What do you think of when you see a cross? It really symbolizes different things for different people.
Often they symbolize places of healing and mercy – like the Red Cross. Places of peace and consolation – like cemeteries. That being said, for over 100 years, a burning cross in the South was the symbol of fear and hate. I’m sure for many people who are First Nations the cross symbolizes oppression. It certainly was abused – literally twisted by the Nazi’s during the Second World War.
I think for most people, the cross is seen as a symbol of beauty. It is probably the most common symbol that is found in jewelry in the Western world. … a thing of beauty … really – when you think of it – this is the strangest thing of all.
Spice Route or Missionary? Marco Polo gave a jewel cross to The Emperor of China, and told him it was the symbol of faith, the Emperor was shocked. For him, it was a form of execution.
The Jewish religion is symbolized by a six pointed star, Islam by a crescent moon, Buddhism … a statue in lotus position – obvious symbols of beauty and light. But the symbol for Christianity is an instrument of death.
The writers of the New Testament saw the cross as central to the mystery of Jesus. It’s the focal point.
One major purpose of Mark’s gospel was to make sure that readers and hearers understood that the most important thing about Jesus was neither the parables nor the miracles but obedient acceptance of the way of the cross.
Later the apostle Paul writes “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Christ and him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2 In his letters, he doesn’t mention much about Christ’s teaching or his miracles at all.
Most biographies devote less than ten percent of their focus to the subject’s death – including men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, who died violent and politically significant deaths. The gospels – which are the four biographies of Jesus – devote nearly a third of their length to chronicling the climatic last week of Jesus’ life.
So the gospel accounts, in an almost disturbing manner, slow down and give us detailed accounts of the events that led up to his death.
Why the effort? Why such focus and concentration? What makes the death of Jesus so different than the death of other religious leaders like Buddha or Mohammed, or other intellectuals like Socrates or Plato?
Did his death accomplish anything beyond religious martyrdom?
Quick review. Light speed. In Genesis, the book of origins, the Bible presents a world-view in which there are four primary relationships.
• Our relationship with our Creator –
“walk with me”
• Our relationship with creation –
“take care of my art”
• Our relationship one another –
“it’s not good for man to be alone”
• Our relationship with ourselves –
“be naked and feel no shame”
The Bible explains that – in the beginning – they were in harmony. But that something went painfully wrong. As has been the story ever since … that, today, these relationships are less than ideal. I don’t think anyone would agrue that. We live in a broken world.
But at the heart of his character, God is a relational God. And he loves his creation. And the rest of the scriptures are written as his attempt to restore those relationships.
He enters into a relationship with Abraham. He shows He is a saving God to Moses: he gives him the law. He voices His justice and his mercy through the prophets.
They are given the written word of the law. And the spoken word of the prophets. Nothing seems to stick. So God goes even further.
The events come to a climax. God doesn’t just give words, He becomes a living word. God not only attempts to show the way. In a sense, His life becomes the way.
The cross says something to this on a scale so cosmic and full of mystery that it is hard to grasp.
The cross represents the fact that something beautiful can come out of something scandalous. That something seemingly tragic can be the source of all healing. That a symbol of death, can be the ultimate symbol of mercy. +++
We have to picture Jesus at the height of his popularity. Thousands of people are following him to Jerusalem. They are ready to make him king and take up arms. Remember last week? They had a very different concept of the kingdom compared to what he was saying.
So they are saying, “Let’s go”. Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world…and if you follow me into the reign of God, you can expect to suffer.”
JN 6:66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
So, from this point on, Jesus’ popularity amongst the militants begins to decrease. Seizing the opportunity, the religious authorities arrest him on grounds of blasphemy because he’s claimed to be God. And, to the Romans, they accuse him of treason because he has claimed to be a king.
In a span of less than 24 hours, Jesus faces as many as six trials and interrogations… some Roman some Jewish. In the end, he is hauled off to a hill called Golgatha to be crucified.
The two noblest pillars of the ancient world – Roman law and Jewish religion – together support the necessity of putting Jesus to death.
The most advanced religion of the day judges him guilty, and the most advanced government carries out the sentence. It is religion – not irreligion – that accuses Jesus. And the law – not lawlessness – that carries out the execution. Both of these powers are simply “trying to keep the peace”.
Crucifixion was a punishment reserved for the lowest criminals, clearly implying that he belonged to this category of people. In the view of most Roman law makers, notorious criminals had to be crucified on the exact location of their crimes, so that “the sight may deter others from such crimes”: for Jesus it was outside the gates of Jerusalem beside a garbage dump.
At first sight, it seems like a highly unpromising starting point for anything. It hardly seemed “miraculous” at all. Pathetic and tragic seem to be the words.
How do we account for the significance of the cross?
The scriptures themselves convey that the cross will grate against our sensibilities. It will grate against both our religious notions of what is right and our sense of logic.
1CO 1:22-25 Jews demand miraculous signs …
“This is how I will save them. I will come Myself, in disguise. I’ll be born in a barn to an unmarried couple. I will live in obscurity for thirty years, then I’ll wander like a vagabond, slum around with a ragtag group of men who are rash one minute, timid the next. I will live in poverty. I will make enemies of the powerful and influential. I will go to Jerusalem, straight into their snare, and be beaten. I will be killed like a criminal.”
Yet, from the perspective of the cosmos, this death is the most surprising miracle of all. See, the miracle of the cross lay not in what happened, but what did not.
If the Bible is correct in communicating who Jesus was, then the very fact that the ritual of violence played itself out with no interference may be the most supernatural thing about it.
It is not a demonstration of power or logic but a demonstration of love.
The event of the cross brings about the possibility of atonement. Does anybody want to take a shot at what this word actually means? It seems so complicated but really it is just the fusion of three words smashed together. AT-ONE-MENT. Through atonement, there is a possibility that things that were once separated can be brought back together again.
Today, when we say we are going to “atone” for something, we are saying we are going to act in such a way as to try to make something right. The cross was God’s act of atonement.
19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness
Very important to understand here. And you don’t have to agree: this passage is saying that God’s fullness was dwelling in Jesus. If this is the case, then this event becomes a universal event: all things for all time *. But it was sooo small. Not from the perspective of the cosmos.
It is saying is that the cross Jesus declared peace universally…on you, everybody and everything.
• Our relationship with our Creator –
“walk with me”
• Our relationship with creation –
“take care of my art”
• Our relationship one another –
“it’s not good for man to be alone”
• Our relationship with ourselves –
“be naked and feel no shame”
All things. Not just God and me. But all things. We are going to be talking about this more in the weeks to come.
On the cross, Jesus re-enacted God’s forgiveness towards us. From the beginning, God has been loving and forgiving.
But the eternal love of God was shown most fully and graphically through His acceptance and forgiveness of the worst that human beings could hurl at him.
Mercy is more important than Justice.
Love is more important than Power.
It was a universal demonstration of love…
RO 5:6 You see, at just the right time, when we..
Anyone want to take a shot at a definition of the word ‘sin’?
Telemachus was a monk and a pig farmer in 5th Century Asia Minor. Small, wiry, and shy, he was a simple man, and simple minded. But God spoke to him and told him he was to go to Rome and bring an end to the popular bloodsport, the games of the gladiators. Telemachus did what he was told … he set out on foot. He had no plan, just a word from God.
He arrived in Rome and went to the Coliseum. Men were fighting. The crowd roared. Telemachus moved among the crowd, yelling at them to stop. The people, the few that heard him, laughed. They threw things at him.
So he jumped down onto the floor of the Coliseum, flailing, shouting, pleading. More jeered him, and threw things at him.
Then someone threw a stone. And another, and another. They threw stones until the monk’s small, shattered body slumped to the ground, and died.
I have read three historical accounts of this story. They differ in details, except at this point. When Telemachus died the crowd woke up to what they had done. Holy dread and silence fell on them. One man stood and walked out. Then two, three, ten, a hundred. A thousand. All. They walked out. No one ever came back.
Demonstrations of love – especially sacrificial demonstrations of love – can be very powerful.
The cross was a demonstration of identification. The Creator becomes like his creation. And endures the very worst. Dennis Ngien
When I was eight years old, I lost my father to..
We can’t shake our fist at heaven and say, “you don’t understand”. It’s like a voice from heaven quietly whispers, “yes, I do.”
Finally, it was a universal ransom…
On the last day of July 1941, the Auschwitz sirens announced the escape of one prisoner. As a reprisal, the consequence was that ten prisoners would die of a long, slow starvation, buried alive in a specially constructed, concrete bunker.
The German commandant walked between the ranks of prisoners and selected ten men arbitrarily.
As he pointed to one man, Francis Ga-jow-nic-zek, he cried out, “please, I have a wife and a family”. Hearing this, an unimpressive figure with sunken eyes and round wire glasses stepped forward and took off his cap.
“What do you want, Polish pig?” said the commandant. “I am a Catholic Priest; I want to die for that man. I am old…he has a wife and family ... I have no one,” said Father Maximillian Kol-be. “Okay” said the commandant.
That night, those ten men, including the priest, went to starve in that bunker. Normally -- when placed in such circumstances -- men tear each other apart. This group was different. While they had strength, lying naked on the floor, they prayed and sung hymns. The Father lived for two weeks and eventually was given a lethal injection to end his life.
Mark 10:45 …the Son of Man did not come to be
In a ransom situation, someone who is considered “valuable” is being held captive until a price is paid. The more valuable the person being held the greater the price demanded.
One of the ways that the scripture describes our attachment to sin is in the language of captivity. Some people don’t like that, but I think it’s actually pretty descriptive. We are stuck. One of the most astonishing things about the love of God for us is that God was prepared to pay so dearly to set us free.
2 Corinthians 5:21 reads, “God made him who
John Stott calls this the ‘self-substitution’ of God. It means that God took on whatever was broken in us, and made it his. So the consequences of our sins were laid on him that day. And, in this, he paid the ransom.
COL 2:13 He forgave us all our sins…he took it
The very thing that looked like a defeat turned into triumph.
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