flood of stimuli to the brain…
Not joyous
stuff to talk about…is it? Had that been all there was to the
crucifixion it would have been too much….but that was just the
beginning:
II. The
Mental Pain of the Crucifixion
(Matthew
27:26-30) Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged,
and handed him over to be crucified. Then the governor's soldiers took
Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers
around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then
twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a
staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him.
"Hail, king of the Jews!" they said. They spit on him, and took the
staff and struck him on the head again and again. (NIV)
A. The
Mockery
They had
no idea who they were tormenting. He was just another in a long line
of religious zealots who made their job difficult. They were given
license to do anything they wanted to prisoners short of killing them.
They were used to making a game out of publicly humiliating the
victim. There was, however, something different in this case.
The crowd
was just as enthusiastic at mocking him as they were. The soldiers are
“playing to” the crowd.
The
scarlet robe, the crown of thorns, the reed as a fake scepter.
Jesus
remains silent; they bow, “Hail King of the Jews.” Then they beat him
on the head with the scepter, strike him with their hands, spit on him
as the
chief priests had done.
What was
Jesus response on the
outside:
(1 Peter
2:23) …when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He
suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges
righteously; (NKJV)
What was
Jesus response on the inside:
Pain,
heart- wrenching pain! Those he came to this earth to save…..
He loved
the Roman soldier beating his head with the scepter as much as he
loves you and me!
B. The
Shame
(Matthew
27:31) And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put
His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.
Victims of
crucifixion were required to wear a placard around their neck with the
crime they were dying for. It was part of the shame they had to
endure. They were led through the streets in public procession in
order to maximize the humiliation and shame.
(Hebrews
12:2) Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its
shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (NIV)
And Jesus
was forced to carry his own cross. All the while he was being beaten
and slapped the Roman soldiers were scorning him….worse yet the Jewish
people he was born to be the Messiah to were taunting him every step
of the way. He knew that the very thing they were taunting him about
was true…He was the King of the Jews! His scepter was not to be a reed
but a rod of iron! He knew the end of the story:
(Revelation 19:15) Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to
strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He
treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. (NIV)
Yet here
he is, by his own choice…for now… finally to weak to walk under his
own power: (Mark 15:22) They brought Jesus to the place called
Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). (NIV)….Calvary in Greek
from which we get the word cranium…a craggy knoll that had the
appearance of a human skull. All crucifixions took place in the most
heavily trafficked locations.
“He could
have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set him free. He
could have called 10,000 angels…but he died alone for you and me.”
(Psalms
69:19-21) You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my
enemies are before you. Scorn has broken my heart and has left me
helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters,
but I found none. They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my
thirst. (NIV)- A messianic prophesy of David
C. The
Humiliation
Finally he is
stripped naked and the Roman guards gamble for his bloody clothes and
hang on the cross. He is placed between two robbers who use their last
bit of strength to join in mocking him.
(Matthew
27:38-44) Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and
one on his left….. the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped
insults on him. (NIV)
The word
robbers is a strong term…very possibly these were accomplices of
Barrabas who was also a murderer. The cross on which Jesus was hung
was probably made to hang Barrabas.
Those walking
by used the opportunity to get in there last licks on Jesus before he
died.
(Matthew
27:39-40) Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their
heads and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and build
it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are
the Son of God!" (NIV)
Imagine…the
sin of the people mocking him was the very reason he was on the cross!
Then the strutting Chief Priests, Scribes and Elders get into the act:
(Matthew
27:41-43) In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law
and the elders mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't
save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the
cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue
him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" (NIV)
You’d think
someone among the revilers would have caught on that they were almost
exactly fulfilling David’s prophetic words from 1500 years earlier:
(Psalms
22:6-8) But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by
the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their
heads: "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him
deliver him, since he delights in him." (NIV)
Jesus didn’t
respond back, His only words were pleas with his Father to forgive
them and have mercy on them. He had come to the cross willingly,
knowingly, in submissive obedience to the Father’s will…
Why? Why? Why
did He endure so much?
Jace Wills
begins to speak:
Since Ash
Wednesday, we have been examining the evidence for Easter. As a matter
of fact, at one point we referred to this as CSI Jerusalem. To win his
case the prosecuting attorney must answer all the juror’s questions:
who, what, where, when, why and how. Sam has been making the case for
Easter - that Jesus was crucified dead and buried and rose from the
dead - and it’s an opened and closed case. The evidence is
irrefutable. Both the Biblical and secular sources confirm that Jesus
was: He was an actual man who lived, worked, and caused quite a
commotion in Palestine in the very beginning of the first millennium.
No serious scholar or unbiased juror can question that fact. There is
just too much mention of him in extra biblical sources.
Jesus not only was, but he was crucified. Again, there is just too
much evidence documenting this. No jury would ever come to that
conclusion.
Even before I committed my life to Christ, I was surprised that anyone
would be foolish enough to doubt either that Christ was or that Christ
was crucified. It wasn’t that I believed the Easter story, I just knew
better than to challenge it at these points. But I was even more
surprised to hear that some people questioned his actual death. There
is a theory which periodically makes the rounds, that Christ did not
actually die on the cross; he only feinted or swooned and later, in
the coolness of the tomb, he revived and simply walked away from the
heavily guarded and sealed tomb. Sam spent time last Sunday and on
Wednesday night looking at the considerable medical evidence which
precludes that possibility. Again, no jury could ever come to the
conclusion that Christ did not die on the cross.
And what’s the point? The fact of Christ’s death is not the reason for
Easter - it is the fact of Christ’s resurrection. We have looked at
the evidence for that as well. And, yes, there is also extra biblical
or secular evidence for that as well. But, before we look at the
resurrection and everything which it necessarily implies, we really
need to try to figure out why this all happened. We have rock solid
answers to the who, what, when, and where questions.
In a court of law you must be able to place the defendant at the scene
of the crime at the time it occurred; you must have credible
witnesses. Yet even with that, the prosecuting attorney must show that
the defendant had a motive. He must answer the jury’s question, "Why
would he do such a thing?" and again, "How did he do it?" In this case
the why and the how are tied together.
What happened
on Good Friday, 2003 years ago was a crime of passion. The motivation
was simple. It was the same old story. As a matter of fact this same
motivation could be seen since the very beginning of man’s history. It
was love, pure and simple, the story of Easter is a love story.
To understand the story, you have to understand something about who
you are and who God is. Actually, the very first thing you must
understand is that God exists, and he’s not you. My apologies to
Shirley Mac Lane and the new-agers. We are created in the image of
God, and we are created to be in relationship with Him, but we are not
God.
To understand what God did, that is, to understand Easter, you must
first understand who God is. No, this is not the beginning of a
multi-week sermon series, but it could be and probably should be.
We’re just going to look at three characteristics of God and see how
perfectly these three seemingly irreconcilable attributes come
together in the person of Christ at Easter.
God is holy
God is just
God is love.
To say that God is holy means not only that there is no sin in him,
but that He is in no way connected with sin. He is perfectly good.
However we define sin, God is completely other. Likewise, however we
define holiness, sin is the opposite.
As God is perfectly holy, so is He perfectly just. In God’s
jurisdiction sin will be punished and righteousness will be rewarded.
God is fair. If God were to make cowboy movies, the bad guys are
always caught, sentenced, and sent to prison, and the good guys always
get the reward and marry the heroine. Everyone will get what they
deserve. The penalty for every crime is always paid. No crime ever
goes unsolved or unpunished.
Finally, God is love. God is perfect love. He created us to be in
relationship with Him and to love Him in return. And by the way, we
are also to love one another in the same way that He loves us.
These three attributes of God are like a jig-saw puzzle with only
three pieces left but no human way to fit them together.
God is holy and has nothing to do with sin.
Yet God loves us and we are very much sinful.
God’s justice demands that sin be punished. The punishment is
separation from God.
Our sin separates us from God who none-the-less loves us and desires
us to have a relationship with Him.
God’s justice demands that sin be punished.
There is simply no human way to reconcile God’s holiness, justice and
love.
These are three pieces of a puzzle that we just can’t fit together.
God loves us and desires our love in return.
God is holy, and our sin separates us from God.
God’s justice demands our punishment, separation from God..
I didn’t say there was no way to reconcile them, there is no human way
but there is a divine-human way to reconcile.
These three pieces fit together perfectly at Easter. The cross of
Christ reconciles God’s justice, love, and holiness. Sin is punished;
love is demonstrated, and holiness is victorious.
Christ demonstrated God’s love for us by taking the punishment that we
rightly deserved. Our sin is removed and so no longer separates us
from God. God is still holy, but, because of Christ’s sacrifice we now
merit a relationship with Him.
Why did Christ go to the cross? Because He loved us and did for us
that which we could never do for ourselves. Do you remember the
exchanges that we just finished studying? At the cross of Christ, our
sin was exchanged for Christ’s righteousness.
One of the most important questions a prosecuting attorney must answer
is "Why?"
The single most important question about the movie, The Passion of the
Christ;
and the single most important question about Easter is "Why?"
Why did He do it? He didn’t have to go to Jerusalem at all. He didn’t
have to do it.
He chose to do it.
He knew what was going to happen; he told the disciples on at least
three different occasions what was going to happen.
Yet he went to Jerusalem; He went to the cross.
He not only endured the torture and suffering, He kept coming back. He
never quit. He took all of our sin and punishment upon Himself. Every
sin that will ever be committed was paid for by his sacrifice.
It not enough for you to know that. Knowing John 3:16, For God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. is not enough.
You must know that He did it for you.
Why did Jesus go to Jerusalem? Because He loved you.
Why did He suffer
If you’ve seen the movie, I want you to picture in your mind how
Christ was flogged and how He kept coming back. He did it for you.
Remember how
He struggled to carry the cross to Golgotha? He did it for you.
When the nail went through his flesh, It was for you. He was nailed to
the cross for you.
When He finally cried out, "It is finished.’ is when He finished
paying the price for your sins.
Why did Jesus
go to the cross? Because He loved you.
Who put Christ on the cross? I did, you did, we did..
Sam Chess
concludes:
Conclusion:
(1 John 4:10)
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his
Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (NIV)
(Romans 5:8)
… God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us. (NIV)
(Ephesians
1:7) In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace (NIV)
(John 3:16)
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (NIV)
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